Running A Virtual Call Center: The Technical Challenges For IT

In the current scenario, work from home is the new normal that organizations across the globe are adopting to address the current and future challenges. Shifting office to home is a challenge and requires sound planning if business as usual has to happen not just from corporate hubs but residential spaces, including cloud-based data centers. The current pandemic is only a reminder telling us that you need a solid plan to keep yourself afloat in the current order of the world that needs a little more integration to transcend the boundaries that were once pretty much visible between a business and residential space.

For contact centers, this transition is an exciting as well as challenging proposition. On one hand, we have live agents providing remote support and mostly acting as the background support, whereas, on the other hand, a virtual assistant or AI-powered conversational chatbot is indeed the one that seems to be running the show in the foreground. But for smooth operations at a call center, you may need to integrate the two while dealing with issues such as connectivity and other similar challenges that present a visible difference in the IT infrastructure of different premises at different locations to get things rolling again in the same usual manner. And that is where an IT manager or leader requires expertise to not only manage the virtual contact center that uses an AI chatbot but also see the same get timely support from a live agent sitting somewhere else or at home with a different set of tools that may not always be as reliable to support successful customer engagements.

Since there is a shift in strategy, especially and when more and more call centers of late managed by human beings are being turned into out and out virtual call centers operating from a cloud system and being managed remotely, as an IT lead you are up against some formidable challenges that you need to overcome to ensure that this transition is smooth and works in your favor.

Indeed, any such transition in the contact center industry is a tough ask as contact centers are very much based on an on-premise setup, and taking this setup to a cloud system or any other system that takes care of its online and remote connectivity along with uptime and the required regular maintenance activities is indeed a challenging proposition. It is also critical to managing affairs related to coordination between the teams sitting at far-off places relying upon seamless connectivity to stay in touch with what all is taking place. There is one more challenge that you need to deal with and which is related to the preparedness of the live agent remotely managing the call center with the help of conversational AI software. And it is something that is way beyond providing them with a laptop configured with the required software to connect the virtual call center from a remote location. Then, there are also issues related to the safety of your customer data, along with poor connectivity or coordination between the different IT infrastructures.

Below are some of the most stated-out challenges that you as an IT leader need to deal with-

Setting up sound virtual infrastructure

Though the introduction of virtual agents in call centers is not something new, and there has seen steady progress in this matter to make their operations efficient, but this sudden turn of events triggered by the current pandemic has panicked businesses around the world to go for a fully-fledged virtual contact center either on-site basis or locating the same to a cloud system or in some datacenter. But where the on-site contact center required more efforts in terms of technical challenges, the cloud system provides a ready setup and management of the necessary equipment that could be managed remotely with almost zero downtime. And suddenly so many businesses around the world which almost looked not too sure about how to provide efficient contact center services have started to see a ray of hope. But deciding on this transition and what to do with it all is a challenge, and it is not easy to set up a virtual contact center when the same to be set up quickly with almost no previous experience.

Date Security- a challenge too many  

If there is anything that is paramount in a contact center then it has to be customer information. How to keep it secure in the current situation when you are managing it remotely is something that you should know? Keeping planned security measures in place that keep your customers and their data integrity secure is a necessity in a contact center. And it becomes a priority when you know that some of your employees would be working from remote locations and there is an even greater chance of data breach. Therefore, reviewing the security measures to keep your data secure is the best strategy in the given scenario. In addition to the process security, the security aspects of the devices being used by your employees need a bit of active monitoring for security loopholes.

 A well-trained team makes the transition easy

Apart from the system and security aspects that give you an edge in contact center operations and ensure success for you in the changed scenario, a well-trained team of agents will make your operations efficient so that you can serve your customers in the best possible manner. Enhancing the knowledge base to understand the newest ways to engage your customers in the changed scenario will help your agents to show positive intent and look more confident when they engage with the customers. To ensure the balance between virtual agents and live agents involved in coordinating jobs will make your customers look satisfied with your resolutions, which, in turn, increases the customer satisfaction level in an omnichannel contact center, which is known for offering highly satisfying conversations involving both live agents and AI-powered conversational software such as InfiBOT.

So, if you are looking at a certain transition from an on-site-based contact center to a fully integrated virtual call center, the above-mentioned points can come in very handy for you.