Many customers decide whether to transact with a company based on their first telephone call experience. For this reason, initial phone interaction is crucial for every business. A poor call center is hitting many businesses hard which create survival risk for the majority of them. Even worse, if a company has agents who are unclear or who cannot be understood with ease, then calls can be considered over even before they are initiated (Shauna, 2014). It is also common for organizations to experience a high volume of calls, especially during peak seasons. Inability to handle the calls inefficiently may lead to customers feeling that their time is being wasted. Putting in place measures to address these challenges is a dream for every budding organization.
The proposed solution to the underlying problem is having in place an automated call center with the ability to handle a large volume of calls. Whether customers are experiencing technical challenges, want answers to critical questions, or are seeking any other form of assistance, an automated call center software addresses each of these concerns. It is an application software essentially embedded in the support ticketing system, and which allows the customer service team to offer customized phone support to customers (Shauna, 2014). The application works in a multichannel context, providing call agents with seamless support across voice, text, email, and social media. Besides helping the service team to attend to phone calls faster, it also improves operations by providing better customer interactions across channels.
Also peculiar about an automated call center application is the ability to maintain track of calls through call recording which allows for real-time monitoring. It also allows the organization to assess how well the phone calls fit within multichannel context. A key advantage of such an application is the fact that it is easy to install and use. Besides giving the management easy visibility into the operations of the organization, an automated call center software does not require the hiring of additional customer service personnel to handle a large volume of calls. It increases efficiency and improves customer satisfaction in the long run (Golriz, 2017). The software has a massive commercial opportunity, especially among growing small and large enterprises. Since growth comes with a large customer base, having in place an automated call center software is not only necessary but also important. It is a well-known fact that the inability to assist customers exactly the way they want is an unmitigated disaster in the 21st century. SMEs can reduce the risk of losing customers by acquiring an automated call center application.
Little has been documented about automated call center software. This means that the application has the opportunity to transform the way in which small, medium and large enterprises are run. In an attempt to collect the views of potential customers, five (5) proprietors of SMEs were interviewed. The mode of interview was face-to-face interaction with the proprietors. While each of them expressed a different view about the software, all indicated their willingness to acquire the application. In the course of the interview, the majority of the interviewees accepted that handling a large volume of calls and maintaining phone etiquette at the same time was a great challenge. At the end of the interviews, it was clear that an automated call center application would be a revolutionary invention that would transform the manner in which customer calls are handled.
There is a common misconception within the software industry that patenting is simply not worth. However, not all application software is unqualified for patenting. According to International Intellectual Property Rights, organizations need to think critically about what to protect. It is also a fact that patent laws differ for various jurisdictions. It, therefore, means that it will be critical for owning organization to ensure that legal experts who are conversant with the patent legislation at local, national, and international levels have identified a potential patent in the automated call center software. It is also prudent for the owning organization to partner with IT experts to understand IP protection laws as well as IP trends analysis which is crucial in identifying what to patent in a software.
References
Golriz, G. (29 August 2017). 5 ways to find customer pain points. Retrieved from https://www.vocalcom.com/en/blog/customer-service/5-ways-to-find-customer-pain-points/
Shauna, G. (May 21 2014). 20 ways poor call center phone etiquette can ruin small businesses. Retrieved from https://www.talkdesk.com/blog/20-ways-poor-call-center-phone-etiquette-can-ruin-small-businesses/
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