These days, whenever I talk to customers and prospects in the contact center arena, I hear so much about various challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified. Contact centers report massive increases in customer calls as well as other online activities and, as a result, they need a technology to bridge the gap between the online web activities and offline phone calls.
Most enterprises understand that urgent issues and queries often result in a phone call to the contact center, but this phone call isn’t part of the online journey and diminishes the customer experience. Yet, at the same time, customers of all ages are becoming much more open to new technologies and advanced communication methods after being compelled to use various web calling services such as Zoom during the pandemic.
It is, therefore, pretty clear that the potential exists for a novel solution that can enhance the customer journey by making the whole calling experience much more intuitive.
Time to Get Clicking
It always amazes me that off-the-shelf, under the radar, technologies might be the perfect answer in such specific circumstances. When I ask our customers and prospects if they’ve already implemented VoIP click-to-call for bridging the online and offline worlds in their contact centers, in most cases the answer is along the lines of: “We can receive only PSTN calls from this channel.”
Click-to-call is a form of web-based communication where a person clicks a button, image or text on a computer or smartphone to request an immediate, real-time connection with another person or company. There are two ways to implement click-to-call: via traditional PSTN call or via a VoIP call. PSTN click-to-call is usually implemented in mobile, where a click in the browser opens the mobile cellular dialer application and effectively take the customer out of the online browsing journey.
The technology of VoIP click-to-call establishes the call over the IP network using the device’s built-in microphone and speaker. The customer continues browsing online undisturbed, with the voice call actually becoming an integral part of it. During the call, agents can share screens (co-browsing) with callers, understanding exactly what they see and becoming part of the callers’ online activities.
Not Just for Callers
Smart implementation of VoIP click-to-call over data networks brings many advantages:
- The customer stays within web browser while the agent becomes part of it
- Web metadata is inherently available for the agent to use
- Shorter handling time resulting from web pre-qualification agent routing and embedded visual IVR
- No toll-free service provider charges
- Management and monitoring of voice quality per call
- Ability to disable the click-to-call functionality if needed
- Options for video calling and co-browsing
Today, VoIP click-to-call functionality is straightforward to implement using WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) technology. The company needs to embed a simple HTML code in the website or mobile application and install a WebRTC Gateway in the contact center infrastructure. WebRTC is supported by all the leading browsers and is used by mass-market consumer and business communications applications, such as WhatsApp, Zoom, Slack and many others.
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Doing Click-to-Call the RIGHT Way
The AudioCodes WebRTC solution comprises a feature-rich, highly secure WebRTC gateway along with a dedicated WebRTC client SDK, and can be used for work-from-home (WFH) agents’ end-points as well. It delivers superb voice quality, is highly secure and easy to deploy.
Now, when customers ask me about connecting online and offline worlds, I have the VoIP click-to-call answer. If they want to communicate with their customers from any place, at any time and in any channel, I can wholeheartedly recommend implementing AudioCodes’ simple solution and going down the WebRTC route without delay.
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