Working environments have changed. Employees now appreciate the flexibility of remote work, and businesses have to improve their global reach to boost growth. Virtual call centers provide an opportunity to do this and deliver enhanced experiences for employees and customers.

A call center doesn’t have to be rows of desks in one big, suffocating office space. With cloud-based call center solutions, it’s easier than ever to increase employee efficiency and productivity while embracing remote working environments.

But, you may be wondering what a virtual call center is, how it works, and why you should choose cloud-based technology.

Read on as we go over the following topics:

As businesses embrace remote work, they invest in cloud-based business phone systems to communicate effectively with a global workforce.

Similarly, virtual call centers replace expensive traditional on-premise landline and PBX systems with cloud-based or VoIP phone systems for their inbound and outbound calls.

Cloud contact centers can still access their existing business phone numbers and calling features, but they benefit from additional advantages and functionalities their virtual call center solution and providers offer.

For example, VoIP phone system providers often set up a network of data servers. So, if one server goes down, your communication systems automatically failover to another server, reducing downtime.

A VoIP provider is responsible for managing hardware and providing technical support, reducing IT costs. Therefore, a virtual call center provides reliable and cost-effective phone systems, suitable for small businesses and remote workforces.

Communication systems are vital for contact centers. So, if your current system is working, why change your call center operations to a virtual phone system?

The biggest reason is that a remote call center can increase customer satisfaction, provide 24/7 customer support, and boost workforce management. Other benefits are listed below.

Receive inbound calls from anywhere

Traditional phone systems obstruct businesses wanting to provide a global support network as it’s impractical to set up offices in every country. With virtual call centers, incoming calls can be answered no matter where your customer service representatives are based.

Better recruitment and retention

Physical offices are limited to local staff. A virtual system widens the talent pool as it allows you to hire employees in different geographical locations. This will let you expand your business hours for outbound or inbound call centers.

Employees working from home don’t have the traditional commute, saving time and improving their work-life balance. Virtual phone systems reduce employee turnover and improves efficiency by optimizing the process of onboarding remote agents.

Reduced overheads/pricing

Cloud-based software is subscription-based, and most providers offer flexible pricing plans to cater to your business needs. This gives you the freedom to choose the features and prices that are just right for your business.

The only extra cost is ensuring a reliable internet connection for your remote call center representatives. But overall, going virtual eliminates four traditional workforce overheads:

1. Large centralized office space
2. Expensive on-premise equipment and IT staff
3. Business utilities

Cloud providers offer a range of plans and pricing based on your requirements, ensuring you can get a solution that you can afford with your budget.

App-integrations

Providing positive customer service depends on call center representatives knowing vital customer information, such as previously experienced issues. Having this information accessible from a single data source enables them to improve customer care.

CRM integration lets reps deal with customer issues quickly and comprehensively. Other app integrations, such as Microsoft Teams or Salesforce, boost virtual call center functionality, improve experiences, add omnichannel support, and increase efficiency.

Easily manage and monitor performance

Virtual solutions provide real-time data analytics about call centers and agents through a visual dashboard. Call monitoring shows information like wait queues or absences and lets you listen to live calls.

You can respond to issues that pop up instantly and improve employee efficiency by using collected data to inform strategies, such as training plans or staff scheduling.

For example, your dashboard might show an above-average call time. By listening in, you realize the new customer service rep is struggling. You immediately resolve this by messaging the rep to transfer the call to an experienced virtual agent. Then, you can use the call recording to train and improve future rep performance.

Scalability

For cloud platforms, costs are limited to cloud server storage space and required functionalities. If you need to scale your business services up or down, it can be done instantly with a few clicks or by contacting your provider.

As your virtual center requirements grow, you can easily upgrade your plan with your provider, adding new functionalities, managing remote teams, app integrations, and more to better cater to an expanding customer base.

Creating a virtual modern call center is necessary to efficiently deal with virtual customers in multiple time zones. But it’s tricky to know where to start. Below are steps that will help you to implement a virtual call center solution.

1. What’s your purpose?

Understanding what you want your solution to do is vital to choosing the right provider. For example, are you a customer service or sales call center? If your focus is customer service, you’ll want to get inbound call center features like an IVR or an ACD. On the other hand, if your call center will focus more on sales, then outbound features like auto-dialers should be prioritized.

2. Consider key features

Your solution must fit your workflow. It means choosing the necessary and desirable features that will bring out the best in your remote workforce. As mentioned above, certain features are necessary for the type of calls your team will be handling.

Consider the following key features for inbound call centers:

• Automatic call distribution (ACD)
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
• Call routing

For outbound call centers, the following features would be helpful:

• Predictive dialer
• Power dialer
• Progressive dialers

For all call centers, the following features would come in handy:

• Call monitoring/analytics
• Voicemail
• Ticketing systems
• Call recording

3. Ensure software integrations

What software integrations do you need? Does it require downloading it from an app marketplace? Does your cloud provider support this integration?

Answer these questions to narrow your choice of cloud provider and ensure your solution incorporates seamlessly into your workflow.

4. Choose your virtual call center software

This step is self-explanatory. Choose the virtual call center software that best meets your needs. Consider the previous steps and support options offered by the cloud provider.

5. Get the necessary equipment

When your agents work from home, they’ll need equipment to ensure clear and stable communications. Do you need to buy headsets, computers, or pay for high-speed internet? Consider the necessary equipment remote workforces need and how you’ll provide it.

6. Decide on working hours

It’s not practical to work 24/7, especially if you don’t have the right staff available. Decide on working hours to get the best from your remote teams without overburdening them. IVR, ACD, and voicemails are helpful features to resolve phone calls inside and outside business hours.

7. Recruit and train your employees

Improve business hours by recruiting remote employees from around the globe, catering to customers in every time zone. You need the right staff, and you need to train them to use your virtual software. Don’t just look for agents, but also admins and managers to set up call flows and ensure remote teams are assigned correctly.

Create a solid onboarding process or use an onboarding portal to simplify the experience for new virtual staff.

8. Set up metrics and KPIs

Use KPIs and metrics to set goals and monitor overall remote call center performance. This way, you can resolve issues, streamline workflows, and boost your virtual capabilities by developing data-driven strategies.

Enhanced staff evaluations allow you to create individualized training plans to increase employee efficiency and customer service support.

The modern call center no longer needs costly on-premise hardware. Cloud-based solutions provide businesses with extra functionalities, software integrations, and cost-effective scalability.

Virtual call centers embrace global workforces, letting you extend business hours and ensure companies hire the best employees.

Additionally, real-time analytics give contact center managers access to employee performance and vital metrics. It guarantees meeting goals and agent productivity improves through enhanced strategies or training plans.

Ready to supercharge your call center phone system? 8x8 offers a cloud contact center solution that is not only virtual, but also omnichannel. This allows you to engage customers in different communications platforms such as video, voice, SMS, or email.

Contact 8x8’s sales team or request a demo to learn more.