Call Center Software Buyer's Guide - Evaluating Call Center Providers

Published: 03/27/2011

» Software
»» Call Center Software

 

Evaluating Call Center Providers

In addition to carefully comparing features and prices, you should take extra care to evaluate potential call center providers on their overall business, not just their product.

 

 

Call centers are fairly similar across industries, so most call center software providers don’t specialize in one particular type of call center. Do look for a vendor with plenty of experience dealing with customers of your size: to get the best service, you’ll never want to be the smallest or largest customer in the vendor’s portfolio.

 

 

Look for a company that is stable and successful. Ask how long they’ve been in the business, what their long-term plans are, and how they will continue to update your purchase. Industry analysts or market reports can help give you a sense of this.

 

 

Make sure that the company can support you: if your call center runs 24/7, you’ll want their support to be available around the clock as well. And good training will help your agents get the most out of the system right away, so ask what training options are available. Having a trainer come to your call center is preferable, off-site classes are good but can be inconvenient, and canned demos or online courses are easy to access but less effective.

 

 

Integration of the system with your existing hardware and software is essential. Most call center software providers will quickly assure you that they can integrate with your systems, and that’s usually true, but the amount of effort can vary. Ask more detailed questions: have they done projects with databases like yours before? Can your existing phone hardware support all the features of their software? Will they need to install any extra hardware or create custom programs to connect to your customer database?

 

 

Get and check references of three current customers for any call center software providers you are seriously considering. Ask these types of questions:

 

 

• Overall, how happy are you with your call center software?

 

• How long did they tell you it would take to install the system? How long did it actually take?

 

• Did the vendor provide adequate training?

 

• Does the software do everything they said it would do?

 

• How responsive is the vendor when you have problems?

 

• How much downtime have you experienced in the last year?

 

• If you were starting over, would you work with the same vendor again?

 

• What do you like least about the system?

 

 

 

If you’re dealing with a reseller or value-added reseller, make sure you also evaluate the software companies they are proposing for your system. You want to choose a solution that will continue to be updated and improved – look for companies that have demonstrated a commitment to their call center product.