When you're managing a lot of day-to-day issues and tasks, taking a step back and thinking strategy doesn't usually jump to the top of your priority list, even when it's top of mind. But when you do get the chance to get a look at your strategies, you can see how greatly infrastructure and resources factor into their successful execution. And when it comes to technological resources, which seem to evolve more rapidly than you can purchase them, it can be hard not to wonder if yours are up to snuff.

Such is the case for call center technologies. The success of your contact center heavily influences your customers' satisfaction and your organization's productivity. Getting your technology up to par means improved efficiency, happier customers and a satisfied boss. Here's what you need to consider in order to assess your tech and move forward with building the right infrastructure.

Evaluating Your Call Center Technology

According to Gartner, by 2020, a customer will manage 85% of the relationship with an enterprise without interacting with a human. The way your customers contact you, and the technology you use to make the interaction successful, matters and will continue to matter. So to know where yours stands among the crowd and along the tech timeline, ask yourself these questions:

Who are your clients? What do they need? Do you provide it?

If you have consumer and market research at your disposal, dive in. This information is especially useful if it comes directly from your contact or call center, so that's a perfect place to start. What do your customers seem to need from you? Maybe they've expressed their needs directly (that would be ideal!) or maybe you need to search for trends in how they've contacted you, time to resolution, or frequency of contact. Once you feel comfortable saying out loud what your customers need from your contact center, you can determine if you're currently providing those things, and if not, what technology could help you.

Who are your competitors? What do they offer? Why do they offer it?

Answering these questions can take some heavier research. Give your major competitors a call or check them out online. Find out if they're offering easier access to their employees than you are. You might find some clear comparisons.

Are you in 8 to 4 mode while they’re offering 24-hour web chat?

Do they provide more choices or fewer? Are they the right choices for your industry and customer base?

What about how your competitors set expectations? If you visit their website and you find out, for example, that you have three choices for contacting them online, and each choice features a timer counting down to your contact with a rep, you'd want to consider whether your current technology allows you to route, monitor and report on traffic.

Choosing Your Benefits

There are a few last thoughts to address before you start any sort of upgrade or update to your call center tech.

How can you grow through technology?

Think about how changes to your call center technology could provide one of the most important business traits: the ability to scale. For instance, if your tech allows you full visibility into your traffic (volume, time, type), you can better allocate human resources and therefore avoid hiring people as you grow in volume, allowing you to scale your contact center and your business.

Or if you could, for example, get your voice data and your web chat data on the same platform, you could spot important trends and start working on a strategic initiative to address them.

How does your organization own technology?

Let's say you're ready for a contact center upgrade. What you choose for your solution ultimately depends on how you want to own technology. That's your first buying consideration.

Do you want to own it and manage it, or do you want to have it hosted elsewhere? Owning it yourself is likely a less expensive option, upfront. But consider the very idea of ownership: you must invest employees' time alongside your investment in a depreciating asset. The experience of implementing a solution is also a factor in ownership vs. hosted; an easy setup and deployment can get you started on the right foot.