As a business, one of the most important ways of strengthening your development process is by creating good relationships with clients. Customers are the pillar of your company, and without them, there’s literally no way you can sustain the competition around you. As such, these are the people that should always be prioritized whenever you make policy changes.
The environment within which your employees work, for instance, directly affects their productivity. At the end of the day, both the workers and the final consumers are the ones that suffer from poor planning within your business. So, how can you keep your clients satisfied? Well, one of the best ways of doing so is by employing the services of reputable call management companies, such as Call Cowboy.
Phone call management is the last thing that many businesses always think about, but it really should be on top of the priority list. Keep in mind that this is one of the most effective means of communication to get in touch with your customers. In addition, phone calls also come in handy when contacting your suppliers or other employees within the company premises. Therefore, it’s fair to say that call management can significantly affect your revenue. So, what can you do to up your game in this department? Read on to find out more.
Attend To All Calls
Picking up the phone whenever it rings is the most basic part of phone call management, but does your business adhere to this rule? Your answer to this question can perfectly define your current situation in business. You’ll be surprised how many business owners have lost potential customers just because they were ‘too busy’ to pick up the call. It’s important to note that as a company, every ringing phone is worth receiving.
It goes without saying that the first step towards converting callers to customers is by listening to them. Therefore, train all your employees to consider everyone important. Apart from benefiting you in terms of gaining more clients, it also helps build your reputation. Your business will be regarded as one of the most responsive in the market, and that’s one thing that most customers look for when researching on the best place to get their products.
Use Current Technology
Whether your company has a call center or a traditional customer care department, using modern technology to manage calls can improve your chances of success. A call center technology comprises of various tools, such as VoIP (voice over Internet protocol), PBX, and SIP trunking used for inbound and outbound calls. Each one of them comes with unique features, and there are those that can help you manage your calls efficiently and effectively.
VoIP has become quite popular in today’s call management strategies. This technology allows the delivery of voice and multimedia communications over the Internet. Perhaps, one of the most attractive features about this technology is the fact that you only need an Internet connection and a subscription to make your calls. In other words, you’ll not be stressed with the idea of having to reload your airtime even when calling abroad.
There are several agencies specialized in offering these services, and you could also rent toll free numbers from them. Unlike traditional call systems, VoIP employs broadband channels to connect to the recipient. So, how does this help in call management? Well, it allows for the handling and distribution of many incoming and outgoing calls at a go. In addition, most of these organizations have desktop and mobile apps, making it even easier for their users to respond to calls wherever they are.
Another tool in the modern call system worth mentioning is the artificial intelligence (AI). The best thing about this feature is that it constantly learns from humans, depending on how you use it. The objective is to let it understand why your customers are calling and provide them with pre-recorded answers. This technology comes in handy, especially when your agents are experiencing busy sessions.
So, when a client calls, they’re prompted to provide their question. If the AI can’t answer them, the call is forwarded to the next available agent. Another advantage of AI is the fact that it helps in your call verification, such that the recipient gets to see your business name as the caller ID before they pick up the call. Employing this idea in your business helps in marketing your products and avoiding the risk of losing potential customers due to busy lines or unverified calls.
Employ Remote Workers
During the current pandemic, you can expect a lot of calls from customers maybe because they can’t make it to your point of operation or are concerned about their health. Either way, you need to set yourself up to handle even more calls than before. This is the reason why many enterprises are moving towards digital communication. One way of dealing with this change is by increasing the number of customer care or call center agents so that they can handle the rising rate of calls.
The drawback, however, is that you’ll need a bigger room to address this issue, given the current one-meter rules. It seems like an easy idea to implement, but it actually requires more resources and you might also need to replace other workers (those with existing health conditions). To avoid all these complications, it would be prudent to try remote customer care services. Let your employees work from home, provided they have the necessary resources. As such, you can employ or hire as many call agents as possible to help manage the rising number of customer calls.
Provide Guidance To Your Employees
Another thing to do to properly manage calls is to guide your employees throughout the process. Remember, these are the people who come in close communication or contact with the customers. As such, you could say they’re the face of the company, and how they respond to customers matter a lot. Various types of calls will always come in regardless of the size of business you’re running. A good percentage of those using phone calls as a means of communicating with your company are either potential new customers, or current clients interested in new products and services.
So, how do you guide your call agents? For one, you could take them through a compulsory training program before they start working. This way, you’ll have the opportunity to relay all your company’s policies to the newbies. Learning customer care skills from reputable schools and internship programs is great, but since they’re new to your business, you need to guide them on how things are done in this new environment. Present them with a few goals that need to be met, and how you plan on helping them meet this goal.
In addition to helping them fit into this new environment, it’s important that you also train your new employees on how to use various call management programs. In this day and age, every business is expected to have a good call management system that can receive, track, and record calls. As technology advances, new features are included in the system, and that calls for more learning. Therefore, even after the initial training following their admission, it’s imperative that you keep offering refresher courses to all call center agents.
Call management systems of businesses are pretty much similar, but with a few variations due to a number of significant factors. For instance, the customers you deal with might be entirely different from those visiting other businesses. As such, the way you handle their calls is very crucial. In addition, some companies have attracted consumers from all over the world. Apart from culture and language, another huge factor that needs consideration in such a case is the difference in time zones.
If you’re running such a business, then you’ll know that calls can come in at any time. You might have a potential consumer trying to reach you in the middle of the night, and if you don’t have someone working during this time, then that’s one client lost. Therefore, as you guide your employees, also find out those who can work during the night shift and delegate duties to them so that you don’t end up with many unanswered phone calls.
Set Business Hours
As earlier stated, if you’re serving customers from different time zones, then it would be prudent to work around the clock. Of course, you can’t have the same employees operating for 24 hours. At some point, they’ll need a rest, and you’ll have to bring in another shift. It seems like a simple fix for established businesses, but it’s a different case for startups. For instance, if you started your company a few months ago, then the last thing you’d want at this particular time is more workers. That would mean more spending and additional resources to accommodate the new arrivals.
So, what should you do if you don’t have the budget to pay another set of call center agents who can work at night? Well, what you can do in such a situation is let your customers know when you aren’t available. Since you can’t send out a message to everyone saying you’re closing, you can set your system in such a way that it notifies the caller about the same. If, say, you close the business at 9p.m., you can program your call management system to detect the current time and tell the customer to call again the next morning if it’s beyond the set business hours. There are many agencies offering this feature as part of their call management software.
But, why go through all this trouble when you can simply attend to the customer the next morning if their call goes unanswered? This idea puts the reputation of your business on the line because the customer feel ignored. In fact, they might not bother calling back during business hours because they may believe no one is going to pick up the call.
Employ A Call Management Agency
Most of the tips provided so far in this article focus on your internal team. In other words, the points listed above will come in handy if you have a designated set of employees responsible for call management. However, this is always the case with all businesses. In fact, most established enterprises opt for external help from specialized agencies. As such, all they’re required to do is give the necessary access to these experts and wait for the magic to happen.
There are many companies out there waiting for new clients in this particular field, but not all of them fit your needs. So, what are the things to consider when doing the selection? These include:
- Experience
If you want to compete with the best, then you’ll need the most experienced professionals around you. Employing the services of a company that has been around for long is a great advantage, given the fact that they understand all the possibilities that the market gives. In fact, you’re likely to learn even more from such agencies.
- Reliability
As earlier stated, call center agents and the whole communication system may make or break your company’s reputation. Therefore, make sure you choose a call management agency that’ll be able to handle all your demands, all while prioritizing the customers’ satisfaction. Some of the things you should consider include phone routing, call scoring, and the number of times their website is down.
- Pricing
Finally, make sure your budget allows you to purchase or subscribe to these services. Recurring payments can have a significant impact on your company’s revenue, and you could end up spending a significant amount of your profits on one area. To avoid this, do prior research and compare various agencies before making your final decision.
Conclusion
Managing business calls is a crucial determinant of your success in the industry. Being able to communicate effectively with your customers is a huge bonus, and it keeps you at par with some of the best companies around you. One way of managing calls is by employing current technologies, especially VoIP. If you have employees working in the communication department, it’s crucial that you train them on effective call management skills and offer them refresher courses regularly. You could also choose to hire a specialized agency to carry out this task, but make sure you select the right candidate.