Why growing businesses need to look beyond Skype for their call center operations

Every growing business looks forward to choosing suitable supporting softwares to scale up different aspects of it’s business. And the same applies to selecting a call center solution too.

Skype being a straightforward and well known phone solution which has been around for a long time now, most businesses tend to opt for it without exploring other options. That got us wondering if for a long time now, all of us have been ignorant to some of the underrated but better Skype alternatives.

While going a bit deeper into researching on these lines and looking at possible alternatives to Skype extensively, we did come across some really good alternatives. And there was one call center software called Freshcaller, a product of the SaaS giant Freshworks that came by as an all inclusive alternative that’s feature heavy, cost-efficient and beyond all a no BS call center alternative.

We found that most small and medium sized businesses who had relied on Skype to handle all their inbound and outbound call center requirements could go on without any hiccups for an average of 1 to 2 years at the max. The real challenge came in only when as a company they started seeing a considerable increase in the number of customers and the hence a consequent increase in the size of their support team.

The basic features that Skype had, like their free Skype to Skype calls, group messaging, video chat, etc. did not suffice to manually handle the volume of calls that the business had to handle. There were growing instances of important calls being missed out and dwindling customer happiness and satisfaction. Skype might be a really easy to access and simple to use phone solution, but the real question was if it had the basic features to double up as a call center software. Honestly, the lack of some really fundamental functionalities like IVR, call routing, business hours and call barging amongst the many others that it’s short of is a reason strong enough to look beyond Skype if you as a business need to move to the next level.

And, just because all along most of us haven’t been looking enough, we were losing out on a lot of potential and productivity. Having some viable alternatives to Skype like Freshcaller, and not trying it out is nothing but lost opportunity to all growing businesses.

What makes Freshcaller all that better?

Freshcaller is an entirely cloud based call center software that seems to have all the relevant features that a small business needs, to run an effective customer support team. And, it comes with a 14-day free trial giving any business some window to explore the depth of the product. In the 14-day free trial, one can add their entire team, buy phone numbers and check if Freschcaller is in sync with their business process. You can also use their trial phase to check the quality of calls using your WiFi and the other customisations that might help your call center be more productive.

While looking for a Skype alternative and coming across Freshcaller, we also got to check out the features that clearly set Freshcaller apart from the other options.

And in specific, when seeing Freshcaller as a potential Skype alternative, these are the clear differentiators.

  1. Easy and intuitive multi-level IVR set up

IVR is one of the life-savers when it comes to a call center solution. Most of the issues related to low first call resolution and unnecessary or too many call transfers can be sorted with the help of a smartly configured IVR. And, specially for a business with clearly demarcated departments, IVR is of great help in routing the calls to the most relevant department just with the press of an appropriate number. You can assign each department to a keypress option and allow the caller to be answered by the most relevant agent. And Freshcaller comes with one of the most simple to use but sufficiently customizable IVR that Skype lacks.

  1. Call recording

Being able to record calls is undeniably one of the most basic features that helps ease out your call center operations is multiple ways. Right from being able to learn from your own mistakes and that of others, to being able to provide constructive feedback to your peers and team as a whole is possible via recorded calls. Sometimes your customers might want a recorded copy of their conversations too. So, being unable to provide them with something as basic as their call recordings reflects poorly on your business. That’s why Freshcaller seems to be a pretty clever product in having all the relevant features unlike Skype.

  1. Live call monitoring

As a manager or supervisor in a call center, it’s always a good practice to keep yourself updated on the ongoings of the call center as often as possible. This will help you identify and sort the bottlenecks that might be slowing down your business efficiency at the early phase. A live dashboard that gives you information on the ongoing calls, calls in the wait queue and agent status helps you get the situation under control at any time of the day. And the elegant dashboard that Freshcaller has is one of the biggest strengths of managing a call center team.

With the elaborate research and feature-wise comparison of Freshcaller and Skype, there have been more than enough points to try out Freshcaller, given that it seems like a better alternative to Skype.