Due to COVID regulations and virtual call center software innovations, virtual customer service teams have grown in popularity.
With cloud-based virtual call center solutions, remote agents can be more productive, and business owners can manage their call virtual center operations with ease.
But with several virtual call center tools out there, which one is the best tool for you?
In this article, we’ll cover everything you need to know about virtual call center software, including the seven best tools you can use today. We’ll also discuss six key features to look out for and how you can benefit from virtual call center software.
This article contains:
(Click on the links below to jump to a specific section)
- What is Virtual Call Center Software?
- The Top 7 Virtual Call Center Software
- 6 Key Features to Look For in Virtual Call Center Software
- 3 Major Benefits of Virtual Call Center Software
Let’s get started.
What is virtual call center software?
Virtual call centers (or remote call centers) have customer support agents who aren’t necessarily located in one city or even the same country. Instead, they could be spread across the globe and work from home.
But to manage remote operations properly, you’ll need virtual call center software. These tools help you streamline activities, automate specific processes, and boost your team’s efficiency.
You can use virtual call center software for:
- Call recording: sometimes, calls need to be recorded for legal reasons, but listening to recorded calls can also help new agents improve.
- Call monitoring: a process where a manager listens in on an agent’s calls to speed up training and improve customer experience.
- Automatic call distribution (ACD): a system that receives incoming calls and routes them to an available virtual agent.
- Interactive voice response (IVR): technology that lets callers interact with an automated system first before being routed to an agent.
- Inbound call management: calls from customers to a call center about issues, complaints, and suggestions.
- Outbound call management: calls from a call center to potential customers regarding sales.
These features help managers improve their workforce management, and they can help a remote team improve customer satisfaction, speed up response times, and improve sales.
Top 7 virtual call center software
Here are the top seven virtual call center tools in the market:
1. CloudTalk
CloudTalk is a virtual call center and contact center software that lets you sort your inbound calls into custom call queues. You can also add tags to internal phone numbers and mask your personal number when needed.
A. Key features
- The IVR feature makes sure that incoming calls are routed to the right agent or department.
- Set up voicemails and automatic callbacks to keep customers in the loop when you’re out of the office.
- Add comments on calls and update customer information during or after a call.
- Quickly refer to customer cards to learn more about a customer during a call.
B. Pricing
CloudTalk’s paid plans start at $25/user per month.
C. User ratings
- G2: 4.3/5 (200+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (200+ reviews)
2. Five9
Five9 is a cloud contact center platform that lets you interact with customers on their channel of choice.
With this cloud solution, you get skills based routing, real-time dashboard reporting, and integrations with popular tools like Salesforce and Microsoft.
A. Key features
- Record calls to help managers identify crucial areas where the remote agent needs improvement.
- Monitor remote employees with the screen recording feature.
- A predictive dialer feature that predicts when agents will become available and speeds up or slows down the dialing rate accordingly.
- Manage both inbound and outbound calls.
B. Pricing
Request a custom quote from Five9.
C. User ratings
- G2: 3.9/5 (200+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.2/5 (300+reviews)
3. HubSpot
HubSpot is a call tracking software that can help you manage every step in your sales process.
With this call center software solution, you can place calls right from your browser, schedule emails and meetings, and route calls to the right sales agent.
A. Key features
- Queue up a list of calls and prioritize them so you can work through them efficiently.
- Access key business metrics using customizable reports and dashboards.
- Coach new sales reps with ease using AI-powered insights.
- Automatically log calls to Salesforce or HubSpot CRM to create a centralized workspace.
B. Pricing
HubSpot has a free plan, and paid plans start at $50/month.
C. User ratings
- G2: 4.3/5 (7000+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (2000+ reviews)
4. Bright Pattern
Bright Pattern is a call center software that uses AI and analytics to help you deliver high-quality customer service and high agent performance.
A. Key features
- Label specific contacts as priorities so you can work on the most important customer relationship.
- Make sure callers get to the correct department with IVR.
- Reach out to customers via live calls, social media, or SMS.
- Voice and speech recognition to help agents authenticate callers.
B. Pricing
Request a custom quote from Bright Patten.
C. User ratings
- G2: 4.2/5 (55+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (95+ reviews)
5. Ameyo
Ameyo is a remote contact center tool that supports inbound and outbound calling, mobile apps, and one-one internal team chats.
Ameyo also has some productivity tracking functionality. For example, you can monitor your employees’ performance and workload through insightful dashboards.
A. Key features
- Automatically route calls to agents who are best qualified for the issue.
- Communicate with customers over their preferred channels like WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter.
- Use the auto dialer to reach out to tons of leads in one go without wasting time.
- Keep track of calls and agent activity to deliver a better quality of service.
B. Pricing
Contact Ameyo for a custom quote.
C. User ratings
- G2: 4.2/5 (3+ reviews)
- Capterra: 3.9/5 (30+ reviews)
6. Zendesk
With Zendesk, you can communicate with clients over multiple channels like live chat, social media, and text messages and uncover customer insights to find areas of improvement.
And if your customer service team needs some advice or approval from another department, this call center solution lets teams quickly open side chats to collaborate with ease.
A. Key features
- Measure chat agents’ performance with real-time reporting and monitoring.
- Set a maximum queue size and wait time so excess calls can be redirected to another available agent.
- Measure and improve your phone support operations with real-time analytics.
- Monitor and record calls to ensure quality conversations while protecting customer privacy.
B. Pricing
Zendesk’s paid plans start at $49/agent per month.
C. User ratings
- G2: 4.2/5 (2500+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.3/5 (2500+ reviews)
7. AVOXI
AVOXI’s cloud-based contact center platform, you can integrate your CRM, help desk, and other business tools with AVOXI’s self-hosted virtual PBX (private branch exchange).
Additionally, AVOXI lets you create custom hold music or personalized messaging while callers wait.
A. Key features
- Keep track of agents, active calls, waiting calls, and more with intuitive dashboards.
- Get a virtual number in 170+ countries and forward calls to any device.
- Reduce transferred calls with AVOXI’s inbound ACD system.
- Create your own IP virtual phone system with the VoIP phone system feature.
B. Pricing
AVOXI’s paid plans start at $ 24.99/ user per month.
C. User ratings
- G2: 4.6/5 (4+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (30+ reviews)
6 key features to look for in virtual call center software
To help you make the right decision, here are some crucial features to look out for when choosing a virtual call center tool:
1. Reporting
Any call center supervisor or manager needs a way to keep track of agent performance, business metrics, and trends.
A great virtual call center tool with reporting and analytics functionality can help customer service managers keep an eye on incoming call volume, agent productivity, and other key call center metrics.
On top of that, detailed reports give you greater insight into common issues customers are calling about and how you can improve employee training.
2. Inbound and outgoing calls
The virtual call center tool you choose should let you manage both inbound and outbound calls.
Why?
As a sales team, you need to nurture customer relationships (which involves addressing their concerns) and still make sales.
Inbound calls are calls that a customer support center receives from a customer. They’re usually about issues or questions like helping customers change their account information or resolving online payment issues.
On the other hand, outbound calls are usually cold calls to potential customers about a new product. But outbound calls can also be used to help your customer service team identify what customers want and how they can improve future products and services.
3. Interactive voice response (IVR)
IVR allows customers to speak with an automated system before reaching your support team.
Although most customers prefer talking to a real agent from the get-go, the information customers provide at this stage can help agents improve customer experience further down the line.
How?
Once the customer reaches the virtual center agent, that agent will have all the information available, and the customer won’t have to repeat any of it. And in some cases, a customer’s query may be resolved by the IVR alone.
4. Call routing
When a customer calls your support team, how will they reach the right person without extensive wait times?
The answer lies in intelligent routing.
This feature shortens wait times, and it connects callers to the best-suited agent for that specific issue. On top of that, since all calls are directed to an available agent, no customer is turned away.
5. Omnichannel support
If you want to expand your call center services or transition into a contact center, you need tools with omnichannel support.
With cloud computing, virtual contact center agents can contact customers via different communication channels even if the customer is on the go.
The omnichannel contact center software you choose should support platforms like email, live chat, and social media. This way, your customers can have a comfortable and consistent service across all support channels.
6.CRM integration
As we mentioned above, customers shouldn’t have to repeat themselves many times to resolve one issue.
When you combine client relationship management (CRM) with your call center software, your agents will always have access to the customer’s profile and any previous customer interaction data.
And if your customer support team notices that a specific customer constantly has the same issue, they can resolve the problem completely.
3 major benefits of using virtual call center software
Here are three reasons why you should opt for virtual call center software:
1. Lower costs
A traditional call center has high upfront and running costs. For example, you need to secure and maintain IT resources, desk phones, chairs, amenities, stationery, and more.
But if you opt for a virtual call center, all you need is to purchase virtual call center software.
Pricing plans for these tools are usually based on per-user subscriptions, and you can opt to be billed annually or monthly. This way, you can purchase the plan that best suits your needs.
2. Increased security
Data security is a crucial concern for a remote call center. Without a reliable security system, businesses could lose critical customer and company information.
A comprehensive virtual call center software keeps your data safe with the cloud data backup. The data is typically encrypted, which boosts security.
Additionally, cloud backups help reduce the chances of common data backup failures caused by accidental overwrites and improper storage.
3. Improved productivity
Remote call center software can help your customer service team be more productive.
How?
Virtual call center tools have features like call routing and custom queue management that can help your customer service team be more efficient — which, in turn, improves customer service.
In addition, managers can use the data and analytics they get from their call center software to identify areas where an agent needs to improve. This way, that agent can perform better and improve customer experience.
Wrapping up
Virtual call center software helps streamline call center operations, boost agent productivity and reduce overhead costs.
Go through the list of virtual call center software we covered here to find one that suits your company’s needs.
Remember to check if the virtual call center solution you choose has CRM integrations, omnichannel support, and a quick setup. This way, you can give your customers the best experience.
Andy is a technology & marketing leader who has delivered award-winning and world-first experiences.