Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for customer support centres.
A checklist built from how customer support centres work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- Contact and ticket record
- Queues, skills and routing rules
- Service targets and breach alerts
- Rosters, breaks and adherence
- Quality scorecards and coaching
- Escalations and callbacks
- Client service reports
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For agents
- For team leaders
- For quality analysts and trainers
- For workforce planners
- For account managers
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Answered, abandoned and waiting contacts by queue and interval
- First-reply and resolution times against client targets
- Reopened tickets and repeat contacts by reason code
- Roster coverage against expected volume
- Adherence by agent and team
- Quality scores by agent, question and period
- Complaints and survey results by client
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- Telephony platform
- Chat widget
- WhatsApp or other messaging
- SMS
- CRM
- Single sign-on
- Reporting export
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Is this a telephony platform?
- Can a call continue as an email?
- How does skill routing work?
- Will a warning come before a miss?
- Can the roster use expected contact volume?
- How are quality scores recorded?
- We serve several outside clients. Can reports be separate?
- Can open tickets come across?
- What is the cost?
- What if we have fifteen agents and one mailbox?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- Tickets and calls sit in different tools
- Rosters ignore the volume curve
- Targets are checked after they are missed
- Quality scores do not reach coaching
- Client reports are rebuilt each month
Prefer to talk it through? See the customer support centres page.