Call blending allows agents to deliver both inbound and outbound calls, depending on the demand and on the strategy.
It helps to maintain balance between making and receiving calls and raises the productivity of operators.
Large contact centers have separate teams for outcoming and incoming calls. However smaller businesses usually have less staff and use the same agents for both operations.
How it Works
Blended call center solution uses digital customer engagement software with automatic call distribution and predictive dialing system. Through call distribution agent that is not currently busy is selected to answer an incoming call. Predictive dialing feature connects agents only to phone numbers that answer a simultaneous call.
The system identifies inbound agents that stay idle for a certain time and forward them an outbound call.
When inbound traffic is low, outbound call center VoIP starts to generate outbound calls automatically. When the number of incoming calls increases, online phone dialer dynamically slows outgoing calls so agents have enough time to answer inbound call clients questions. Inbound calls also have priority over outbound.
Blended Model Strengths and Weaknesses
Blended calling model increases contact center efficiency with outbound call center solution. According to researches client contact rates may increase by 20-50% over an outbound only model. A blended model of call center can be more effective than using only inbound call center solution for those businesses where the dramatic change of the amount of outgoing calls is observed (for example because of seasonality). The other effective strategy is to set up a priority of inbound and outbound tasks for each agent within one group. As a result, calls are routed to the most qualified agents. Blended call center solutions also help to enhance customer satisfaction because agents have all necessary information for call handling on their fingertips (call scripts, data from client cards and much more).
However, it is more challenging for call agents to deal both with incoming and outcoming calls. While some agents might be more skilled in inbound or outbound calls, in blended contact center they have to deal with both; this requires additional training. There is also a possibility of staff burning out; your employees will need more inspiration in order to keep a busy rhythm of work. Also you need to pay more attention to the capacity planning for the blended call center. Don’t emphasize only on one type of calls and calculate the staff accordingly to the expected call volume.
Voiptime Cloud Blended Solution
In addition to Predictive Dialer Voiptime team works on Blended solution development. It will be launched as a separate module, available for contact centers willing to work both with outbound and inbound calls as blended cloud contact center.
The call blending software will be cloud-based and will combine a range of tools including PBX with agent extensions, live reporting and analytics, agent and manager dashboards etc.
You can choose call center model (with separated teams or universal agents) according to your business needs. Besides, you can use blended model temporary if you need to balance massive amount of outgoing calls. Please click on the button below if Voiptime Blended Solution might be useful for your business.
