So you own or manage an outbound contact centre. You can't seem to raise your talk time, no matter what you try. What gives?

Well, let's just say it gets complicated.

Countless variables can impact your talk time, and – by extension – the quality of your customer interactions.

Maybe you need to rethink how you position the products you're selling? Or maybe staff need extra training to polish their sales patter?

Perhaps. But we're sure you've thought of these possibilities already.

Digging deeper means exploring the cogs and gears that make your call centre work. It means popping the bonnet and poking about at the engine.

And just like you need a qualified mechanic to tune your car, you need specialised software to squeeze every ounce of efficiency out of your call centre.

Wouldn't you know it? We might just be able to help with that…

How our call centre software can help

Omnichannel communications

You've probably heard of omnichannel. It's one of the big things in call centre circles right now.

But in case you haven't, here's the scoop: it means bringing together several communication channels into one unified system. Think email, webchat and text messaging, as well as phone calls.

Now, this might sound counterproductive. If we're interested in increasing talk time, why would we want agents to spend time chatting on their computers or drafting emails?

Simple. Because increasing talk time isn't about boosting the volume of calls, it's about improving their quality.

Nowadays, it's typical for customers to use multiple forms of communication throughout the day. And many actually prefer talking to companies via webchat or email, especially if they haven't got the measure of you yet.

Our omnichannel call centre software keeps track of customer interactions, even as they dart between SMS, emails and phone calls. Agents can pick up conversational threads where they left off, no matter who the customer was speaking to, or how they got in touch.

This means interactions are more efficient, more productive and less stressful. In other words, they're of higher quality.

Embrace omnichannel, and you can expect talk time to go through the roof.

Predictive diallers

We'd bet good money you use some sort of automated dialler. As far as call centre tech goes, they're about as new-fangled as an East 17 single.

And although they're useful, they don't do much to boost average talk time – much of the time, in fact, they actively reduce it.

Again, it comes down to call quality. Most diallers exist to maximise the number of calls per hour, but the vast majority of these calls are likely to last all of… what, 10 seconds?

Our dialler, on the other hand, is specifically designed to weed out those low-quality calls and focus your agents on the interactions that matter.

This is achieved through some clever call routing and bespoke IVR recordings. If the person who takes the call isn't interested, they can just hang up and go about their day. But if they are interested, they can be talking to an agent in a matter of seconds.

Bada boom bada bing – your agents waste less time on short, disheartening conversations and spend more time turning engaged callers into converting customers.

AI sales optimisation

Let's say you've been working on a lead for a while. You think "next call, I'm going to close the sale". You have cake and balloons at the ready. Here goes…

Then you call the customer and they say "it's not a good time". Or, worse, they remind you that they can only chat on WhatsApp during work hours. And just like that, all the balloons deflate and the cake throws itself to the floor in an act of shameful desperation. You've blown it.

This could have all been avoided with the help of our automated sales optimisation tools. Powered by some very clever artificial intelligence, they remember those crucial customer preferences so your agents don't have to.

By choosing the best time and method to make contact, it improves the chances of fruitful conversation. And you know what that means… "hello talk time, my old friend".

Of course, it also avoids the embarrassment of getting stuff wrong. That's worth about a million quid and a lifetime supply of digestive biscuits, as far as we're concerned.

Gamification

Gamification is exactly what it sounds like. Instead of just saying "look, there's a target – hit it", you incentivise performance improvements by turning them into a game.

Let's imagine you have an agent called Bill. Bill's a lovely guy and he makes great cups of tea, but he's lagging when it comes to key KPIs like talk time.

Next time Bill has a performance review, you say "if you increase your talk time by 10%, I'll give you an extra half day of holiday". That's gamification.

Or say you want to inspire a little healthy competition between teams. You could arrange a KPI "duel", where the best performing team wins a nifty little incentive.

You don't need call centre software to do this, but it makes things about 300 times easier.

See, as well as offering robust omnichannel reporting, our software has advanced gamification features built in. This means you can create advanced mechanics where agents "level up" and win shiny digital badges, then track the results in our easy-to-use reporting dashboards.

How does the software work?

Glad you asked – because the way it works might just be the best thing about it.

Our contact centre software is entirely cloud based. Everything is hosted on secure off-site servers.

For you, this means minimal upfront investment. You don't need complicated hardware that costs the earth and your IT manager's sanity. As long as you have computers with internet access, you're good to go.

And because it's all hosted off site, it's marvellously flexible. If you need to move to a bigger office, the system can come with you – no problem. If you need to scale down, you can do so without the need to maintain expensive, dormant hardware.

It's as reliable as they come, too. You can expect 99.99% uptime, with multi-layered failover in the unlikely event that something does go wrong.

Want to know more? Read all about our cloud contact centre software here.

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