Dealing with bad customers is more than just an unpleasant necessity; it can significantly impact other aspects of your business, too. These customers can increase churn by failing to see the value of your services, consume a disproportionate amount of resources, and negatively affect crucial metrics like customer satisfaction and accounts receivable.

The best customers give your business steady revenue, referrals, and brand loyalty, while bad clients can obstruct your ability to serve your most profitable clients. And that means bad news for everyone. So recognizing and addressing the needs of such toxic customers is crucial. 

In this guide, we’ll explore common signs of chronically dissatisfied customers, helping you identify them early and decide on the best course of action.

10 Ways to Identify Bad Customers

Let’s take a look at how to identify bad customers, and then we’ll go over a few strategies to handle them.

1) They Don’t Pay On Time (Or Ever)

You’re in business to make money. And customers that don’t pay not only don’t make you any money, they can actually cost you money. 

For example, unpaid invoices reduce your cash flow. Is cash flow or profit more important to a business? The answer is both. According to Investopedia, a business may see a profit every month, but if its money is tied up in accounts receivable, there is no cash to pay employees. 

Particularly as a small business owner, you definitely don’t want to find yourself in that position. Not only do you lose out on that invoice, but you also spend resources trying to collect your payment. Each bill you send costs you money and costs your staff time. Even if you leverage technology to collect accounts receivable, you have to pay collections companies or lawyers to get those bad clients to pay.

2) They Don’t Recognize Your Value

Some customers will nickel and dime you to death. This type of client puts you on the defensive from the start. Starting with the sales process, they question your pricing. 

For example, if you produce a creative product like a custom graphic design package, they may ask why they’re paying you so much to do a few hours of work. They don’t understand the investment you made in acquiring the education and experience to deliver the best product possible.

So be wary of the customer who complains about the pricing, doesn’t seem to understand your explanation, and then signs their contract anyway. These bad clients tend to be overly demanding once they hire you. They want to make sure they squeeze every penny out of you, will send things back over and over, and will usually leave a bad review but never a good review, even when merited.

3) They Have Unclear or Changing Demands

Often, many perpetually dissatisfied customers have unclear or changing demands and never seem to be happy. 

Imagine that you and your team spend weeks preparing a proposal for a client. Nothing is worse than delivering on a project only to be told that your work doesn’t meet its objectives. You know, the objectives they didn’t tell you about. 

Mistakes do happen, of course. Sometimes poor communication is the root cause of not meeting expectations. However, when you give a customer what they ask for, and they’re still unhappy, that’s another problem entirely. When the customer moves the goalpost, nobody scores. You have a wasted effort and an unhappy customer on your hands. And if you point out their behavior, you look like you’re making excuses. 

Their demands early on are often vague and disorganized. Providing great customer service is nearly impossible when you don’t know what the customer wants.

Identify these people early by their shifting customer expectations and also by sending timely surveys to try to understand what they’re looking for.

4) They Want ALL Your Attention

Each customer interaction is different, and some people will take more of your time than others. It is reasonable to expect that new customers will need more hand-holding, but you must watch out for those who take too much of your time. You may not have the resources to deal with these bad clients if you’re a small business. And even if you do, spending all your team’s time on one customer doesn’t make sense. 

So, how do you recognize the attention seekers? Start with the customer data. Find out which clients are generating the most sales. Identify how long their interactions take and how many touchpoints they require. Beware of anyone taking more than their fair share of your time. 

And talk to your staff. Any support agent in your organization should feel empowered to tell you when clients are being unreasonable or asking too much. Then document the customer complaint and act on them when appropriate. 

5) The Customer Interactions Are Scarce

While some bad customers are unprofitable because they consume many resources, some cause problems because they don’t engage with you enough. Consider the client who won’t return your calls or emails. How much time do you waste trying to track them down? Or what about the clients who schedule meetings and ghost you? That’s an hour of your day you could have spent more productively. 

In addition to the time and productivity costs, unresponsive clients miss out on the value your offer could provide. For example, a customer who doesn’t show up for their onboarding meetings won’t know how to use your product and won’t be as successful as those who do. This can mean higher demands on your customer support team, poor customer success metrics, and higher levels of churn. 

Sure, we all miss a meeting from time to time. But identify these bad clients by a pattern of absence and raise the red flag.

6) Bad Customers Aren’t Honest

The customer isn’t necessarily always right. In fact, some deceptive customers may lie to you on purpose. And that’s a big red flag. Common lies include:

• Claiming you promised to deliver things you never promised
• Telling you that another employee made promises
• Saying they had a bad customer service experience
• Making up stories about the actions of your customer support team
• Under-representing their needs during the sales process
• Under-representing their ability to pay

In each of these situations, their dishonesty causes problems for your business. Plus, their lies can also foster distrust among your team. If you catch a customer in a lie once, give them the benefit of the doubt. If it becomes a pattern, you should document the behavior. 

7) They Are Abusive or Threaten Your Staff

Sometimes, rudeness or bad behavior is the result of a bad day or a bad week. And that can happen to anyone. What you’re looking for here is a pattern of behavior. Horrific customer stories are everywhere. Watch out for things like this:

• Egregious personal attacks
• Aggressive accusations of bad customer service
• Threats consisting of personal harm or property damage
• Shaming, especially when others are present

Nobody deserves to be treated like this. You need to act fast to deal with customer threats. Rude or abusive clients put undue stress on you and your staff. If a customer interaction rises to the level of abuse, it is best to record calls for further review or even for law enforcement purposes.

(Need automatic call recording in your phone system? Nextiva includes it with our business phone service.) 

Stressful work environments can impact employee morale and lead to higher levels of staff turnover. Studies show the cost of turnover can run you $15,000 per employee, so a good employer must make sure to provide a great employee experience. 

What’s more, negative employee experiences can affect your brand’s reputation. A bad review on LinkedIn and similar sites can make it more difficult for you to hire great people. And they may even accuse you of poor customer service. Any good company wants to provide positive and helpful customer support and train their teams with the customer service skills to do just that. But bad customers will take advantage of your kindness and ethical business practices. 

8) They Make Unreasonable Demands

Most customers just want their needs to be met. And if you’ve done a good job acquiring customers, you’ll be able to do that with no problem. 

But some customers will ask for more than you can reasonably deliver. Not all of those people are bad (many just don’t clearly understand what you offer), but customers cross the line when they don’t take no for an answer. They might even threaten to leave a negative review unless you give in to their demands and definitely can affect your employee experience. 

Beware of customers requesting numerous revisions above and beyond what was promised. Other common problems include expecting you or your team to be instantly available to them at any moment. Of course, you’ll do your best, but no business can attend to every client every minute of every day. 

9) They Complain to Anyone Who Will Listen

Complaints are a normal part of doing business. And with social media, it’s easier than ever for upset customers to make you look bad, too. The cost of a simple tweet can be very high. 

In fact, 94% of consumers say that a bad review convinced them to avoid a business:

And, according to Moz: “Have four or more negative articles about your company or product appearing in Google search results? You’re likely to lose 70% of potential customers.”

Clearly, you can’t afford to ignore online reviews. And if those reviews are unfair, their impact goes way beyond one bad customer.

10) They Don’t Listen to You

Customers who don’t take your advice are also bad for business. They’re wasting your time and their money. Plus, they won’t see returns on your services. 

For example, if you’re a financial planner, your job is to give your clients sound advice to meet their goals. If they don’t take your recommendations, they run the risk of failing to achieve those goals. And clients who don’t reach their goals are unhappy clients. They may blame you or, worse, give you a negative review. And they probably won’t use your services in the future. 

Additionally, their failures reflect poorly on your business metrics and KPIs. You can’t show off your great stats when customers aren’t successful. 

What Should You Do With Bad Customers?

1) Assess Their Value

The costs of customer acquisition are certainly higher than the costs of customer retention. So you need to ask yourself, “What is the value of keeping this customer?” 

Here are some key things to consider:

• Their cost versus their profit. Here’s where you’re going to want solid customer data. Strong ticketing systems can easily pull up useful metrics like how many tickets a customer generates, how many touchpoints are required, and their invoice history. If they cost you more than you’re paying, that’s a red flag.
• If your bad client is a high-profile client, they may be worth the headaches they cause. But make sure you’re ready to deal with any loss of prestige or social media consequences.
• What are the consequences of losing this client? You may be in a situation where the risk is too great.

2) Have a Real Conversation

Communication is key. Any change in your business relationship needs to start with talking to the customer. The goal of this conversation is to move your relationship in the direction you’ve chosen when you assess the customer value.

Here are some key points to consider:

• Be transparent and honest about your concerns.
• Manage their expectations. Clearly explain what you can and can’t do for them. If you’re keeping them as clients, then make sure they know what to expect going forward.
• Get on the same page. Make sure you understand their needs and that they align with yours.

3) Refer Them Elsewhere

Sometimes, a bad customer is just a poor fit for your business. In that case, one way to deal with them is to help them find a better fit. If you know your competition, you’re in a position to suggest someone else. If you do a good job suggesting a good fit, you not only make a customer happy, but you make friends in the industry, too.

A possible downside is that the company you refer this person to might not appreciate them. Don’t refer truly bad customers to anyone whose opinion you value. And if you’re unsure, it doesn’t hurt to ask the other company if they want the referral.

4) Let Go of Problematic Customers

Sometimes the right answer is just to walk away. But how do you deliver bad news to customers? Gracefully. 

Here are some tips for moving on with a minimum of fuss:

• Get the right person to deliver the news. A manager or higher-level employee will have authority. And if the customer has a problem with an employee, definitely keep that person out of the conversation.
• Be direct. You will minimize the likelihood of a misunderstanding with a clear and direct explanation.
• Be decisive. Prior to the call, you made your decision. There should be nothing to sway you after that.
• Be kind. After all, even the worst customers deserve to be treated with respect. Demonstrate empathy and offer a graceful transition plan out of your business.

5) Don’t Acquire Bad Customers to Begin With!

As the list above suggests, many bad customer relationships stem from mismatches, poor communication, and unclear expectations. 

So, here are ways to attract better customers who admire your company from the start:

• Verify all marketing claims for accuracy on your website, blog, social media, and emails.
• During the sales process, confirm that there’s a real demand for your product. Just because someone seems like a good fit at first glance doesn’t mean they are ready to seal the deal.
• Ensure that all expectations and contracts are crystal-clear from the outset.
• Don’t sign on new customers you can’t serve. As a business owner, seeing any customer as a good customer can be tempting.
• Price your services appropriately. High-touch services generally require more financial investment from clients.

How to Identify and Acquire Good Customers

Now that we’ve identified bad clients and suggested how to deal with them, let’s end this article by briefly listing how to acquire good customers right from the start. 

Here are several tips to help you do this:

• Define Your Ideal Customer: First, be very clear about what constitutes a ‘good’ customer for your business. This involves understanding ideal customer needs and behaviors. Factors like prompt payment, loyalty, reasonable demands, and alignment with your business values might define a good potential customer for you.
• Targeted Marketing: Use targeted rather than broad marketing strategies to attract the right kind of customers. This involves using demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data to tailor your marketing campaigns to the audience that best fits your ideal customer profile.
• Customer Screening: You could implement a screening process for new customers, especially in B2B environments or high-value transactions. This might involve credit checks, references from other businesses, or a review of their history with similar products or services. You can also check their social media to see if they’re in the habit of posting negative reviews.
• Use Customer Feedback: Regularly collect and analyze customer feedback to nip poor customer experience in the bud early on. This allows you to identify the characteristics of good and bad customers, which helps you refine your acquisition strategies, improve your product or service, and provide exceptional customer service.
• Set Clear Expectations: From the start, set clear “rules” about what your service or product entails and what your policies are regarding payments, returns, and support. This transparency can help filter out consumers who might become problematic later and manage customer expectations.
• Build a Positive Customer Experience: This one is more about retention than acquisition, but be sure to focus on delivering exceptional customer service and a personalized experience. Happy customers are more likely to be repeat customers and less likely to cause issues.
• Referral Programs: Encourage existing good customers to refer new clients. Typically, people within the same network or industry may have similar traits and values, potentially leading to a higher quality of new potential customers.
• Leverage Technology: Use CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems to manage customer interactions and customer data effectively. Advanced analytics can help predict customer behavior and identify potentially problematic clients before they become an issue.

Nextiva Helps You Deliver Excellent Customer Service

Bad customers may be a fact of life, but the right strategies can mitigate their impact and prevent a negative experience from overshadowing your business efforts.

By identifying those challenging customers right away, you can deal with them effectively. In many cases, it’s not the customer’s fault per se, as the company shares responsibility in their experience along the way, but recognizing and pruning unfit customers early on can prevent them from harming your reputation. Likewise, nurture and wow your existing customers so they can’t help but tell others about their experience.

Discover how to deliver an unparalleled customer experience — learn more about how Nextiva can empower your customer service efforts.

Bad Customers FAQs

Artificial intelligence (AI) has grown exponentially over the past few years and has quickly become prevalent across several industries. Nowhere is this more evident than in customer service, success, and support, where AI is used in everything from giving customers self-service options to supporting agents during calls.

It’s impossible to overlook the impact AI has had on the customer experience (CX). Let’s explore how contact centers use AI technologies (like generative AI), the impact on CX, and whether you should invest in AI for CX.

How Can AI Impact CX in Contact Centers?

Let’s examine the CX and uses of AI in a contact center environment. AI can be used across customer touchpoints and in every step of the support journey, and it can also assist with essential behind-the-scenes processes.

Some of the most impactful use cases of AI for contact centers are:

Intelligent virtual assistants and chatbots

One of the most popular ways of using AI for CX is the deployment of AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants. These can be used to handle routine inquiries and transactions, allowing customers to get help quickly and agents to focus on more complex issues.

While older self-service menus may have limited responses based on specific options, AI-powered chatbots can provide a better range of responses and support capabilities, based on natural language instead of a dialogue tree menu. These tools can provide fast, uninterrupted customer service around the clock, without needing a human agent.

Related: Conversational AI vs. Chatbots: Choosing the Best Solution

Enhanced personalization

Today’s customers want a personalized experience based on their history and past service interactions. With AI, that kind of experience is now possible.

AI-powered tools can analyze customer data and interaction history, enabling agents to give responses and solutions tailored to the individual customer. This can significantly improve customer satisfaction and help ensure customers get the exact help they need.

With the right AI-powered solutions, you can even predict customer issues based on their support history and proactively offer solutions or assistance. The customer journey becomes a lot easier when they receive support before they even need to ask.

Improved agent assistance and productivity

AI can help agents as well as customers. While AI cannot and should not replace human agents altogether, by using AI-powered solutions, you can support and assist agents to improve productivity across the board.

AI customer experience tools provide agents with prompts, scripts, and information in real time during customer interactions, which can help improve response speed and quality. AI can also automate repetitive tasks like call logging, data entry, and ticket classification, lightening the agent’s workload and helping them to be more efficient. Generative AI is increasingly used to provide interaction summaries and wrap-up, reducing the time spent on post-call work.

Quality assurance and training

Monitoring interactions and providing feedback is essential, as it keeps agents fully trained and compliant with quality standards. This is another area where AI-powered tools can help improve efficiency and CX.

AI-powered QA tools can monitor interactions and provide automated feedback to agents, identifying areas of improvement and success. If an agent needs extra training or assistance, you can use insights from these QA tools to develop targeted training programs.

With this combination of monitoring and training, you can ensure your contact center agents are meeting quality standards and providing great CX.

Sentiment analysis and emotional intelligence

How can you be sure your customers are truly getting a great experience? Customer sentiment analysis tools can use AI technology to gauge customer emotions during calls and provide feedback, allowing agents to adjust their approaches and achieve better results.

With training, AI-powered sentiment analysis systems can recognize and respond to emotional cues, giving agents insights and suggestions. This can help ensure interactions are not just efficient, but also empathetic.

Predictive analytics for workforce management

One of the biggest challenges any contact center faces is staffing. Having too few agents available results in overly long wait times, fatigued agents, and frustrated customers, but having too many agents means you’re wasting resources.

AI-powered customer experience tools can predict call volumes based on historical data, enabling more accurate staffing and resource allocation. Contact center managers can use this information to optimize agent schedules and breaks, ensuring the contact center is always staffed appropriately.

Fraud detection and prevention

Fraud is a major issue for any business, but AI can help detect and prevent it. Customer management tools can analyze patterns and flag potentially fraudulent activities, quickly alerting fraud prevention teams and agents. This helps protect not only the organization but also its customers.

Seamless omnichannel experience

Today’s customers expect to connect with businesses across multiple channels, including email, phone calls, and social media. Contact centers that want to provide a great experience need to embrace omnichannel communications with seamless communication across each channel.

Contact centers can use AI to integrate data across channels, including all the customer’s touchpoints in their personalized experience. This helps ensure a consistent experience, whether the customer is using a phone, web chat, email, social media, or any combination thereof.

Additionally, AI tools can analyze customer behavior, helping you understand what channels your customers prefer. This allows you to tailor your customer engagement strategies accordingly, ensuring that customers can interact through their preferred medium and always get the help they need.

7 Signs It’s Worth Using AI in Customer Experience

Given all the benefits of AI, it can be an appealing prospect to many contact center managers, regardless of their industries. If you’re facing any of the following challenges, then integrating AI technology or switching to an AI-powered contact center may significantly improve both your operations and CX:

1) Handling a high volume of customer inquiries

If you’re receiving a significant volume of questions from your customers, then AI automation can help. Adding AI-powered self-service options, task automation, and agent assist features can help reduce both the number of calls agents have to handle and the average time each call takes.

2) Facilitating personalized experiences

Customers expect an experience tailored to their needs. Can your contact center provide that? If your customers have ever complained about calling multiple times but the agents have no records of their previous calls, or if they have to repeat themselves each time they interact with a different agent, then AI-powered tools can help.

The right tools can deliver personalized experiences at scale, enabling you to give your customers the unique service they deserve.

3) Scaling your sales and support operation

As your business grows, your contact center will need to grow along with it to keep up with the influx of customers. However, scaling contact center support alongside business growth can prove more difficult than anticipated.

AI solutions can often help with scaling customer support, both through the flexibility of the platform and with the workforce management capabilities they provide. These can help ensure your contact centers are always properly staffed.

4) Tapping into existing customer data

Every customer interaction is a treasure trove of data, but there’s often too much information to sift through properly. AI-powered solutions can address this, as AI tools can analyze vast quantities of unstructured data and generate actionable insights.

5) Increasing customer customer retention

If you’ve been losing customers, it’s important to understand why. Poor CX can decrease customer satisfaction and loyalty, driving customers towards your competitors.

However, using AI to improve CX can boost customer retention by ensuring support experiences are efficient and helpful. The efficiency, accuracy, and speed of AI-enhanced customer support will keep loyalty high and churn low.

6) Fixing operational inefficiencies

If you’re spending too much on operations and processes, yet still moving slowly, AI-driven automation may be the solution. AI can efficiently automate repetitive manual tasks, making agents and teams more efficient while keeping operational costs low.

7) Improving customer service response times

Many issues can slow down response times — too many customer calls, too few agents, complex issues that require extra time to resolve, and so on. AI can help address all these problems by letting customers access immediate self-service tools and chatbots, assisting agents on calls, and helping with workforce management and scheduling.

Nextiva Contact Center AI for Improving CX

It’s clear that AI can improve CX in several ways, from helping customers with self-service to improving agent productivity. AI technology has had such an impact on contact centers that it’s hard to find any element of CX that it hasn’t enhanced in some way, and those who ignore AI risk falling behind the competition.

If you’re ready to integrate AI into your contact center as part of your CX strategy, Nextiva is a top-ranked AI-powered contact center platform.

Nextiva’s AI-powered features include:

• Automatic transcriptions to reduce agent note-taking and instantly create detailed call records.
• AI-created call summaries to accurately capture and convey key details and action items from each call.
• AI-powered quality assurance to provide call monitoring for compliance and security.
• Omnichannel conversational history to provide a seamless CX across several channels, including phone, messaging, email, and social media.
• Skills-based routing to direct callers to the best agent for their queries.
• Dynamic scripting to help agents say the right thing at the right time during calls.
• Task automation to reduce monotonous, repetitive tasks.
• Voice bots and virtual assistants to help customers with self-service.
• Multi-skill, multi-channel staffing forecasts to ensure your contact centers are always fully staffed.

Related: Customer Intelligence: What It Is & How to Implement It

FAQs on Using AI in Customer Experience

Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solutions offer cloud-based customer support software to businesses managing customer conversations. These solutions support customer service professionals with capabilities like call routing, interactive voice response (IVR), and other advanced features.

Not all contact center software providers offer comparable features, functionality, or pricing. There are numerous differences among vendors. 

In this guide, we’ll discuss the best CCaaS providers on the market today and some of their standout features. We’ll also share our checklist of ways to narrow your search effectively. 

Top CCaaS Providers Leading the Market in 2024

Every CCaaS provider has pros and cons. Compare the leading software solutions on the market, and choose the most suitable one for your business. 

1. Nextiva

Nextiva offers many VoIP services, including business phone services and extensive contact center software. It delivers the best Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and CCaaS solutions to manage internal communication while customer-facing teams deliver a delightful customer experience across multiple channels.

Nextiva lets you improve overall contact center operations while streamlining customer interactions through several features. It helps your agents become more productive and improves their performance with real-time insights. 

Pricing: Nextiva offers custom pricing based on your requirements. You pay for the features your business truly needs. Talk to an expert and get your quote. 

Nextiva features

Below are some notable features of Nextiva Contact Center:

• The omnichannel contact center provides a unified view of all customer interactions on phone, email, chat, or social media platforms.
• Automatic call distribution routes incoming calls in queues to agents based on various parameters including skills, workload, and pre-defined criteria.
• IVR reduces agents’ workload by providing self-service options for routine inquiries, allowing them to manage more complex queries. 
• Intelligent virtual agents use artificial intelligence to perform simple tasks or route queries to the right team.
• CRM integrations make it easier to get context on previous customer interactions and sales transaction data.
• Workforce management increases the operational efficiency of a call center using strategies and processes to optimize agent productivity. 

2. Talkdesk 

Talkdesk uses generative AI and automation to help businesses gather customer experience insights. These data points allow you to make more informed and customer-centric decisions. 

The platform allows agents to create simple workflows to automate tasks and improve productivity. After every call, agents can easily access all call recordings in their CRM systems. 

Source: Talkdesk

Pricing: Starts at $85 per user per month.

Talkdesk features

Below are some notable features of Talkdesk: 

• Multiple integrations save time and reduce the confusion of switching among various platforms. 
• Deep direct integrations with vertical systems facilitate easy automation while delivering significant efficiency gains. 
• Self-guided demos let people explore cloud solutions without investing time or resources in research.

3. 8×8

8×8’s CCaaS solution is a comprehensive suite of VoIP and contact center platforms catering to businesses of all sizes. Its secure cloud CCaaS offers a consistent customer journey while providing options to optimize workforce management.

Source: 8×8

Pricing: 8×8 doesn’t share its pricing on the website. Contact the 8×8 sales team for a custom quote. 

8×8 features

Below are some notable features of 8×8:

• A user-friendly interface makes it easier for agents to seamlessly handle all customer interactions via voice, chat, email, social media, or chatbot through a single interface. 
• High-definition video conferencing allows up to 500 participants on any device.
• A customizable AI-powered chatbot addresses customer queries quickly while reducing agents’ workload.

4. Vonage

Known for its VoIP services, Vonage offers a unified communications solution with helpful features for contact center professionals. The Vonage Business Communications desktop app combines calls, messages, and video conferencing.

Source: Vonage

Pricing: Vonage doesn’t share pricing on its website. You can get a quote by reaching out to its sales team. 

Vonage features

Below are some notable features of Vonage:

• Integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and Slack make it easier for agents to work across business apps. 
• Vonage AI studio lets businesses create omnichannel conversations with its no-code flow builder. 
• Enterprise-grade features like single sign-on make it easier for agents to offer a delightful customer experience while ensuring robust security. 

5. RingCentral

Established in 1999, RingCentral offers decent features to manage outbound calls. These include a mix of progressive, predictive, and preview dialers. It helps reduce the fatigue that comes from manual dialing and makes agents more efficient. 

Overall, it offers a simple CCaaS solution, RingCX, that’s AI-first and easy to deploy. 

Source: RingCentral

Pricing: Starts at $65 per agent per month when billed annually. 

RingCentral features

Below are some of RingCentral’s notable features:

• Intelligent call suppression makes real-time adjustments to the dialing list based on customers’ actions. 
• Analytics and extensive reporting let businesses recognize workflow bottlenecks and improve customer experience with dashboards and management tools. 
• Advanced call handling lets teams properly manage inbound and outbound calls and deliver a remarkable customer experience.

6. Aircall

Aircall offers businesses access to toll-free and local numbers for outbound and inbound calling in more than 100 countries. It lets organizations route calls intelligently and ensure that suitable agents take calls per their availability and area of expertise. 

The platform offers integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zendesk, helping agents easily work with different business apps while being more productive. 

Source: Aircall

Pricing: Starts at $30 per user per month when billed annually. You need to subscribe for a minimum of 3 users. 

Aircall features

Below are some notable features of Aircall: 

• Call monitoring lets users listen to live calls, accelerating employee training and improving quality assurance. 
• After-call work gives teams time to take notes, tag people, and decide on the prerequisites of the following conversation. 
• Business hours allow users to customize their availability based on their working hours. 

7. Genesys

Genesys Cloud lets users manage customer interactions across multiple channels, including voice, text, web, and social media. The platform recognizes repeat customers and routes them to the last agent they spoke with or the agents best suited to address their needs. 

It also gives agents a customer’s context and insight, helping them personalize and tailor the interaction. 

Source: Genesys

Pricing: Genesys’ voice and digital plan costs $115 per month.

Genesys features

Below are some notable features of Genesys: 

• AI automation enables deeper personalization while offering customer support. It directs the conversation toward a human agent when it feels the need and supplies all historical conversational insights. 
• Gamified performance management keeps teams focused while improving the agent experience. 
• Intelligent prioritization uses AI to identify customers who need assistance as quickly as possible while automating several manual tasks for the team. 

8. NICE CXone

NICE CXone, previously known as NICE inContact, offers a comprehensive CCaaS solution to optimize customer interactions and improve agent efficiency. The platform’s virtual phone offers global VoIP telephony, capable of making HD voice calls with 99.99% uptime to over 130 countries.

Source: NICE CXone

Pricing: CXone’s interaction orchestration for omnichannel agents costs $110 per month.

NICE CXone features

Below are some notable features of NICE CXone. 

• Service accountability means 80% of calls are answered in less than a minute. 
• Pay-as-you-go pricing doesn’t require any hefty upfront fees. The service subscription is bundled into monthly invoices. 
• 24/7 maintenance ensures that issues are quickly resolved. 

Related: Communications Service Provider: Overview & Key Features

Things to Consider Before Choosing Your CCaaS Provider

Choosing the right CCaaS provider for your business requires thorough research and a deep understanding of your needs. 

Here are a few factors to help you with the decision-making process. 

Scalability

This involves assessing whether the service can grow or shrink according to your business needs without significant disruptions or costs. 

Start by understanding the provider’s capability to handle changes in call volume and user count. Consider whether the provider’s infrastructure is cloud-native, as this can often allow for more seamless scaling. 

Additionally, evaluate the ease of adding or removing features, integrating new services, and expanding to different geographical locations. The ability to scale should not compromise the quality of the service or the user experience, ensuring that transition periods are smooth and barely noticeable to end users.

💡Tip: Always perform a “stress test” with your potential CCaaS provider to see how its system handles increased demands under controlled conditions. This will give you a realistic view of its scalability and flexibility in supporting your growth.

Unified communications compatibility

UCaaS has some overlap with CCaaS. Many organizations already use a hosted business communications provider, but it’s often entirely separate from the contact center. 

This means that some CCaaS providers force you to purchase a separate SIP trunking provider so your team can make or receive calls. 

You don’t need a separate voice carrier. Top CCaaS providers like Nextiva provide everything you need in one comprehensive solution, with no surprises, so your team can focus on improving customer satisfaction and increasing operational efficiency.

Integration capabilities

The ability to seamlessly integrate with existing systems — such as CRM software, ERP systems, workforce management tools, and marketing platforms — is essential for maintaining workflow continuity and enhancing operational efficiency. 

Check whether the CCaaS platform supports open APIs that allow for custom integrations. This is crucial as it enables the contact center to connect with various third-party applications and services that are important to your business processes. 

Furthermore, examine the provider’s pre-built integrations: a good range of native integrations with popular business tools can significantly reduce the time and cost involved in setting up and maintaining the system.

The ease of integration also impacts your organization’s learning curve and adoption rate. It’s important to consider how intuitive the integration processes are and whether the provider offers any tools or services to facilitate these integrations. For example, some CCaaS providers offer visual dashboards that allow non-technical staff to configure integrations without needing coding skills. 

💡Tip: Opt for a CCaaS provider that regularly updates its API capabilities and offers a comprehensive support network to assist with integration challenges. This ensures your contact center remains agile and can adapt to new technologies or changes in business processes.

Omnichannel support

Omnichannel engagement is an essential feature to consider when choosing a CCaaS provider. It ensures that all customer interactions across various channels,  including email, social media, live chat, and voice calls, are integrated into a single, cohesive customer experience. This integration enables agents to provide more personalized and efficient service by having access to the full context of a customer’s interactions, regardless of the channel used. 

When assessing a provider’s omnichannel capabilities, it’s important to verify that it can support all the channels your business uses and that these channels are seamlessly integrated within the platform. Look for features like universal queues, which manage interactions from all channels in one place, and real-time syncing of customer data across channels.

💡Tip: Prioritize a CCaaS provider that not only supports a wide range of communication channels but also demonstrates a commitment to adopting future technologies in customer communication.

Reliability and uptime

High uptime guarantees are essential, as even minimal downtime can lead to significant service disruptions and potentially significant financial losses. When evaluating a provider, look for one that offers at least 99.99% uptime. This level of reliability is often supported by robust infrastructure, including redundant data centers and failover mechanisms that ensure continuous service even in the event of hardware or software failures. 

Additionally, review the provider’s historical performance data and client testimonials to gauge its track record on reliability and uptime.

The provider’s approach to handling unexpected issues and its disaster recovery plans are also important. It’s crucial to understand how it manages data backups, system updates, and emergency situations. A provider should be transparent about its maintenance schedules and provide regular updates on system status. Ask about its service level agreements and what compensation or remedies it offers if the agreed-upon uptime is not met.

These details can give you insight into how seriously a provider takes its service commitments and what you can expect in terms of reliability. 

💡Tip: Always include specific uptime guarantees within your contractual agreement and clarify the recourse available if the provider fails to meet these standards. This not only secures your interests but also incentivizes the provider to maintain high standards of reliability.

AI features

AI-powered solutions can automate routine tasks, provide predictive analytics, and support real-time decision-making.

When selecting a CCaaS provider, assess its AI capabilities, focusing on features like chatbots for customer self-service, intelligent routing to direct customers to the appropriate agent or department based on their needs, and sentiment analysis to gauge customer emotions during interactions. These AI functionalities can help reduce agent workload, improve customer satisfaction, and optimize overall contact center performance.

Additionally, evaluate how the AI integrates with other systems and data sources. Effective contact center AI features should seamlessly draw on existing customer data to provide context-rich support and enhance customer interactions. 

💡Tip: Look for AI that learns and improves over time through machine learning algorithms. This ensures that the system becomes more effective as it processes more data.

Security and compliance

A reliable CCaaS provider must adhere to rigorous security standards and compliance regulations to protect your data from breaches and ensure legal compliance. When assessing potential providers, verify that their technology meets relevant industry standards, such as ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA (for healthcare-related services), and PCI DSS (for payment processing). These certifications indicate a provider’s commitment to security and data protection.

In addition to checking for certifications, it’s crucial to understand the specific security measures the provider implements. This includes data encryption at rest and in transit, regular security audits, and access controls to ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive information. 

💡Tip: Always request detailed documentation of the provider’s security and compliance measures and verify its claims through third-party audits, if possible. This due diligence is crucial not only for protecting your data but also for maintaining your customers’ trust.

Post-sale support

Effective post-sale support ensures that any issues encountered after the initial deployment are quickly and efficiently resolved, minimizing downtime and maintaining operational continuity. When evaluating a provider, consider the breadth and quality of its support services. Look for providers that offer 24/7 support through multiple channels, including phone, email, live chat, and even social media, to ensure that help is available whenever needed.

Additionally, assess the expertise and responsiveness of the support team. A good support service should have a well-trained team that can handle a range of issues, from simple troubleshooting to complex technical problems. The provider should also offer a comprehensive knowledge base, training resources, and user communities. These resources empower your team to resolve common issues independently and make the most of the CCaaS solution. 

💡Tip: Prioritize providers that respond to issues and collaborate with you to optimize the system and adapt the service as your business needs evolve. This partnership approach in post-sale support can significantly enhance the value you derive from your CCaaS investment.

Cost and ROI

When evaluating affordability, it’s important to look beyond just the initial pricing and consider the total cost of ownership, which includes setup fees, maintenance costs, upgrades, and potential costs associated with scaling the service. Opt for vendors that offer transparent contact center pricing with no hidden fees, allowing you to predict and control your expenses effectively.

Additionally, assess the value provided by the service in relation to its cost. A cost-effective CCaaS provider should offer a comprehensive suite of features that meet your specific business needs without requiring extensive customizations, which can drive up costs. 

Compare how other providers can streamline your operations and improve customer service. Pay attention to the flexibility of pricing plans — providers that offer scalable solutions can adjust to your needs as your business grows or changes, potentially offering better cost efficiency over time. 

💡Tip: Find out if the CCaaS provider offers pay-as-you-go options or if it can provide tailored plans that adapt to your changing business dynamics. This ensures you are not locked into long-term, inflexible contracts that do not reflect your current needs.

Vendor reputation

A reputable vendor typically has a proven track record of stability, strong customer support, and a commitment to continuous improvement. Begin by reviewing the provider’s history in the industry, including how long it has been in business and its experience with businesses similar to yours. This background can give you confidence in its ability to understand and meet your specific needs. 

Also, assess the vendor’s reputation through customer testimonials, case studies, and thousands of customer reviews. Look for feedback on its service reliability, the effectiveness of its technology, and the quality of its customer support. It’s beneficial to check industry forums and social media to get unfiltered insights from current and past users. 

💡Tip: Engage with potential vendors directly to ask specific questions and gauge their transparency and willingness to provide information. This interaction can often give you a better sense of its customer service and reliability than secondary research alone.

Solve Your CCaaS Needs With Nextiva

CCaaS is a suitable and scalable solution for customer-facing professionals like sales and support teams, while UCaaS is a wise choice for almost every other department. With Nextiva, you get the best of both, which is why it’s a leader among the best CCaaS providers. 

With it, you get to create a seamless ecosystem that caters to the communication needs of all departments. Nextiva lets your team work efficiently and deliver a memorable customer experience across all touchpoints. 

Don’t settle for less when you can get CCaaS and UCaaS in one platform.

Related: 20 of the Top Contact Center Companies in the USA

Every day, you collect tons of data while interacting with customers. Each call creates more and more information that you could learn from to empower your business.

How? Through speech analytics.

Before, during, and after each call, you can use data points, assumptions, and patterns to better serve your customers and get one-up on your competition. By detecting what happens in each call (and even the key presses before an agent intervenes), call centers can totally transform their customer journeys.

Let’s learn the exact benefits of speech analytics and how you can leverage them at different phases of each call.

What Are Speech Analytics?

Speech analytics are records, graphs, and collections of conversations that inform business decisions and help call center agents improve customer satisfaction. Using statements picked up during customer calls, data is translated into usable information that can influence training, processes, and workflows.

Speech analytics, one of the less marketed or adopted call center analytics, has been somewhat revolutionized by the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning in modern contact center solutions.

Also known as voice analytics, speech analytics consists of three main components:

• Customer sentiment: Speech patterns can indicate frustration, anger, or satisfaction in a customer’s voice.
• Keywords and phrases: Identify specific terms used by customers and contact center agents to pinpoint areas of confusion or highlight key topics.
• Agent milestones: Ensure agents adhere to scripts and company or industry policies.

Speech analytics examples and use cases

Emotion detection

When customers get frustrated with having to repeat themselves, their negative tones are detected, and the speech analytics software triggers the next action.

This action could be an alert on a supervisor’s dashboard, an on-screen prompt for the agent, or a notice that flags the call for follow-up at a later date.

Keyword or key phrase detection

If a key phrase like “renew my contract,” “I’m thinking of leaving,” or “Is there a better option” is detected by speech analytics tools, these can be flagged for various outcomes.

If account renewal is being discussed but your agent is a technical analyst, the customer might be better served by another agent. But your agent might think it’s on them to complete the call. In reality, you have specialist agents trained to deal with churn and retention, so the speech analytics technology can direct the call to the more equipped retention rep to handle the call.

Compliance assurance

In the case of contact center compliance, you could be dealing with HIPAA, PCI DSS, FINRA, or non-discrimination compliance. Whatever you need to protect your business from, speech analytics will always be scouting for potential vulnerabilities and non-adherence. 

One case could be if a new, untrained agent uses a word they are unaware is derogatory; rather than letting this go unnoticed and risk offending a customer, keyword detection flags this for the agent, supervisor, or compliance manager to get on top of any potential situation.

Likewise, if an agent starts to read back card information, going against your process, as agents shouldn’t see the actual card numbers, an instant red flag (literally in the software and figuratively) gets raised to understand why the agent has your customer’s card details.

These are some examples of speech analytics that are used in the real world. Let’s now learn how to best implement and use your call center speech analytics. 

How to Best Use Your Call Center Speech Analytics

When using speech analytics holistically, you’re covering all bases and making the most of the software at your disposal. 

You can use speech analytics before, during, and after calls to identify call trends, manage customers in real time, and create an environment of proactive coaching and feedback.

Before the call

By identifying call routing trends and analyzing past customer interactions, you get an understanding of peak call times, call volumes, common customer issues, and preferred agent skills. If you know the likely reason for each customer call, you can assign the most appropriate agent to handle each query.

You can use intelligent call routing by way of an interactive voice response (IVR) system to better understand what customers need, as they will literally say their reason for calling.

For example, instead of routing all customer service calls to your helpdesk, where they are asked for their reason for calling and manually transferred, customers are greeted with a menu that asks their reason for calling, allows them to say their issue, and knows where to send the call.

This automated process is quicker, and customers get through to the most skilled agent for their issue.

When combined with natural language processing — that’s the smart AI part — your IVR can even start handling calls for you. For routine inquiries like opening times and bill payments, there’s often no need for human intervention.

For example, think about the potential time, resource, and cost savings versus needing to handle a basic inquiry today. Even with compliance procedures to consider, several minutes per call could be saved if you’re able to successfully remove the human from the process.With conversational AI, you’ll be able to offer open-ended prompts and automate routing intelligently. It could look something like this:

It could be as easy as that, thanks to speech recognition. And you’re safe in the knowledge that phone calls are not only recorded but tracked for all kinds of emotions, keywords, and compliance.

Related: How to Use Conversational Analytics Software Effectively

During the call

What if you had a tool to detect when customers get frustrated or when agents miss opportunities to upsell a product? Sounds pretty good, right?

That’s exactly what real-time sentiment analysis does. It literally analyzes customer sentiment.

Speech analytics solutions can detect emotions in a customer’s voice and flag frustrated or angry callers. This allows supervisors to intervene and provide real-time support to agents handling these calls, ensuring a better customer experience.

In positive customer conversations, where there’s an opportunity to upsell or cross-sell, speech analytics can help identify missed keywords. Not only does this identify knowledge gaps and areas where scripts or training materials need improvement, but it also means you can flag the upsell opportunity mid-call.

You can improve agent productivity by notifying agents they missed a keyword. This way, they can mention the superior product during the call instead of missing the sale or having to call the customer back to offer them a new product.

Agents provide exactly what the customer calls for. Your business benefits from extra revenue and profit. Everyone’s a winner.

The same helpfulness applies to compliance monitoring. Using keyword detection for quality assurance and quality management, you can ensure agents adhere to regulations and company policies by identifying instances where specific phrases or topics are used inappropriately.

You’re derisking your business every time you use speech analytics — which is in every single call.

After the call

You know all those call recordings you have? It’s impossible to go through each one and separate good and bad calls, isn’t it?

With speech analytics doing the sorting and grading, you can save hours per day (weeks per year) on simply identifying calls with room for improvement.

When you have time to objectively evaluate agent performance metrics, like adherence to scripts, empathy, and active listening skills, you can better diagnose low first-call resolution rates by analyzing topics mentioned by callers. 

Rather than accepting that agents are humans and will make mistakes, you can safeguard processes and embrace continuous learning.

As a side benefit, you can also identify common roadblocks and use this data to improve internal processes and develop knowledge base articles for future reference. 

Every output from your speech analytics can reveal positive and negative feedback within conversations. Use this to understand customer pain points and areas of satisfaction to improve overall service.

Using speech analytics, you can introduce proactive call center coaching after the fact. This means you can highlight areas where agents frequently struggle. This data can identify training areas and customer needs, allowing you to proactively coach agents before they encounter those situations on live calls. 

If you run an omnichannel contact center using email, web chat, SMS, social media, etc., you can extend the power of speech analytics to text-based conversations. This is often one of the biggest reasons businesses choose a contact center versus a call center.

Call Center	Contact Center
Voice calls only	Voice plus email, live chat, social media, and video
Call reports only	Multichannel analytics
Speech analytics only	Extends speech analytics to text-based conversations in web chat, SMS, social media, etc.
Disjointed customer experience	Connected customer experience
Lacks future expansion capabilities	Able to connect to future media channels

Make Better Decisions With Nextiva

When you move from merely collecting data to using data, your business can start digging deeply into areas that excite and frustrate your customers. With speech analytics, you can turn countless hours of call recordings into actionable insights.

Be it for something as simple as changing the order of your IVR menu or as far as a total overhaul of your customer journey mapping, lean on the data collected in every customer call.

On the surface, it seems like you’re creating a better customer experience, which is true. But what you’re actually doing is optimizing agent performance and impacting your bottom line as well.

With the side benefit of creating a database for continuous training and compliance derisking, it’s hard to ignore what speech analytics can do for your business.

You’ve got all this data anyway. Why not make use of it?

If you were to describe customer service in a few words, you’d be right to call it “the first point of customer interaction.”

But as a call center operator, although every call is an opportunity to assist, it also exposes you to potential risks.

Imagine this: Amid a buzz of daily calls and navigating different applications, you’re one spreadsheet or document away from exposing sensitive information — or worse, introducing vulnerabilities. While important to your work, tools like Google Sheets and Docs can become gateways for security breaches if not properly managed.

In this guide, we’ve compiled a list of best practices that call center operators should implement to enhance their security posture.

The Rising Security Concerns in Call Centers

Increased fraud attempts

Call centers, especially those in the financial sector or that offer other forms of financial services, are facing a surge in fraudulent activities.

This is because hackers view your bank’s contact center as a goldmine of information. In fact, the Contact Center Fraud and Security Survey by Pindrop reveals a concerning uptick trend in fraud attempts targeting call centers.

A recent TransUnion survey shed light on this issue, revealing that a staggering 90% of financial industry respondents have observed an increase in fraud attacks on call centers, with some noting that attacks have risen by more than 80% over 2022.

For the most part, these fraud attempts have a single aim — to initiate an account takeover (ATO). To do this, they leverage tactics like social engineering and spoofed phone numbers to deceive call center staff and gain unauthorized access to sensitive information and accounts.

A typical example of this is the case of a fake call center where fraudsters had access to a database containing the personal and financial information of about 500,000 US citizens. With this information, they were able to establish trust and convince their targets of the legitimacy of their fraudulent activities.

💡What is an ATO? An ATO occurs when a cybercriminal gains unauthorized access to a person’s online account, whether their a bank account, email, social media, or any other type of online account.

Data security breaches

It’s not news that call centers handle a significant amount of personally identifiable information (PII), making them prime targets for data breaches.

A notable example of this occurred with Discord, a messaging and video chatting platform. Discord reported that a malicious actor gained access to its systems via a third-party customer service agent, exposing users’ email addresses, customer service queries, and documents sent to Discord.

While Discord provided no further information to determine whether this was an internal or external attack, it did report that the account was now locked.

Meanwhile, it’s important to note that data breaches can occur for several reasons, such as outdated systems, human error, or malicious attacks, all of which can cause reputational damage, regulatory fines, and even lawsuits.

For example, over the last year, the following companies have been on the receiving end of data breaches:

• Fortra’s GoAnywhere: Hackers exploited a zero-day vulnerability in Fortra’s GoAnywhere managed file-transfer software early last year, affecting over 130 companies.
• Software-based phone system 3CX: Hackers targeted 3CX using a supply chain attack to embed malware in software distributed to its clients and end-users.
• MOVEit Transfer: Hackers accessed the personal data of almost 84 million individuals across more than 2,600 victim organizations, making this breach stand out as one of the most significant last year.

What is PII? PII refers to any data that could be used to identify a specific individual. Examples of PII include, but are not limited to:

• Name (full name, maiden name, mother’s maiden name, etc.)
• Home address
• Email address (if it includes the individual’s name)
• Social security number
• Passport number
• Driver’s license number
• Telephone number
• Credit card number
• Date of birth

Insider threats

Insider threats within organizations pose significant security risks, whether from disgruntled or careless employees. These threats can lead to accidental data leaks, unauthorized access, or even the intentional theft of information, with severe consequences for the organizations involved.

A recent report notes an increase in these incidents, with 74% of organizations acknowledging vulnerability to insider threats.

Compliance issues

Failing to comply with data privacy regulations like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) or General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) can lead to hefty fines and penalties, further impacting an organization’s finances and reputation.

We can see this in the case of Dish Network’s $280 million fine for violating the FTC’s Do Not Call Registry.

Costs and Damages of Unsecured Call Centers

Financial losses

Unsecured call centers can lead to substantial financial losses for organizations, primarily due to data breaches, fraud, and compliance violations.

These incidents can result in costs of various forms, including direct fines and settlements as well as indirect remediation expenses required to address the aftermath of a security incident.

Here are a few examples of such costs:

• GDPR fines: Under the GDPR, companies face significant fines for failing to protect consumer data. For instance, in 2023, Meta was fined €1.2 billion by the Irish Data Protection Commission for inadequately protecting European users’ personal data during transfers to the US.
• HIPAA violations: In the healthcare sector, compliance with HIPAA requirements is crucial. Violations can lead to hefty fines, as we’ve seen with the settlement of $4,750,000 that Montefiore Medical Center agreed to in 2024 for failing to conduct a comprehensive risk analysis, among other compliance issues.

Reputational damage

A single security incident can tarnish a brand’s reputation, which most likely took years to build. News of a data breach or fraud can spread quickly, especially with social media, leading to negative publicity for a brand.

Even worse, a damaged reputation can have lasting effects on customer perceptions, potentially leading to a decline in brand loyalty and customer churn. In support of this claim, reports from Delinea show that 31% of consumers stop using a product after a data breach.

The financial services company Capital One had a data breach incident that involved 100 million of its customers in the US and Canada. The immediate financial repercussions were estimated to be between $100 and $150 million to cover customer notifications, credit monitoring, technology costs, and legal support. However, beyond the tangible costs, the breach inflicted substantial reputational damage, evidenced by a 6% slide in Capital One’s share price following the breach announcement.

Operational disruption

Once a call center detects a security breach, it conducts an intensive investigation to determine its scope and impact.

This process often requires taking certain systems offline, limiting access to essential data, or even halting operations entirely to contain the incident. While necessary for security reasons, such actions can severely impact call center productivity, leading to longer wait times for customers and a backlog of service requests — all of which affect customer experience.

Best Practices for Securing Your Call Center

Data security

The sensitive nature of the data handled, ranging from personal information to payment details, puts several call centers at risk of constantly being targeted for cyber-attacks.

To mitigate these risks, adopting a comprehensive approach to data security is vital. This involves implementing several layers of security measures to protect both the information and infrastructure of the call center.

Implement data encryption

Data encryption is a fundamental security measure that encodes information, making it accessible only to individuals with the decryption key. For call centers, encrypting data both at rest (stored data) and in transit (data being transferred) should be a priority.

• At rest: Encrypting data at rest protects it against unauthorized access by ensuring that, even if data storage is compromised, the information remains in an unreadable format without the proper encryption keys. Techniques include disk encryption and database encryption.
• In transit: Encrypting data in transit safeguards it as it moves across networks — be it between internal systems or over the internet.

Enforce data access controls

Data access control simply means selectively restricting an employee’s access to data. It is a critical element in protecting sensitive information from unauthorized access and breaches.

To enforce data access control, implement the following:

• Principle of least privilege: This principle involves granting employees access only to the information and resources absolutely necessary for their job functions. This minimizes the risk of accidental or malicious data breaches.
• Role-based access control (RBAC): Implementing RBAC streamlines user permissions management. With this, you assign users roles based on their job requirements, and each role is granted specific access rights. This way, employees can access only what they need.

💡Pro Tip: Conduct regular audits of access controls to ensure that permissions are up to date and align with current job titles and responsibilities. This helps identify discrepancies or unnecessary access privileges that need to be revoked.

Backup data regularly

Data backups are a safety net in the event of data loss or corruption, whether from cyber-attacks, system failures, or human error. Regular and systematic backups ensure that call center operations can resume quickly with minimal loss of data.

• Backup frequency: The frequency with which data is backed up should align with the call center’s data update rate. For highly dynamic environments, daily or even real-time backups may be necessary.
• Offsite storage: Storing backups in a location separate from the primary data center adds an additional layer of security. In the event of a physical disaster, data remains safe and recoverable.

Network security

Securing your call center’s network involves taking several measures to prevent unauthorized or malicious access (both internal and external).

To do this, you combine multiple layers of security defenses at the edge and in the network. Each network security layer implements policies and controls. Authorized users gain access to network resources, but malicious actors are blocked from carrying out their exploits.

Segment your network

Network segmentation involves dividing a larger network into smaller, distinct subnetworks or segments. This practice is important for call centers for several reasons, including:

• Reduced attack surface: By separating the call center network from the rest of the organization’s networks, you limit the potential spread of malicious activities. If one segment is compromised, segmentation can help contain the breach, preventing it from proliferating across your entire network.
• Improved performance: By isolating the call center traffic, you can ensure that critical communications are prioritized and uninterrupted. Segmentation can also improve network performance by reducing congestion.
• Enhanced monitoring and control: By segmenting networks, more granular monitoring and control over traffic is possible. This enables you to more quickly identify and mitigate suspicious activities.

💡Pro tip: Implementing protocols such as Transport Layer Security ensures that data exchanged between clients and your call center is safe from eavesdropping or interception.

Implement firewalls and intrusion detection systems

Firewalls and intrusion detection systems (IDS) are essential tools to have in your network security toolbox. They serve as the first line of defense against potential cyber threats.

• Firewalls: These act as a barrier between your secure internal network and untrusted external networks, such as the internet. A firewall can be software-based, hardware-based, or both, and it works by filtering incoming and outgoing network traffic based on an organization’s security policies.
• IDS: IDSs monitor network traffic for suspicious activities and potential threats. They can detect malicious activities like security policy violations, malware, and unauthorized system access. They then alert network administrators to suspicious patterns, enabling them to act immediately against potential threats.

Keep software up to date

Software vulnerabilities are a common entry point for cyber threats. Maintaining the latest versions of all software, including operating systems, applications, and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) systems, is critical to securing your call center’s network.

• Regular updates and patches: Developers frequently release software updates and patches to address vulnerabilities and enhance security features. Regularly applying these updates ensures that your systems are protected against known vulnerabilities.
• Automated patch management: Considering the amount of software that call centers may use, implementing automated patch management tools can help streamline the process of updating software across all systems within the call center, ensuring the timely application of critical security patches.

User security

This aspect of security focuses on safeguarding user identities, credentials, and data from unauthorized access, theft, and misuse.

It involves a combination of enforcing strong authentication measures, educating users about security risks, and monitoring activities to prevent or respond to security incidents.

Here’s a closer look at how call centers can implement effective user security measures:

Enforce strong password policies

The first line of defense in user security is often the strength and management of passwords. Implementing and enforcing strong password policies can significantly reduce the risk of unauthorized access.

• Strong password creation: Require users to create passwords that are complex and difficult to guess. This typically means that passwords should have a minimum length and include numbers, symbols, and a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters.
• Regular password changes: Encourage or mandate regular password updates, such as every 60 or 90 days, to limit the risk of compromised passwords being used to gain unauthorized access.
• Multi-factor authentication (MFA): MFA adds an additional layer of security by requiring users to provide two or more verification factors to access their accounts. This can include what they know (password), what they have (a security token or a smartphone app), or what they are (biometrics).
• Single sign-on (SSO): SSO allows users to log in once and gain access to multiple systems without being prompted to log in again. SSO can simplify the user experience while maintaining high-security standards, especially when combined with MFA.

Educate employees on security best practices

Human error remains one of the largest vulnerabilities in cybersecurity.

Verizon’s 2023 Data Breach Investigations Report found that the human element was involved in about three-quarters of all analyzed breaches.

Tech Xplore further supports this by stating that more than 90% of cyberattacks are made possible by human error, highlighting the critical need for user education. Educating call center agents and other employees on security best practices is the best approach to mitigating this risk.

• Regular training: Conduct regular training sessions to keep employees informed about the latest security threats and best practices. This includes identifying phishing attempts, managing sensitive customer data, and understanding the importance of security policies. 
• Social engineering awareness: Train employees to recognize social engineering attacks, such as phishing or pretexting, that manipulate individuals into breaking normal security procedures.
• Simulated attacks: Consider conducting simulated phishing exercises to test employees’ vigilance and provide practical learning opportunities based on their responses.

Monitor user activity

Continuous monitoring of user activity within your systems can help quickly identify and mitigate suspicious behavior, potentially preventing a security breach.

• Automated monitoring tools: Implement tools that automatically log and analyze user activities, flagging actions that deviate from normal patterns.
• Anomaly detection: Use anomaly detection systems to identify unusual actions, such as accessing high volumes of data or attempting to access restricted areas, which could indicate a security threat.
• Incident-response plan: Have a clear incident-response plan in place so that if suspicious activity is detected, your team can act swiftly to investigate and prevent any potential damage.

💡Pro Tip: Nextiva offers the most flexible and scalable enterprise-grade contact center solution.

Compliance

Compliance in the context of call center operations refers to meeting legal and regulatory standards for data privacy and security. These standards vary by region and industry but share the common goal of protecting consumer information and ensuring ethical business practices.

Identify relevant data privacy regulations

Data privacy regulations are designed to protect personal information but vary significantly across jurisdictions and sectors. Understanding and complying with these regulations is fundamental to operating a call center legally and ethically.

• HIPAA: HIPAA sets the standard for protecting sensitive patient data in the US. Any call center handling healthcare information must ensure HIPAA compliance.
• GDPR: The GDPR is a regulation in the European Union (EU) law on data protection and privacy that covers the EU and the European Economic Area (EEA). It also addresses the transfer of personal data outside the EU and EEA areas. Call centers handling data of EU citizens, regardless of the call center’s location, need to comply with GDPR.
• Other regulations: Other regulations, like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), might also apply, depending on the geographical location and the nature of the data being handled.

What’s PCI DSS? PCI DSS is a set of security standards designed to ensure that all companies that accept, process, store, or transmit credit card information maintain a secure environment. 

Implement data breach response procedures

A data breach can have significant legal, financial, and reputational consequences. Having a response plan in place helps minimize the impact of a breach.

• Incident response plan: This plan should outline the steps to take immediately after discovering a breach, including containing it, assessing its impact, and beginning the recovery process.
• Notification procedures: Regulations like the GDPR and HIPAA have strict notification requirements. Your plan should include protocols for notifying regulatory authorities and affected individuals within the required timelines.
• Continuous improvement: A post-breach analysis should be conducted after a breach is addressed to identify what went wrong and how similar incidents can be prevented in the future. Use the following insights to strengthen your security posture.

Regularly review and update your security policies and procedures

Regular reviews of your security policies and compliance procedures ensure they remain effective and aligned with current laws.

• Scheduled reviews: Establish a regular schedule for reviewing and updating security policies, procedures, and compliance measures. This could be annually or more frequently, depending on the nature of the data you handle and the regulatory environment.
• Stay informed: Be aware of changes in data protection laws and cybersecurity trends. Regulatory bodies often provide updates and guidance that can help you remain compliant.
• Security awareness and training: Ensure that all employees, especially those who handle sensitive customer information, are regularly trained on the latest compliance requirements and security best practices.

Open-Source Call Center vs. Choosing an Enterprise Call Center Provider

When it comes to managing customer interactions, businesses face a tough decision: whether to use a free, open-source call center platform or an enterprise call center provider. This choice carries significant implications for security, cost, compliance, and operational complexity.

Risks of a DIY call center software

Weaker security posture

Building and operating your own call center means taking on the responsibility of securing the platform. This is a daunting task that requires specialized knowledge and constant vigilance. 

Enterprise call center providers, on the other hand, typically have dedicated security teams whose sole focus is to protect the platform and its data. These teams are equipped with the expertise and tools needed to prevent and stop cyber threats, monitor for suspicious activities, and implement best practices in cybersecurity.

Without this level of expertise, your self-managed call center might be more susceptible to breaches and cyber attacks, potentially compromising customer trust and data.

Increased technical complexity

Integrating security solutions in-house so that they work seamlessly together is a complex process. Each additional solution or layer of security can introduce new vulnerabilities, especially if they’re not properly configured or maintained. This complexity increases the risk of security loopholes, making the system harder to manage.

Compliance hassles

This is perhaps the biggest challenge. Data privacy regulations like the GDPR, HIPAA, and CCPA impose strict rules on how customer data should be handled and protected.

Ensuring compliance with these and other regulations is a huge responsibility when operating your own call center. This involves continuous monitoring, reporting, and updating practices to align with legal requirements.

Meanwhile, enterprise call center providers often have dedicated compliance teams and standardized processes designed to meet these regulations, reducing the burden on your shoulders.

Unexpected maintenance burdens

The responsibility of updating, patching, and maintaining an open-source call center falls entirely on you.

This is a continuous effort that requires dedicated resources to ensure the system remains operational and secure. Failing to keep up with maintenance tasks can leave your system vulnerable to exploitation.

In contrast, an enterprise CCaaS provider manages these tasks on behalf of its clients, ensuring that the platform remains up-to-date and secure without additional effort from the client’s side.

Potentially higher cost

While the initial idea of building your own call center might seem cost-effective, the long-term financial implications are high.

For example, the costs associated with development, ongoing maintenance, security, and compliance can accumulate quickly, making it a less viable option for many businesses.

Furthermore, the hidden costs of potential data breaches or compliance violations can be huge. Enterprise call center providers spread these costs across their client base, often offering more predictable pricing models.

What does enterprise call center software offer?

Opting for an enterprise call center provider offers several benefits, including preventing many of the challenges associated with managing a call center in-house.

These platforms are designed with security, compliance, and operational efficiency in mind, offering a compelling case for businesses looking to streamline their customer service operations.

Here’s a closer look at the advantages of choosing an enterprise call center platform. 

Proven security infrastructure

Enterprise call center providers invest heavily in security infrastructure and expertise. They employ dedicated teams whose sole focus is to ensure the platform remains secure against emerging threats and vulnerabilities.

This specialization in security helps safeguard sensitive data and ensures that the platform adheres to the latest compliance standards.

The benefit here is twofold: robust protection against data breaches and a compliance-ready posture that shields your business from potential fines and legal complications.

Simplified management

Managing a call center operation involves coordinating multiple tasks and systems, from customer interaction channels to backend databases.

Enterprise call center platforms simplify this complexity by offering pre-integrated security features and tools designed for seamless operation. This integration reduces the time and effort required to manage the system, allowing businesses to focus on strategic operations rather than wasting time on technical details.

Compliance support

Data privacy regulations constantly evolve, posing a challenge for businesses to remain compliant.

Enterprise call center platforms provide built-in compliance support, helping businesses comply with regulations such as the GDPR and CCPA.

This support comprises everything from data handling and storage practices to consent management and data subject rights fulfillment. Leveraging the provider’s expertise in these areas can help reduce the risk of compliance violations.

Reduced maintenance

The responsibility of maintaining the call center infrastructure, including the execution of updates and patches, lies with the provider.

This arrangement minimizes the maintenance workload for businesses, ensuring the platform remains up-to-date with the latest security measures and feature enhancements without requiring direct intervention.

It also eliminates the need for a dedicated in-house team to manage these tasks, freeing up resources for other critical business functions.

Lower operating costs

While the upfront costs of an enterprise call center solution might seem high, it can be more cost-effective in the long run.

This cost efficiency comes from the reduced need for in-house development, maintenance, and security management. Whether you opt for on-premises servers or private clouds, you won’t need to build or secure them.

Moreover, by outsourcing these complex and resource-intensive tasks, businesses can avoid the indirect costs associated with security breaches and compliance violations, making it a prudent decision.

Nextiva: An Enterprise Call Center You Can Trust

Nextiva provides an enterprise contact center platform built to fit your business with three core offerings:

Enterprise phone service

Nextiva’s enterprise VoIP phone system comes loaded with advanced features, such as auto-attendant, call forwarding, voicemail, and conference calling, and seamlessly integrates with popular business applications, making it easy to consolidate all business communications in one place.

Nextiva employs robust security measures and monitors its networks 24/7 to protect against unauthorized access and data breaches. This active monitoring also contributes to its resilient 99.999% network uptime, made possible by Nextiva’s redundant data centers.

Not ready for UCaaS? Enterprise-grade SIP trunking from Nextiva provides call recording and toll-free and local phone numbers and ensures compatibility with on-premises or cloud-based PBXs. See all features.

Cloud call center solution

Nextiva’s cloud call center empowers your team to make and receive a high volume of calls with the right degree of control that supervisors want. It also doesn’t require any third-party hosting or technical staff to set up.

With its carrier-grade data centers and impressive uptime, you’ll never miss a beat with your customers. Nextiva built one of the world’s most reliable enterprise-ready voice networks.

Some of its call center features include:

• Interactive voice response (IVR): Send incoming calls to the right call center agents. Set up your IVR any way you want.
• Call recording: Record, pause, and listen to customer interactions at any time.
• Automatic call distribution: Distribute calls based on business hours, technical support level, IVR options, and more.
• VoIP phone numbers: Get local and toll-free numbers or port your existing phone numbers.
• Call routing: Manage customer interactions like a pro. Don’t let your customers repeat requests.
• Dashboards and reporting. Get access to 40+ advanced features and reports to measure your VoIP call center efficiency. 

Enterprise SIP trunking

Nextiva offers you PBX with SIP trunking. You also get carrier-grade PSTN connectivity with easy setup and no code required.

Features include:

• Online management: Manage your credentials, direct-dial numbers, and more from a web-based admin portal. Goodbye, terminal.
• Fraud mitigation: Thwart abuse and fraud in a few clicks. Nextiva will let you know if we see unusual call activity.
• Enhanced 911 (E911): Ensure users are safe with turnkey E911 functionality. Supports physical location for public safety operators.

Automatic failover: Direct calls to another destination with cloud connectivity. If your PBX goes offline, no problem. 

• Detailed call records: Research call detail records. Administrators can view CDRs securely and in minutes.
• Rapid setup: Deploy the same day without any coding with ready-to-use SIP trunks.

Why enterprise businesses love Nextiva

• Proven reliability: Each data center is equipped with uninterruptible power sources with 99.999% uptime and zero reported outages in 2019 and 2020. 
• Highly scalable: Scaling any part of your business phone system is easy. Add phone numbers, new users, or entire new locations from your admin web portal.
• Easy to deploy: Installation is often as easy as configuring your account from a web portal, plugging desk phone hardware into the internet, and downloading the mobile app.
• Award-winning support: Rated #1 on Gartner, Frost & Sullivan, G2, and GetVoIP, Nextiva is also a Stevie® Award winner for Sales & Customer Service.
• Rapid expert training: Our trainers can provide on-premises, 1:1, or remote training with webinars to help you get the most out of your unified communications solution.

Imagine you’ve put in weeks of work to get a new customer on board. You’ve walked them through your product, tailored the pricing plan to their budget, and checked in to make sure they’re happy.

Two months down the line, you get the notification: they’ve closed their account.

Now, you’re back to square one, sourcing new leads and working hard to move them through the sales cycle.

This is where customer retention management comes in. It helps you create long-lasting relationships with each customer, keeping them loyal to your brand.

Your contact center agents are the key to accomplishing that. They’re the ones talking to customers day in and day out, figuring out what they need, and putting out fires.

Here, you’ll learn more about customer retention management and its benefits — with seven strategies to leverage your contact center solution to nurture vital customer relationships, ensuring they stick around for the long haul.

What Is Customer Retention Management? 

Customer retention management is the set of processes and strategies you implement to keep your existing customers happy and loyal to your brand. The ultimate goal of any customer retention program is to increase customer engagement, reduce customer churn, and support a healthy bottom line.

Key functions of customer retention management

• Prioritizing existing customer relationships as highly as attracting new ones
• Delivering value at every stage of the customer journey, from the first time they hear about your offering to after they’ve made a purchase and need support
• Engaging customers actively through multiple channels — like your contact center, social media, and email — to understand and meet their needs
• Maintaining positive relationships through efforts like timely customer service, personalized interactions, and high-quality products or services
• Asking for, listening to, and acting on customer feedback consistently to make your products and services, including the overall customer experience (CX), even better

Why You Should Prioritize Customer Retention Management

Keeping your customer retention rate up can significantly increase the customer lifetime value (CLV), reduce the cost of acquiring new ones, and enhance the overall experience and satisfaction of your customer base.

Let’s look at what makes customer retention important in more detail.

1. Increased CLV

CLV represents the total amount you expect a customer to spend on your products or services over their entire relationship with your business.

Your current customers already trust and value your company, so they’re more likely to make repeat purchases and recommend your brand to others, increasing their CLV.

A recent study out of UC Berkeley found an exponential relationship between customer retention rates and CLV.

Basically, the longer your customers stay with you, the more value they bring to your business. This value rises at an increasing rate.

2. Reduced customer acquisition costs

Your customer acquisition costs (CAC) are the amount of money you spend to get a new customer.

This includes expenses like advertising, engaging potential customers through your contact center, and conducting direct sales outreach.

When your current customer base is happy and stays with your company longer, you don’t need to spend as much on customer acquisition. Plus, satisfied customers tend to recommend your business to people they know. These referrals help you get new customers without having to spend a dollar on marketing or sales to acquire them.

3. More opportunities for upselling & cross-selling

Upselling is when you encourage a customer to buy a more expensive version of a product they’re already interested in.

Here’s an example of upselling from Dollar Shave Club:

Cross-selling, on the other hand, means suggesting related products or services that complement what the customer is buying.

Here’s an example of cross-selling from Galaxus:

Loyal customers who already like what you offer and have had a positive experience with you are more willing to check out new products and services and expand their relationship with you.

Imagine you’re a customer success manager at an online shop specializing in photography equipment. You’re collaborating with the sales department to identify people who’d be open to buying the new camera lens you’ve just started offering.

You have two options:

Kevin	Eve
Kevin is a loyal customer who’s bought equipment and camera accessories from your store five times in the last year. He reads most of your newsletters and recently praised your customer support in a survey.	Eve knows of your brand but hasn’t bought anything yet. She’s hesitant, doubting whether your products are worth the investment or will significantly improve her photography.

Which of these two customers is more likely to buy your new, premium camera lens? Kevin, with his loyalty and firsthand experience of your product quality, or Eve, a potential but uncertain customer?

Kevin, right?

4. Better understanding of customer needs

Through your customer retention efforts, you’re constantly in touch with your customers.

This close contact lets you see what works for them and what doesn’t. Understanding their needs and pain points helps you make smarter choices about your products or services.

It takes the guesswork out of product development and service enhancements so you’re using real feedback to make things they’ll love.

This makes your offering customer-first, which can boost your revenue and overall user experience.

5. Improved CX

To retain your current customers, you need to maintain high standards of quality and service.

This includes:

• Offering personalized experiences, like using customers’ names in communications, remembering their preferences and purchase history, and making tailored product recommendations
• Ensuring first-call resolution and solving customer issues in a single interaction
• Following up regularly post-service to ensure customers are happy with their purchase
• Implementing loyalty programs to show appreciation for their continued business

As you focus on nurturing your current user base, you’ll naturally create a better CX for them, turning one-time buyers into long-term fans.

Remember, great customer service is the reason 88% of customers stay with a brand.

It also boosts word of mouth, making three out of four people more likely to recommend a company to others.

Seven Strategies for Managing Customer Retention in Your Contact Center

Here are seven customer retention strategies to help you hang on to your best customers:

1. Create personalized CX
2. Offer proactive customer service
3. Train reps to resolve issues quickly
4. Offer omnichannel support
5. Create a customer feedback loop
6. Empower your agents
7. Choose the right contact center platform

1. Create personalized CX

Offering your customers personalized experiences helps make them feel understood and valued by your company.

It also makes it easier to exceed customer expectations, making them more likely to keep coming back.

A 2021 Segment study revealed that surveyed customers are 60% more likely to become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience — a 16% increase from 2017.

This number is expected to rise. According to Salesforce, 73% of customers expect better customization as technology advances.

One way to achieve this is by tailoring interactions based on customer history, preferences, and feedback, but remember to always keep it in balance.

“Be transparent about how the customer data was gathered. Using the customer’s name or referring to their recent order is usually a good way to personalize their experience. But personalizations can go from relevant to creepy when the customer notices that the personalized recommendations or offers are based on information they didn’t willingly disclose to the company.”

~ Edita Vaskeviciute, Director of Customer Support at Omnisend

Let’s say you have a customer who gave feedback about needing more detailed tutorials for your product. You can use this data to make each interaction feel personal and relevant.

For example, the next time they reach out, you can acknowledge their feedback and provide links to step-by-step guides or offer a one-on-one walk-through session, specifically addressing the areas they found challenging.

You can use a CRM or CX platform to help you keep track of this information.

Pro tip: Nextiva’s Customer Experience tool unifies all your customer communications and gives your reps a clear view of each prospect and customer’s sentiment and history.

The next time a customer contacts you, your reps can instantly access their previous concerns and preferences, allowing for a more informed and personalized conversation.

2. Offer proactive customer service

Offering proactive customer service means identifying and responding to an issue before the customer even reaches out.

This approach shows customers that you’re attentive and committed to their satisfaction, which can build trust and reduce churn rate.

According to Gartner, it can even result in a full point increase in a company Net Promoter Score — a call center metric measuring how likely customers are to recommend your business to others.

Consider using customer data analytics to anticipate potential issues or trends.

For example, if data suggests new users find your software’s setup process complex, send out easy-to-follow guides and tutorials during onboarding.

You can also set up FAQs, knowledge bases, and AI chatbots. These resources can often resolve smaller issues before they escalate. And since they don’t require agent intervention, they free up your people’s time.

Finally, “using automation can also be very helpful,” says Edita, “especially in sending proactive notifications [and checking in] about order status updates, relevant recommendations, service errors, planned maintenance, delays, and similar issues.”

3. Train reps to resolve issues quickly

According to a HubSpot study, 60% of survey participants rank a rep’s quick response and ability to resolve issues as the top reason they keep making repeat purchases.

Consider training your agents to aim for first-call resolution. This means teaching them to solve a customer’s issue in just one interaction.

You can do this by:

• Investing in training programs that focus on both product knowledge and problem-solving skills, like using real case studies and recordings from past customer interactions to teach your agents the best ways to handle similar situations
• Giving reps the tools they need to solve problems quickly and reduce average handle time, like comprehensive guides, clear decision-making rules, and better access to experts for tricky situations
• Monitoring common pain points to identify root causes of frequent calls so reps can prepare a list of solutions in advance
• Setting up role-play exercises where reps can practice tackling these issues in a low-risk environment — consider pairing more experienced reps with junior ones so they can pass on first-hand experience and share their best customer service tips

4. Offer omnichannel support

Omnichannel customer support means connecting with your customers wherever they are, whether through phone calls, social media, email, or live chat.

This allows you to offer customers seamless, high-quality support through all channels.

It ensures that they always have a consistent and reliable way to reach you, improving customer satisfaction experience and building their loyalty to your brand.

Ideally, consider linking all channels to one support tool. This way, switching between channels is smoother for your team, and your customers don’t have to repeat the same information.

“If channels are supported separately,” says Edita, “ensure consistent branding and messaging across all platforms. [You can do this] by assigning a dedicated support agent or team to manage this aspect, or by collaborating closely with the responsible team.”

5. Create a customer feedback loop

Creating a customer feedback loop means regularly asking for and listening to what your customers have to say about their experiences.

Using this insight to make improvements to your products or services ensures you’ll continually evolve based on what your customers tell you they want.

You can gather customer feedback through touchpoints like:

• Surveys
• Emails
• Feedback forms
• Direct interviews with individual customers or focus groups
• Social media channels
• Community forums
• A dedicated space on your website for ad-hoc feedback

The exact method you use for collecting feedback depends on the nature of your work, your customers, and the kind of information you’re looking for.

“We have our contact center folks call every client a day or two after [the arborist’s visit] to ask for feedback. This ensures a good feedback loop cycle and closes each project on a good note.”

~ Kaustubh Deo, President at Blooma Tree Experts

This team found that following up through their call center yielded the best results. Your customers, on the other hand, might prefer short surveys embedded on your website or to just leave comments under your social media posts.

Whatever method you choose, make sure to let customers know that you’ve heard their feedback and are working on addressing their concerns or implementing their suggestions. This can boost their loyalty and encourage them to become repeat customers.

6. Empower your agents

According to a CallMiner survey, one in four customers decide to switch service providers because the call center advisers they interact with are inexperienced or lack the necessary knowledge to help them.

Slightly more than one in four (26.9%) people decide to switch because agents fail to respond to their problems quickly enough.

But agents that have the skills and authority to make on-the-spot decisions can solve problems more quickly and confidently, helping reduce turnover and improve satisfaction.

These decisions could include offering a discount after a shipping delay, waiving a fee, or upgrading a service.

Here are some tips to do this:

• Provide comprehensive, ongoing training, like workshops or online courses so your reps can keep improving their skills and feel more confident in their roles
• Encourage a culture of ownership so your support team members feel like they contribute to improving customer satisfaction
• Help your agents understand their customers better by giving them access to detailed customer profiles, including past purchases, preferences, and previous feedback or issues

Pro tip: Nextiva’s Call Pop instantly shows your reps a breakdown of the caller’s most important information before they pick up the phone so your people can provide better, more personalized service.

7. Choose the right contact center platform

The right contact center software brings all your customer communications together, making it easier for your reps to get a clear picture of each customer’s history and preferences.

This insight helps them anticipate potential problems and tailor their approach to each individual.

Plus, the more detailed customer information they have, the more they can personalize their service and build genuine customer relationships, increasing the number of customers you retain over time.

Retaining Your Customers Is Easier With Nextiva

Customer retention management helps you boost customer loyalty, increase CLV, reduce CAC, and provide a better CX. It also helps keep your revenue steady, as keeping your current customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones.

Of course, with constantly changing customer expectations and insufficient resources, maintaining high retention rates can be hard. Contact center platforms like Nextiva can make it easier for your agents.

Here’s what you get when you choose our AI-powered contact center solution:

• A unified communications dashboard so everything you need is in one place, letting you manage customer interactions more easily
• Call recordings for ongoing coaching
• Automatic call distribution functionalities to automatically direct calls to the best agent for the job
• Call analytics to view data points like talk time and abandoned calls and know where to improve
• Customer satisfaction surveys at any stage of the customer journey so you can understand their needs and sentiments in real time and keep stepping up your game

You’re at a restaurant where each server interacts with customers differently. One shouts orders across the room, another takes them tableside, and another does everything on a mobile app. Line cooks must constantly switch between communication channels to ensure that the dishes leaving the kitchen meet diners’ expectations.

Confusing and inefficient, right? 

This chaotic system is what it feels like when businesses don’t use a customer engagement platform (CEP). Fragmented communication channels silo customer data and create inconsistent customer experiences (CX) that tank satisfaction scores.

So, let’s explore the features and benefits of bundling your customer communication into a single platform designed for engagement.

What Is a Customer Engagement Platform?

A customer engagement platform is a unified software solution that empowers businesses to enable, manage, personalize, and track customer interactions across communication channels.

This comprehensive tool acts like a command center for support, sales, and marketing teams. It integrates the capabilities of a customer relationship management (CRM) platform, help desk, contact center, and more to meet customer expectations.

Customer engagement software unifies customer interactions across touchpoints, providing seamless, personalized customer experiences that foster loyalty, streamline support, and drive business growth.

Today, consumers want to talk to brands on their channel of choice and at a time that suits them. Providing consistently engaging customer experiences across channels and touchpoints is the foundation of a unified customer experience. 

Email

Email marketing boasts a staggering 4,200% ROI — and when a company personalizes emails, this can increase open rates by 26% and revenue by up to 760%, according to Campaign Monitor:

CEPs equip your team to craft targeted, personalized email campaigns based on preferences in your CRM tools and customer behaviors across channels.

For example, a customer follows your e-commerce brand on social media. Using a CEP, you can email a promo code when an item they’ve “liked” goes on sale. In this way, you maximize engagement and drive conversions in one go.

Social media

Customers are on social media (a lot), and 90% of users follow at least one brand. A CEP facilitates social media listening, letting you engage directly with customers on their chosen platforms and provide real-time support from the same dashboard.

These perks help your team build an active, engaged community, foster brand loyalty, and breed brand advocacy.

SMS and messaging apps

In 2024, 79% of consumers opted to receive texts from businesses — an 11% surge from 2023. With 81% of consumers checking their SMS notifications within five minutes of receiving a text, this channel boasts the highest open rates.

A CEP allows your team to leverage SMS and messaging apps (WhatsApp, Twilio, etc.) for direct, immediate customer communications: think urgent updates, appointment reminders, delivery notifications, password reset requests, and more. Plus, you can manage and automate these conversations in one central location in the cloud.

Web chat and chatbots

Real-time assistance is mandatory for customer satisfaction, yet most brands can’t hire reps for 24/7 support. That’s why AI is estimated to drive 95% of customer interactions by 2025, per stats compiled by Gitnux.

These tools offer real-time customer support on your website, answering FAQs, directing customers to your self-service knowledge base, or deflecting simple inquiries to free up your human agents for complex issues. 

Mobile apps

Mobile apps are a cornerstone of customer engagement. A CEP that integrates with yours can amplify the ROI of push notifications for personalized promotions, in-app messaging for targeted support, loyalty programs to drive customer engagement, and more.

Key Capabilities of a CEP

The best CEPs offer a comprehensive suite of functionalities and integrations. These equip your team to deliver exceptional customer experiences that elevate your entire customer engagement strategy. 

Omnichannel support

In a multichannel ecosystem, your brand engages with customers and provides support through multiple channels (phone, email, social media, etc.). However, these channels operate independently, leaving your teams in the dark about what transpires in each silo.

Omnichannel customer service and support unify and integrate the customer journey so that every interaction, regardless of the chosen device or communication channel, feels like a seamless continuation of the previous one. 

This means a support agent can access a customer’s help tickets, transcripts from prior phone calls, social media messages, purchase history, and more. They never have to ask customers to start over or repeat information. 

This holistic data informs more empathic, engaging conversations and drives faster resolutions. More meaningful, personal customer interactions are gold for your business, considering that:

• Nearly 60% of consumers have higher customer expectations for service and support than they had a year ago.
• Almost two-thirds think the most important thing a company can do to provide a good customer experience is value their time.
• And 76% will stop doing business with a company if they have just one bad experience.

Customer data platform

Data is king. In unified customer experience management, the more first-party data your business collects from your CRM software and other channels, the more relevant and personalized your customer engagement strategies.

CEPs integrate customer data platforms to provide a centralized data source. Everything from your customers’ demographics and purchases to their website behaviors and chatbot transcripts creates a holistic customer profile.

This 360-degree view empowers your team to understand your customers on a deeper level, personalize customer communications, anticipate customer needs, target marketing campaigns more effectively, build lasting customer loyalty, and more.

Personalization

McKinsey research reveals that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen:

That’s why Segment reports that 69% of businesses are increasing their personalization spending in 2024:

Leveraging a CEP gives your team a unified customer view to better understand each customer as an individual. You can send personalized push notifications for new product recommendations, discount codes via SMS on their birthday, etc.

Personal touches that land at the perfect time in the customer journey actually work:

• 49% of buyers have made impulse purchases after receiving a personalized experience.
• 76% of consumers say personalization makes them more likely to purchase and 78% say it makes them more likely to repurchase.
• 68% of companies say their personalization efforts have exceeded targets.

Automation and AI

Over 90% of companies now use AI to unlock deeper customer insights and craft individualized experiences. Forget the next wave; it’s a tsunami!

Automation and AI are no longer buzzwords — they’re the driving force of modern businesses. These tools enable humans to get more done and play to their strengths.

• Productivity: Repetitive tasks bog down your team’s productivity. AI and automation tools can take tasks like sending welcome emails, appointment reminders, abandoned cart notifications, review requests, etc., off your team’s plate.
• Customer support: Chatbots and automated responses are a lifesaver for customer support teams:
  • Handle basic requests, freeing up your reps to build rapport with customers and focus on solving complex issues 
  • Intelligently route customers to the best agent for their needs to fast-track resolutions
  • Automate follow-ups with customers
• Customer engagement: Marketing automation can engage customers based on where they are in their journeys using data collection/interpretation, real-time predictions, and suggested actions.

These automations help you turn website visitors into email subscribers or send automatic surveys after customer interactions to gauge sentiments. Your team will see responses directly in the continuous conversation, know how the customer feels, and respond based on intelligent feedback.

Customer journey mapping

You can’t craft an exceptional customer experience without understanding the path your buyers take — from initial brand awareness to purchase and beyond. A CEP empowers your team to visualize and analyze customer interactions across all touchpoints in this journey.

This high-level overview and newfound clarity give your team the ability to:

• Pinpoint roadblocks: Identify areas for improvement and friction points that hinder progress in the customer lifecycle.
• Discover engagement opportunities: Uncover moments within the journey where you can proactively engage with customers to foster loyalty and advocacy.
• Craft targeted communication: Tailor your communication strategy to meet specific customer needs at every stage. Develop targeted messaging templates based on common product/service use cases, equipping your team to deliver exceptional service consistently across channels.

Related: How Restaurants Can Benefit From Call Center Software

Analytics and reporting

CEPs provide access to real-time customer engagement metrics. You can monitor customer behaviors, campaign performance, resolution times, and your team’s overall effectiveness. 

Use these insights to improve weaknesses, get ahead of issues, and optimize your engagement strategy to grow revenue and customer retention.

What Benefits Does a CEP Offer Companies?

A CEP supercharges your customer engagement strategy, driving the following measurable results.

Enhanced customer satisfaction

Customers crave a sense of connection — they want to feel seen, appreciated, and respected. So, imagine being able to anticipate customer needs before they even arise, resolve issues efficiently with real-time support, and nurture stronger relationships through personalized interactions. 

These perks lead to significantly improved customer satisfaction scores. That’s the power of a CEP in action!

Nextiva’s CX plug-in also clues your team into the moods of prospects and customers. Real-time alerts from conversations help you predict which customers require immediate attention, fostering a proactive approach to customer happiness.

Improved customer retention

An effective customer engagement solution enhances customer loyalty and reduces churn. Continuous personalized interactions and prompt issue resolutions build stronger customer relationships.

That may be why companies with strong omnichannel customer engagement strategies retain an average of 89% of their customers, compared to 33% for those with weak omnichannel strategies. While this data point is 10 years old, we can only speculate it’s even higher today. 

George Deglin from OneSignal says that increasing customer retention by just 5% can boost profits by up to 95%. All this translates to significantly lower customer acquisition costs for your business, increased customer lifetime value, and a higher, more predictable revenue stream.

Increased revenue

CEPs are money-printing machines.

First, they help your team provide targeted content and automate follow-ups to nurture leads and skyrocket conversion rates. Second, personalized product recommendations, relevant offers, and promotions drive repeat business and increase sales. Third, your loyal customer base becomes brand advocates, sharing positive reviews to expand your reach.

Stats show that companies with the strongest customer engagement strategies enjoy:

• 10% year-over-year growth
• 10% higher average order value
• 25% increase in conversions
• Up to 60% boost in revenue

Operational efficiency

A CEP consolidates customer data into a single platform, eliminating the need to manage multiple systems and reducing administrative burdens. 

It’s the ideal addition to your unified communications as a service solution, blending internet-based phone and messaging into a full-featured communications and engagement platform.

With AI-powered automations and workflows, your agents save time and resources while upgrading their productivity. They provide a higher quality of service and focus more on high-value interactions.

Your business also scores unmatched, budget-friendly scalability. Chatbots handle surges in customer inquiries, acting as a virtual extension of your support team, so you don’t need to increase headcount during peak hours. 

Data-driven decisions

The right customer engagement tools unlock valuable insights hidden across your communication channels. A CEP becomes a central hub for analyzing and translating this data into actionable strategies. This centralized approach allows you to measure the ROI of your customer interactions over time. 

You can see:

• Which channels resonate most with your audience
• Emerging customer behavior patterns and preferences
• Which marketing campaigns drive conversions
• How customer support impacts customer satisfaction scores

These insights equip your team to optimize strategies that maximize engagement with minimal risk.

Streamline Customer Engagement Channels With Nextiva

Customers expect seamless, personalized interactions across every touchpoint. A disjointed approach with isolated communication channels leads to frustration and missed opportunities.

CEPs unlock the highest levels of customer engagement and loyalty. This single, user-friendly dashboard connects your communication channels and provides a holistic view of your customers throughout their lifecycle.

Its benefits are not to be overlooked: increased agent productivity and stronger customer relationships that result in more revenue. 

Stop settling for a fragmented customer experience. Tap into the full potential of your customer interactions with Nextiva.

Related: How Social Media Customer Service Platforms Help Your Business