The Three Main Powers Of Network Marketing

The Three Main Powers Of Network Marketing Multi level marketing, ‘MLM’, as well as Multi Level Marketing are all terms that describe the exact same kind of service design. This market has actually had greater than it’s share of sleazebag scoundrels and also hustler that have actually made use of as well as abused the …

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New comment by arunmukundan in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (November 2020)"

Location: Prague, Czech republic (Indian citizen) Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Yes Technologies: python, pytorch, tensorflow, c++, CUDA, matlab, javascript github: https://github.com/manyids2 Résumé/CV: http://cmp.felk.cvut.cz/~qqmukund/resume.pdf Email: arun.mukundan@gmail.com I will finish my PhD in computer vision (image matching and retrieval) by the end of the year. I am looking for exciting opportunities to continue working on computer …

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How Can iPaaS Help Your Digital Marketing?

If there’s one thing you need from your digital marketing toolbox, it’s efficiency. You need access to real-time data so you can quickly make the most effective decisions and convert those all-important leads into paying customers.  

You can start by deploying iPaaS, or “Integration Platform as a Service”. It’s a little tricky to understand at first, but don’t worry. I’ll break it down for you. So, let’s go over how iPaaS works, starting with some fundamentals.

What Is iPaaS?

Let’s be clear on some terminology before we dive into what iPaaS is.

Chances are you’re already using various apps, or Software as a Service (SaaS), across your organization. Statistics show that small businesses use 40 apps on average, and larger businesses use many more.

SaaS examples include Monday, Trello, Salesforce, and Gmail. You usually need to switch between these SaaS applications to complete tasks, whether it’s assigning someone a project in Trello, or responding to a customer in Gmail.

The problem? It’s time-consuming and inefficient to constantly move between these different systems. Since over 82 percent of customers expect almost instant solutions to their problems, this is time you can’t afford to waste.

How does iPaaS help? It’s simple. iPaaS integrates your SaaS applications and cloud services. In other words, it brings all these different apps together so they’re accessible from one place.

With iPaaS, you can read an email from a prospective customer in Gmail, and immediately assign someone a follow-up task on Trello. You can track inbound and outbound marketing in real-time and quickly update a lead’s status on Salesforce.

From a marketing perspective, what’s most important is why iPaaS can work for you. Here’s what you need to know.

What is iPaaS?

The Benefits of iPaaS

Whatever the size of your company, there are three key benefits of iPaaS:

  1. Cost savings
  2. Business efficiency
  3. Security and compliance

Let’s go over these one at a time.  

iPaaS Could Save You Money

If you’re looking to streamline your IT budget, iPaaS could be a great option for you. Here are three specific reasons why.

Flexibility of iPaaS

First, it’s flexible. It’s pretty easy to scale your services to suit your particular business needs at any given time without overstretching your IT budget.

For example, if you’re experiencing high seasonal demands, you can quickly scale up your iPaaS platform to handle the volume. You can ramp up marketing campaigns and manage high numbers of leads without sacrificing speed or efficiency.

How does this flexibility help you cut costs? Again, it’s simple. The more agile your company is, the quicker you can onboard new customers, and the fewer resources you waste in the meantime.

Autonomy of iPaaS

There’s no need to worry about scheduling software updates because iPaaS handles these updates for you. Automatic updates:

  • Helps minimize your maintenance costs
  • Enhances your system reliability

Put simply, automated updates indirectly reduce downtime. More than 17 percent of small businesses have lost customers through downtime, and 37 percent have lost revenue. The upshot? Automation helps protect your bottom line and your customer base.  

Simplicity of iPaaS

Many businesses find the whole concept of rolling out an iPaaS platform daunting.

My advice? Don’t be. iPaaS solutions are user-friendly. They’re designed with the “novice” coder in mind, so you don’t need specialist IT skills to set up the integration.

Since there’s no need to hire an outside developer to help you deploy the service, you can save money in the short term.  

  • All you’re doing is accessing a cloud-based service. There’s little technical installation required.
  • You can quickly install or delete app integrations without spending extra money.
  • You don’t need system permissions to make changes, either. It’s all designed with cost-effective efficiency in mind.

The best part? Since it’s easy to use, you’ll spend less money training employees on how to work the service.

Your Business Efficiency May Increase with iPaaS

Efficiency is a real selling point for these platforms. Here are the key reasons why.

First, did you know that 80 percent of customers expect consistent information when they speak with different members of your team? iPaaS makes this possible through:

  • Automatic data syncing across systems
  • On-the-go access to data
  • Centralized communications between departments
  • Streamlined campaigns
  • Improved access to real-time data for critical decision making

This means you’re improving your customers’ experience with your company and boosting operational efficiency, all at the same time.

This also makes it easier for you to see exactly what’s going on in your company at all times. Whether it’s tracking weekly targets or assessing customer behavior, you can access everything you need from one simple interface.

It usually takes far less time to deploy iPaaS than installing all your software tools separately.

iPaaS Can Help With Security and Compliance

Did you know that cyberattacks cost the average business $200,000? One of the best ways to avoid costly data breaches is by improving your cybersecurity. Here’s how iPaaS can help.

  • Automatic security updates keep your data and infrastructure safe.
  • It’s easier to protect data since it’s all stored in a central location.
  • iPaaS solutions generally include advanced security tools to find threats, like fraud detection and intruder alerts.
  • You can quickly cancel an employee’s user profile if they leave the business, meaning there’s less chance they’ll still have access to confidential data.
  • iPaaS security tools can offer the levels of protection you need to meet many compliance requirements across industries.

Essentially, iPaaS is great for cyber-safe functionality and connectivity because it makes it easier to perform day-to-day tasks, and it facilitates seamless communication across your company. Most of all, iPaaS helps you comply with various industry security standards.

Now that we’ve covered the benefits of iPaaS, you might think it’s the right option for your business. A key question remains: How do you pick the right iPaaS solution for your company?

Choosing Your Ideal iPaaS Solution

Choosing the right iPaaS integration comes down to these two things.

  1. Understanding your company’s specific data needs. For example, some iPaaS tools are best suited to automating contact and lead management, while others work best for automating day-to-day workflows.
  2. Finding a suitable iPaaS platform to meet these needs, at the right price point.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant is a good place to start your iPaaS provider research. But before you get started, here’s what you should do first.

  • Identify what you need from iPaaS, whether it’s customer analytics, employee management, enhanced security, or something else.
  • Set a realistic price point. How much can you afford to spend on iPaaS? Think carefully about your iPaaS budget, which we’ll cover later.

Once you’ve given those key issues some thought, it’s time to choose a suitable iPaaS integration for your specific marketing and commercial goals. Here’s my step-by-step guide.

Be Sure Your Favorite Apps Can Integrate With iPaaS

Let’s start with something simple: not all iPaaS platforms work with every app. With that in mind, the right solution for you should work with most (if not all) of your day-to-day apps.

First, just list all the apps you’re using right now, and decide which ones you need to integrate. This helps you narrow down your research so you’re only focusing on compatible tools.

To narrow your search even further, you need to think in the medium to long-term. Which apps do you plan on integrating as your business grows? What’s important for your marketing strategy?

Your iPaaS solution needs to work for you in the years to come, not just the short-term.

Decide What You Want to Do With Data in iPaaS

On its own, a piece of raw data doesn’t tell you much. Sure, you might have some customer analytics and a few employee reviews, but unless you translate this data into information, you can’t use it to improve your marketing efforts or grow your business.

Remember, that’s the whole point of iPaaS: integrating data from across your company so you’re turning it into useful information. Once you’ve confirmed which apps you’re using and which platforms are compatible, you need to think about where your data fits in.

  • Establish what data you have, whether it is names, promotional tickets, emails, reviews, or something else.
  • Confirm what data you need to integrate to achieve your business goals, because again, not every iPaaS can integrate all types of data.
  • Identify which apps contain this data, because these apps must be compatible with the iPaaS.
  • Check which iPaaS tool makes it easiest to migrate this data.

Make Sure the iPaaS Is Easy to Use

This one’s important. Some iPaaS solutions are more user-friendly than others, so be sure to consider your employees’ IT skills.

  • The more training your team needs, the longer it’ll take to get the system up and running.
  • Without proper training, your employees might accidentally corrupt or delete important data. If there’s no contingency plan in place to handle the learning curve (such as cloud or hard copy backups), you could suffer permanent data loss.

The real problem? Steep learning curves can affect productivity, which impacts everything from customer service to daily workflows. So, factor in employee technical expertise before you choose a platform.

As an aside, if you’re looking for a user-friendly tool to assess your recent marketing efforts, check out my A/B Testing calculator.

Find Out About iPaaS Security and Updates

Sure, iPaaS is pretty safe overall. However, it’s not foolproof, so here’s what to bear in mind.

  • Check the service provider’s track record. Are customers happy with the service? Does the provider have the experience to manage your sector-specific compliance requirements?
  • You should also check the vendor’s record for downtime and data loss. If it’s an unreliable platform, your data may be compromised, and performance may suffer.
  • Confirm how often updates are installed, and ensure they’re applied automatically.

Security is extremely important, so don’t be afraid to ask questions.

Figure Out Your iPaaS Price Point

iPaaS is a business investment, so you must get it right.

  • Go back to your IT budget and confirm what you can afford to spend.
  • Research the options in your price bracket. List the pros and cons of each platform.
  • Decide if you’re better off paying a fixed monthly or annual fee, or if you’re looking for a more flexible pricing structure. The same provider can sometimes offer different programs for different prices, depending on your needs.

Many iPaaS platforms offer free trials, so it might be worth testing one for 30 days or so before you commit. That said, if it’s a complicated platform, installing and learning it for a free trial period might be more trouble than it’s worth from a financial perspective.  

iPaaS Tools

Are you still wondering where to get started? Let me leave you with some examples of popular iPaaS tools to choose from.

Zapier

With Zapier, businesses of any size can design customized and streamlined workflows. You don’t need tech knowledge either, since there are plenty of premade templates to choose from and integrate as you wish.

For example, you can send notifications to Slack from other apps:

iPaaS Zapier

You can also quickly generate tasks without opening each app individually:

iPaaS Zapier2

The best part? Zapier is wallet-friendly and there’s even a basic free version available.

Oracle Integration Cloud

If compliance is a priority for you, check out Oracle Integration. It has iPaaS templates for many industries, from financial services to healthcare:

Oracle iPaaS

It’s also simple to track leads at every stage of the process from the one platform:

Oracle iPaaS example

You can pay-as-you-go or choose a custom pricing plan.  

Jitterbit

Jitterbit is designed to unify your workflow so you can easily track everything, from marketing performance to subscriber engagement from one location. It’s also compatible with popular services like Salesforce and Microsoft:

Jitterbit iPaaS

You can request a free trial or contact Jitterbit for custom pricing plans.

Conclusion

iPaaS is a great way to streamline data flow within your company, monitor conversions in real-time, and improve your customer response speed. It’s a solid addition to any digital marketing toolbox.

Remember, though, that what’s right for one business may not work for yours. That’s why it’s so important to spend time researching vendors, and ask as many questions as you need before committing to a service contract.  

One final thing: if you need help boosting traffic to your website and optimizing your content to improve conversion rates, don’t forget to check out my consulting services.

Have you deployed iPaaS across your business yet?

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What is Video Search and How Can it Help Your Business?

Studying how people use video search to find the content they want is an essential but often neglected area of marketing.

When we understand how video search engines work, we can begin to devise marketing strategies around this traffic source. When you understand your audience’s search intent and properly optimize your videos, you unlock new means of generating leads for your business.

In this guide, we break down video search engines and how you can use them to increase your traffic.

What Is Video Search?

What is video search

The first thing we need to think about is why people search for videos in the first place. What makes someone look for a specific video? Why are they searching for that video? What are they looking to accomplish?

All of these questions are important to answer, and we’ll address them, one by one.

According to Google, people look for videos for three different reasons. They either want to reflect, connect, or learn. So, what does that mean exactly?

An Opportunity to Reflect

Video in any form has provided us with a way of escaping reality. For many decades, it’s been in the form of television. Many people use video to see life through a different lens, which helps them reflect on their own life.

This could be one reason someone might search for a video.

To Connect with Someone

Another reason someone may use video is to foster connections. 51% of people in a study completed by Google say they feel the need to connect with others through video content.

A great example might be someone struggling with addiction to alcohol. Their first response would be to retreat and hide from friends and family because that’s what they’re used to doing.

A quick video search displays hundreds of videos of people going through the same thing, and now they can relate to someone. We seek video to connect with our community and to meet on common ground.

To Learn Something New

Videos have become a way for us to learn about anything we might be interested in, and there are nearly no limitations to what we can find with a quick video search. Whether you’re looking to touch up on something you know already or dive into something completely new, there are millions of videos on the internet to help you accomplish your goal or explore your hobbies.

How People Search for Videos

Now that we understand the “why,” let’s look at the “how.” How do people search for videos on the internet, and what does that tell us as marketers?

One very common way people search for videos is in traditional search engines. A quick Google search for something actionable will supply hundreds of videos revolving around that topic. For example, if someone wants to learn how to properly tape off a living room to use a residential paint sprayer, it might be easier for them to watch a video on how to do it rather than read up on it.

You can also go to the video section on the search result page to see just video results.

Video Search Screenshot of Googles search results for a keyword phrase.

You can type your search into the Google search bar and then choose from the recommended videos, or you can click the videos tab and search strictly for video rather than text results.

video search on Google

Another popular method people use to search for videos is social media. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and others all make it simple for you to search for videos in various ways.

For example, Instagram uses hashtags to tag videos. This feature makes it easy for people to come in and search the specific hashtag and find your video if you’ve optimized it correctly. 

video search Instagram screenshot of hashtags to help with search

On Facebook, hashtags aren’t as popular, but you still have video descriptions and closed captions that can be searched.

How to Use Video Search to Grow Your Business

As marketers, it’s our job to bring the right content to the right audience at the perfect time.

To do this, we need to have a firm understanding of a few things.

#1: Understand Your Video Search Audience

You need to understand who your target audience is, but this gets a little more advanced when talking about video search. This task isn’t as simple as optimizing a landing page for your organic search audience. We have to talk about a complete overhaul based on the platform you’re using.

There are a few levels to this.

The first level is choosing the platform you’re using to promote your videos. For example, the audience on Facebook is much different than the audience on TikTok. No matter how hard you try, you’re not reaching many seniors on TikTok, even if you have the perfect piece of video content for that demographic.

Once you understand the platform’s overall demographic, you need to break it down and learn who your specific audience is. What is your buyer persona? What types of videos do they like to watch? Are they looking for entertainment, information, connection, etc.?

The last level is, what types of searches are they making? Once you know where and who they are, how can you connect them with your video? What are they typing into the search bar, and how can you direct that to you?

The easiest way to understand all of this is to reverse engineer it the same we do with organic SEO. Put yourself in your ideal client’s shoes and search for a video within your wheelhouse. Figure out what search phrases lead where and what you need to do based on your competition to jump ahead of them.

#2: Connect With The Video Searcher

This point piggybacks off the previous one, but it goes a little deeper. Connecting with the searcher means understanding what they’re looking for so you can be the one to provide it.

Attention spans are short, so you need to provide the right answer as soon as possible in your video; otherwise, people will turn somewhere else.

Another key to video search is giving the audience exactly what they want, right away. If the first few seconds of your video doesn’t pique the viewer’s interest, they’ll move on to the other hundreds of options available to them.

#3: Know Your Chosen Video Platform

Another point to consider is the chosen platform you’re using from point one. How well do you understand how to use it? Do you know how the video search process works? Do you understand the basics of the algorithm and methods used to determine which videos show up and how they rank them?

In the same way that we try to understand everything about Google’s algorithms for SEO, we need to do the same with each platform, and if you don’t understand it, you might get left behind.

#4: Time it Correctly 

Timing is a huge factor. The length of your video will play a significant role in who chooses to watch it and how well it ranks. There isn’t an “end all be all” for video length because the ideal length depends on the platform.

That said, if someone is looking for a quick solution to a problem, throw that case out the window. For example, when someone is trying to figure out how to upload a featured image on WordPress, they don’t want to watch a 15-minute video because they’re going to know there’s a lot of fluff.

Your video would likely perform much better if it was only one minute because people will assume it is straight to the point.

Google even pinpoints in many video searches where the result you’re looking for is in the video in their search results.

video search how to time it correctly

They pull a snippet out for you to get the answer you’re looking for without having to watch the whole thing.

#5: Optimize Properly 

Lastly, you need to optimize your videos. There’s a whole guide to video SEO here, but there are some important factors pertaining to video search specifically.

First, your thumbnail:

The thumbnail of your video is like the trailer for your upcoming movie. If the trailer sucks, chances are, no one is going to see the movie.

If your thumbnail sucks, fewer people will click through to your video. Your thumbnail needs to contain keywords, and it must instill confidence in the viewer that your video will solve their problem.

Second, you need to optimize your video descriptions on all platforms. Every video search platform uses keywords to determine how relative a video is to what the user is searching. You need to make sure you’re following fundamental SEO principles when it comes to video search as well.

The Most Popular Video Search Engines

most popular video search engines

Many people wonder what the top video search engines are but keep in mind, it’s unique to the individual. What’s a hit on Facebook might tank on TikTok and vice versa. When choosing from these top six video search engines, make sure you factor in everything we’ve discussed so far.

Facebook Video Search

Video marketing on Facebook is all about interrupting patterns. If you’re targeting an older demographic, your content is a bit more serious, and you’re able to grab attention quickly, Facebook might be an excellent place for you.

The problem that I’ve seen with Facebook video is the implementation of intrusive ads. That’s why I recommend sticking to short, sweet, and direct videos on Facebook. If your primary purpose of creating the video is to sell something, keep it super short, ideally less than 60 seconds.

One area where Facebook has shined is in e-commerce. I see videos all the time of people using a product they purchased online, and they do such a great job of making the video appear organic.

The key to getting your video in front of your audience on Facebook is to make sure you include the right keywords in your description and have a very refined target demographic.

YouTube Video Search

Understanding Youtube video search is all about understanding video SEO. There are also various tools and extensions out there to use alongside the manual work and knowledge you obtain.

One thing about YouTube is that they reward continuous creators. Consistency is essential, and if you plan on having success with YouTube, you need to create videos every week so the algorithm sees that you’re a consistent creator.

I see YouTube marketing as an excellent way for affiliates, content creators, and artists to display their work. If you produce something as a product or you’re an affiliate or something, YouTube is the place to show your stuff.

The platform also puts much more emphasis on longer videos. Plus, if you’re creating high-quality content, the longer videos will increase your watch time, which has a positive impact on ranking.

Instagram Video Search

Instagram is built on discovery, and if you’re looking to go from nothing to something, Instagram seems like the place to be. Video search on Instagram is made possible through the use of hashtags.

When someone wants to find something specific or they want to filter content, they search using hashtags.

One great way to get discovered on Instagram is by capitalizing on trends. Throughout the year, Instagram has a plethora of hashtag trends that explode in terms of search volume, and if you find one that’s relevant to you and your audience, you may be able to create a viral video or “reel” (their version of TikTok) in no time.

Twitter Video Search

Capitalizing on Twitter video search is similar to Facebook; it needs to be interruptive without being intrusive. You’ll want to have the proper key phrases in your video’s description because users will search for content relating to that phrase.

Also, keep in mind that platforms like Twitter choose which videos to display on users’ Twitter feeds, so having relevant keywords pertaining to the content in your video may end up on the feed of your ideal client.

Vimeo Video Search

Vimeo is very similar to YouTube, but Vimeo has an advantage with smaller boutique-style audiences. There’s less competition, the quality of videos is better, and viewers are more dedicated to the videos they watch.

Another recommendation for marketing on Vimeo is to stay on top of the engagement with your viewers. Because the audience is so much smaller, there’s a lot less spam and bots, which means more actual conversation from people who may have questions about whatever it is you’re selling or promoting.

TikTok Video Search

Content is king on TikTok, and compared to all the other platforms, this app is the only place where you can post a video with no followers and get millions of views if you know what to post.

It’s essential to understand your audience and tap into their feelings, emotions, fears, and desires. Who are you looking to target, and what do you want them to feel when watching this video?

Once you’ve got that figure out, put in a proper description, add some hashtags, and see what happens. There’s no proven formula because the content is so important on this platform. If your content resonates with the right people, it will get likes and shares, and the sky’s the limit from there.

Conclusion 

Now that you understand video search, how people search for videos, why they search, and how to reach them, how do you feel? Do you feel like any of the previous video platforms could work for your brand?

If this all sounds like a lot of work, consider learning more about what we’ve done to help other marketers get their videos in front of the right audience.

Which platform do you think is the best for video marketing going forward?

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New comment by pknerd in "Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (November 2020)"

Location: Pakistan Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: Yes Technologies: Web Development(Laravel, Flask, Django). ETL(Airflow, Bonobo, Spark). Web Scraping(Beautifulsoup, Selenium, Scrapy). I am always a learner so learning Go and shipped a couple of libs. Willing to work on it professionally. How can I be helpful? You could hire me for the following but not specific …

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New comment by martinbeta1 in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2020)"

Prisma | Technical Lead: Control Plane | Remote | Full-Time

Until now, Prisma has been fully focused on developer adoption. Now hat we have seen successive months of consistent growth, we are ready to start building out our first enterprise product. The Technical Lead will adopt two developers from the existing team and work closely with the CEO, VP Product and our small Sales Engineering team. Our language is Rust but learning on the job is totally fine – we are more interested in experience building and operating robust high-scale servers and the challenges around deploying to enterprises.

If this sounds interesting to you please check out the full Job Description here and send over your resume: https://grnh.se/745381c82us

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New comment by martinbeta1 in "Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2020)"

Prisma | Technical Lead: Control Plane | Remote | Full-Time

Until now, Prisma has been fully focused on developer adoption. Now hat we have seen successive months of consistent growth, we are ready to start building out our first enterprise product. The Technical Lead will adopt two developers from the existing team and work closely with the CEO, VP Product and our small Sales Engineering team. Our language is Rust but learning on the job is totally fine – we are more interested in experience building and operating robust high-scale servers and the challenges around deploying to enterprises.

If this sounds interesting to you please check out the full Job Description here and send over your resume: https://grnh.se/745381c82us

The post New comment by martinbeta1 in “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (November 2020)” appeared first on ROI Credit Builders.

Best Call Center Software

Disclosure: This content is reader-supported, which means if you click on some of our links that we may earn a commission.

What would it be like for your business to never miss another call?

Nothing scares away new business like hard-to-reach customer service or disorganized sales calls. Adopt the best call center software and you will outfit your teams with the tools they need to communicate effectively.

Today, an affordable call center is within reach of any business with an internet connection. 

Forget about the requirements of a physical office space, infrastructure, or even a business phone system.

Modern call center software is all you need to get up and running. You still have the hard work of engaging your customers and clients, but all the heavy lifting associated with maintaining a call center is off your plate.

The Top 5 Options For Call Center Software

  1. Five9 – Best for Blended Call Centers
  2. Aircall – Best for Collaboration
  3. 8×8 Contact Center – Best for Enterprise
  4. Dialpad – Best for Startups
  5. Talkdesk CX Cloud – Best for Best for Salesforce Integration

How to Choose The Best Call Center Software For You

I make calls when I’m thinking about committing to a new product or service. Lots of people do. 

The human connection is real, intimate, and—unfortunately—easy to mess up.

One dropped call. One mistaken name from an agent who’s spoken to 35 other people within the hour. 

It doesn’t take much to lose a lead or earn a 1-star review carved in digital stone on the internet.

You’re looking for a system that establishes trust with customers because they know they can call and speak with the right person quickly. 

It must also come with an interface that empowers agents by giving them insight into calls, client histories, and any other information they need to resolve issues in real-time.

Customers need prompt answers from helpful agents. End of story.

The best call center software comes with everything you need to meet these two fundamental call center objectives, and much more. 

Let’s go through the core call center features that help businesses make their customers happier and their agents more productive.

Calling Capabilities

Blended call center software will let the same agent receive incoming calls and make outgoing calls. This isn’t the case with every product, as some are limited to a single direction: inbound or outbound.

This can work to your advantage.

If you only need one or the other, you may be able to get a less expensive plan that’s easier to secure and manage. A helpdesk might only need inbound and a sales team might be fine with outbound calls only.

Dialing Capabilities 

For outbound call centers, having the right dialing capabilities can make a huge difference in terms of agent productivity (and sanity). The four types you are likely to see are:

  • Preview dialer: Lets an agent review contact information before they call
  • Progressive dialer: Automatically dials one contact per available agent
  • Power dialer: Automatically dials multiple contacts per available agents
  • Predictive dialer: Automatically dials based on predicted agent availability

Dialers decrease an agent’s down-time considerably and completely eliminate the manual grind process of making calls from their cognitive workload.

Channels

Call center software should be able to accommodate every channel you currently use or plan to use in the future. If you see something billed as omnichannel, it should cover:

  • Phone
  • VoIP
  • Email
  • SMS
  • Chat
  • Social
  • Video

Ensure that whatever product you choose will let customers interact seamlessly with agents across all supported company channels.

Call Routing

Call center software comes with routing features that segment and direct incoming calls, potentially automating the processes which connect callers with the expert or agent they seek.

Some of the popular call routing features explained:

  • Automatic Call Distribution (ACD): Greets customers and allows them to select from a main menu or enter extension to route themselves. 
  • Automated attendant: Takes calls when all agents are busy, plays hold music, relays wait times, and reminds callers that their time is valuable.
  • Intelligent call routing: Uses automation, AI, or interactive voice response to route customers to the most appropriate agent.
  • Mobile device routing: Allows calls to be routed to mobile devices.
  • Omnichannel routing: Allows calls to be routed across any channel.
  • Virtual hold: Gives customers the option to receive a call back when an agent is ready, instead of waiting on the phone.
  • Warm transfer: Lets customers speak to a new agent before the call is transferred, and allows the previous agent to explain any ground that’s already been covered.

If call center software comes with intelligent call routing, it’s safe to assume it can handle most, if not all, of the capabilities listed above.

Interactive Voice Response 

Interactive voice response (IVR) enables customers to use a phone system to access information from a connected database. This could be someone calling to find out their checking balance, hear the status of their order, or pay a bill.

If you have customers routinely calling to access information, you can free up a lot of phone time simply by implementing IVR. It’s a truly self-service solution that helps people get what they want, without ever talking to an agent.

Call Recording

You have probably heard a thousand times that “this call is being recorded for safety, security, or training purposes.” Well it’s all true.

Call recording is extremely important. Supervisors can listen back to trainee calls and give advice about how to improve. In the event of a legal or compliance issue, call recording will cover your bases.

Good call center software makes it as easy as possible to save and store every call in a highly organized, searchable database. If you integrate your CRM, every recording can also be tied to the appropriate customer or client account.

One advanced call recording feature that can be really useful for sales teams is voicemail-to-email. This sends an email with an audio attachment or transcription of the voicemail to the account owner who missed the call. This is a huge time saver, especially for agents who are remote and on the go.

Workforce Management 

How efficient is your call center? How do you know?

Reporting and analytics are important features of modern call center software. Look for products with both historical and real-time reporting capabilities to support workforce management and optimization.

By tracking key metrics about calls, wait times, and first contact resolution, among others, those in supervisory roles are better able to forecast staffing needs to fit fluctuating demand.

Integrations, APIs, and SDKs

Put key customer data in front of your agents by integrating customer data sources with your call center software. The top products come with seamless integrations that work out of the box with leading CRMs like Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.

Many top call center software options have APIs and software development kits (SDKs) that allow you to build out custom solutions.

The better connectivity you can provide, the richer the customer information your call center will collect. 

Done right, you’ll provide marketing, sales, and customer service with data-driven insights to steer their efforts.

Security

Even if your customers aren’t giving their social security number over the phone, they’re sharing personal and potentially sensitive information. It’s unpleasant to imagine how much havoc an attacker could cause with full access to a database of client conversations.

Consider potential vulnerabilities that come with deploying call center software. Does it integrate with your current security stack? If not, be sure to add the cost of securing your new IT perimeter to the total cost of ownership.

The Different Types of Call Center Software

It’s getting less and less important for call center solutions to offer traditional business phone systems. Some do, but most are focused on helping companies migrate gradually to a centralized, cloud-based, multi-channel interface.

As important as the phone is, the reality is that customers are reaching out on more and more channels. 

This is why you’ll see the name “call center” being dropped in favor of “contact center.” 

It simply reflects that companies have to be able to respond however they are contacted: phone, chat, email, and so on.

Whether you are starting from zero or looking to modernize your existing system, picking the right type of call center software is the first step.

On-Premises Call Center Software

Many companies still maintain their own call centers and it can be important to keep everything in house for compliance reasons.

If this is a concern, make sure you choose an option that supports your infrastructure needs.

Cloud Call Center Software

Cloud-based call center software provides the same capabilities as a traditional call center, but it’s delivered as a service. Companies don’t have to manage any of the hardware or software.

A SaaS call center can be deployed in just a few hours or days, since there isn’t much required beyond headsets and devices to work from.

It’s very easy to run a distributed or work-from-home call center with a cloud-based solution, which is another reason these solutions are so popular.

CCaaS

Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) centralizes all of the channels your teams use to communicate externally. 

Whereas a cloud call center may only give you VoIP, a CCaaS solution is going to loop in text, chat, social, and video as well.

UCaaS

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) has all the capabilities of a CCaaS, with an additional focus of integrating legacy communication technology like fax and teleconferencing.

These products truly unify all forms of communication, helping companies adopt future-proof solutions as they phase out old equipment.

#1 – Five9 — Best For Blended Call Centers

Five9 empowers call center agents to deliver the best possible experience to their customers by providing true omnichannel functionality from anywhere within an intuitive interface.

Agents can switch between chat, email, mobile, social, video, or voice to maintain seamless customer interactions.

Plus, integrations with top CRM platforms mean that all data is captured, providing an end-to-end contact center solution. Whether agents are reaching out or picking up a call, they always have current information about who they’re speaking with.

There are also built-in workforce management tools that make accurate forecasting and scheduling much easier.

For all the power of Five9 call center software, it’s not overwhelming, and people can quickly master the tools at their disposal, such as:

  • Predictive, power, progressive, and preview dialers
  • Intelligent omnichannel routing
  • IVR
  • Historic and real-time analytics dashboards
  • Six built-in CRM integrations
  • Cloud APIs and SDKs

Blended call centers will definitely notice increased efficiency using Five9. Active blending, one of the intelligent routing features, automatically sends inbound calls to agents working outbound campaigns when call volume is high.

Five9 pricing is based on whether you want inbound, outbound, or blended service. You’ll have to get in touch with sales, but there are three options for how to pay:

  • Monthly on-demand
  • Per-minute fees
  • Annual contracts

The lowest price will come with an annual contract, but companies can scale quickly at low cost with on-demand pricing if need be.

As sleek as it is, Five9 is one of the top call center solutions for companies that need to integrate legacy technology. If you’re thinking about using a cloud-based solution for your blended call center, Five9 can help no matter where you are starting from.

#2 – Aircall — Best For Collaboration

Aircall is a CCaaS you can deploy this afternoon.

The VoIP quality is great, calls don’t drop, and agents can work from anywhere on their laptop or personal mobile device. It’s a great solution for virtual cloud call centers because of the built-in security, workforce management, and collaborative features.

Customers can leave voicemails which can be quickly assigned to the right person. New hires can listen into calls to hear what good service sounds like. In fact, you can host up to five people on the same live call.

One of the biggest perks for teams is the ability to assign, tag, and comment on calls. This is so helpful—assign the call to an individual, tag it to a specific department, and leave a short explanation about what’s going on.

It’s not that other call center software can’t do this—it’s just easier in Aircall.

For all the ease of using Aircall, it is a complete CCaaS that provides 

  • Automatic call-back
  • Intelligent call routing
  • IVR
  • Power dialer
  • One-click CRM integrations
  • Call center analytics

Aircall pricing is broken down into three tiers:

  • Essentials: starting at $30 per user/month
  • Professional: starting at $50 per user/month
  • Custom: contact sales

One quick thing: Salesforce integration only comes at the Professional tier, whereas integrations for Pipedrive, Zendesk, Hubspot, Slack and more than 60 others come with Essentials.

Aircall still supports traditional phone systems, which makes it an attractive option for companies that want to expand their call center operations to the cloud at their own pace.

#3 – 8×8 Contact Center — Best For Enterprise

8×8 Contact Center is one of the more robust tools on the market. 8×8 has been around for a long time and can fully support migration to a UCaaS call center.

It’s a powerful solution that can help large organizations in particular. Build out complex IVR paths, optimize a large workforce, and process payments all within a navigable interface.

There may be a little more of a learning curve with 8×8 than with other call center software simply because the platform is so feature rich. 

That said, once you have everything set up, the support and online documentation is enough to help people take advantage of 8×8’s advanced features, including:

  • Call and screen recording
  • Predictive dialer
  • Drag-and-drop IVR designer 
  • Speech analytics
  • Customer surveys
  • Native CRM and integrations with top products

The pricing for 8×8 Contact Center breaks down into three tiers:

  • Contact Center – Voice
  • Contact Center – Omnichannel
  • Contact Center – Advanced

8×8 is not going to be the most budget-friendly option, even at its voice-only tier. 

To include digital channels, you will need the Omnichannel plan. For speech analytics and screen recording, you will need Advanced.

For voice-only call centers, other options from this list will meet your needs at a lower cost. If you are trying to build out an omnichannel contact center, however, 8×8 will give you a level of visibility and control that lighter products can’t.

#4 – Dialpad — Best For Startups

Dialpad is a next-generation UCaaS that completely supports today’s on-the-go, distributed workplace. Choose Dialpad for agile, constantly improving call center software.

You can add agents via the web client or Dialpad app. Both are updated frequently for security and to add new features.

For all the flexibility provided to end-users, Dialpad doesn’t skimp on the backend reporting, recording, or monitoring features. This is huge for companies that are still trying to figure out what’s important.

With Dialpad, your team can assess KPIs and discover meaningful trends in real-time. Simply integrate your CRM and watch as Dialpad surfaces the most important metrics from calls on clean dashboards or highly-visible leaderboards.

Some of the other great capabilities of Dialpad include:

  • IVR
  • Seamless mobile routing
  • Call/Voicemail transcription
  • Warm transfer
  • APIs and webhooks
  • Integrations with top SSOs, CRMs, G Suite, and Microsoft 365, 

There are two plan options for Dialpad Contact Center:

  • Pro: starting at $225/month for 3 agents
  • Enterprise: contact sales, 100 agent minimum

Businesses thrive with Dialpad because of its efficiency. Deployment is simple, integrations are tight, and it performs extremely well for organizations with many remote workers. 

#5 – Talkdesk CX Cloud — Best For Salesforce Integration

Talkdesk is a leading CCaaS product that works well for large organizations who need to scale their contact center operations. Quickly provision new agents and securely connect them to sensitive customer data, no matter where they are.

It’s a feature-rich, yet very approachable, solution. People who have never used Talkdesk can sit down and start taking calls.

Talkdesk has more than 60 integrations ready to go, but the seamless connection with Salesforce CRM is definitely a key selling point. Agents can see a rich history of who they are talking to and all calls are automatically recorded in the proper place. 

When agents forget call details, they can listen back with a few clicks.

Some tasks, like creating new IVRs, take some getting used to, but for the most part, non-technical users are going to be able to get the most out of every feature, including:

  • Intelligent routing
  • Warm transfer
  • Customer sentiment surveys
  • Real-time dashboards for workforce management
  • Custom IVR
  • Guardian Standard fraud prevention

Talkdesk also offers AI-driven add-ons for speech analytics, workforce management, and quality control. 

Talkdesk has rolled out affordable solutions for SMB call centers. Adopting something this powerful early on will deliver superior customer engagement, and may even cut down on costs by increasing agent productivity.

Summary

Ten years ago, setting up a call center took months. Today, you can deploy one over the weekend.

To make your choice, focus on how the feature set of each product will:

  • Enable customers connect to the right agent quickly
  • Empower agents serve customers and connect with clients

While every option on this list is fairly easy to get set up, Dialpad or Aircall are exceptionally easy in this regard. Aircall will better accommodate legacy technology than Dialpad, if that’s a consideration, and the collaborative features are more mature.

Then again, it depends how you collaborate. The ease of routing calls between devices on Dialpad is phenomenal, which is critical for distrubed call centers.

Five9 has the edge on many other full-scale contact center software when it comes to outbound dialing capabilities. Sales teams can automatically ramp up their call volume without increasing call abandonment numbers. As the inbound call functionality is comparatively rich, Five9 is a great option for a blended call center.

Companies using Salesforce CRM will enjoy using Talkdesk. The integration works with ease and employee familiarity with the Salesforce interface makes adopting Talkdesk that much easier.

Choose 8×8 if your company is going to benefit from building out complex IVR pathways. It’s easy to design customer journeys in the visual, drag-and-drop editor, which really stands out from the crowd.

Additionally, the security in 8×8 is payment card industry compliant, so you can rest assured that connecting customers to sensitive information via IVR won’t cause problems down the line.

The post Best Call Center Software appeared first on Neil Patel.

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Flexport (YC W14) is hiring engineers in Amsterdam

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