Contact center software solutions and telemarketing database are the backbone of call center operations and are crucial to sales and business success. Whether it’s about increasing the outbound call rates, attracting prospects with target US phone lists, analyzing metrics or performance measurement; an ideal contact center solution does it all.  Every contact center requires significant improvements, whether it’s on the technological end or people’s front. Analyzing past results and trends, you can determine what worked and what didn’t for the call center operations. Removing the guesswork, the blog post discusses a few contact center trends that will help to supercharge sales and productivity in 2017 and beyond.

1. “Cloud will take over contact center operations.”

Cloud contact center software solutions are supposed to become the first platform of choice in 2016, especially for small business owners. Recent surveys suggest that around 18 percent of call centers transitioned to a cloud-based solution in 2015, and the trend will gain traction in 2016 as well. More than half of the top Global 1000 companies will be storing sensitive data and customer information in the cloud, saying goodbye to complex and bulky contact center infrastructure by the end of 2016. The change to the virtual contact center is mainly attributed to significant cost savings, speed of deployment, flexibility, scalability, maintenance and improved security.

2. “Browser based contact center software is the next big thing.”

Business owners are leveraging the hidden potential of remote workforce to save in-house costs, and browser-based contact center software solutions have made it possible. Browser based call center solutions are scalable, flexible and easily accessible from remote corners of the world; and only requires a computing device and an internet connection. By utilizing the power of remote software and US phone lists, any business can attract leads in countries such as USA and Canada, or any other part of the globe for that matter. They certainly help a small business to enhance responsiveness of their customer service, while keeping installation and maintenance costs to a minimum. Browser-based contact center solutions, therefore, continue to emerge as a lucrative option for small businesses, who look forward to achieving a high-degree of business efficiency at low price points.

3. “Self-help channels to move up the call center game.”

Quick resolution to the customer concerns is the key to consistent sales and satisfied customers. Customers never appreciate the idea of long holding times in call queues and rather prefer self-service channels to get an answer to their questions. Recent surveys also suggest that by 2020, customers will manage 85 percent of any business relationship with no human interaction at all. This indicates that IVR and callbacks will reign supreme in the future. So, small businesses need to invest in contact center software solutions with inbuilt features such as IVR facility and an option to place a call back anytime during the hold period.

4. “Social media will be the new customer interaction tool.”

Say goodbye to the days when social media was limited to posting photographs of beach holidays. Customers expect a business presence on social media and share their experiences on a product or service through online forums. Though pitching new customers through US phone lists still remain a viable option for businesses, social media is expected to open new avenues of customer interaction. Recent reports from NewVoice suggest that 59 percent people in the age group of 25-34 share poor customer experiences through social media. For taking a note and address the concerns, a business needs to deploy contact center solutions that can be integrated with social media and multiple communication channels.

5. “Data metrics will govern customer experience.”

Sales numbers are now being driven through data metrics, and not through intuition and guesswork. While making changes on the technical front in a call center, it is equally important to measure the efficiency of customer service. Recent surveys by Forrester suggest that only 31 percent of businesses measured the customer service in 2015. On the flipside, the trend is expected to change in 2016 with businesses laying more focus on their customer interactions to gain new customers and retain existing ones. So, call centers will be able to identify the lags in customer service and address the issues by measuring the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in real time.

Related: Consumer and Business Phone List for Marketing in Canada

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