8 mins read
Connectivity with customers is the backbone of a business. Unless a business is available to customers who want to reach it, keeping them satisfied is out of question. While small entities have a few hundred existing and potential customers, the number can be massive for larger enterprises. Moreover, organizations expect these numbers to grow with the passage of time.
The concern, therefore, is about being available to them all the time and managing their calls effectively. What you need is a robust communication system that is capable of providing excellent support, along with consistent availability. A toll-free number, coupled with the conventional Interactive Voice Response system or IVR system, can serve as a reliable solution that you can trust for seamless communication and connectivity.
Let us see how each of these elements serves value to a business and how their combination can drive exceptional benefits in the long run.
Toll Free Number & IVR: Understanding The Basics
The basic objective for any business in the competitive landscape is to excel in terms of customer service. You may have a great product to offer but will not be able to get high profits unless the buyers are happy with the services and support you offer. Therefore, you need to go the extra mile for being open to communication. Both toll free numbers and IVR system can get you closer to these goals.
By availing a toll-free number, you give your customers the option to call without incurring the cost of calling. These numbers are free for the callers, with the cost being borne by the business, which definitely is a motivating factor for the potential customers to call and connect. A virtual toll-free number is free from geographical boundaries, thus opening the opportunity of building an international presence for an organization. This also eliminates the need for changing phone numbers while the business changes its location.
IVR (Interactive Voice Response) is a telephony menu system which can be used for greeting the callers with a personalized welcome voice message. Further, it can be used for identifying, segmenting and routing the callers to the appropriate agents or departments within the organization.
Combined, IVR and toll-free numbers create a simple yet effective communication system that significantly cuts down costs, saves time and increases efficiency within a company. At the same time, it elevates the level of customer satisfaction as well. Businesses comprising multiple units, in particular, can avail extensive benefits of the system as it provides the facility of single connection which connects the callers directly to the concerned department.
Why integrate toll free numbers with your IVR system?
Now that you understand how toll-free numbers work, it makes sense to find out why integrating them with your IVR system makes a worthwhile investment for your business. Here are some good reasons to invest in this powerful combination.
Deliver exceptional customer service
Enhanced customer service is the key to success today, considering the fact that it can set an organization apart in the widely competitive scenario. No wonder, businesses are willing to execute different methods for excelling on this front. Consistent availability along with faster resolution of customer queries and issues can take you one step ahead.
A toll-free number coupled with IVR creates a user-friendly communication platform. It can assist you to connect seamlessly with the callers while ensuring that calls are routed to the concerned executives directly. This enables your team to offer swift redressal to queries without any additional effort involved, thus ensuring exceptional service and support.
Enhance business credibility & professionalism
As the markets become more competitive, the opportunities for businesses to gain credibility and prove their professionalism are literally drying up. Using a toll-free number with the IVR is a great idea because it acts like a credibility metric that establishes your presence without geographical constraints. When users call on the number, the IVR solution greets them with a personalized greeting.
Additionally, it provides them an automated response for navigating through the menu options that take them closer to query resolution. The system eliminates the possibility of being unreachable in addition to facilitating call back on missed calls so that you never lose a customer. These attributes give your business a professional image and present you as an organization that is willing to make an extra effort to deliver the highest level of services to its customers.
Get a competitive advantage
One of the most significant benefits of these numbers is branding. A robust branding strategy can actually serve as a key differentiator when it comes to securing a competitive advantage. Any business is more likely to come ahead of the competitors if it has a reliable and accessible business contact number.
A toll-free number does it perfectly, which is the reason why any company should invest in these numbers. Additionally, integrating it with your IVR system takes your branding initiative a step further. While the toll-free number becomes an identity of your brand, you can advertise it with an automated welcome greeting on the IVR system.
Empower your marketing initiatives
Amazingly, these numbers, when integrated with an IVR system, can help businesses empower their marketing initiatives as well. You can invest in an easy-to-remember number that can be made a part of the IVR-based marketing campaigns. Since these numbers have a good recall value, there are chances that existing as well as potential customers will call you.
Moreover, you can actually track the calls by integrating the system with a call tracking solution. This can help you build a database of callers that the marketing team can connect with later for expanding the customer base.
Prepare for future scalability & portability
Businesses aspire for future growth, which comes with increase in team size and customer base as well. While you are bound to make efforts for achieving the growth targets, there is also a need to be ready with scalable solutions that match the growing requirements.
This is where this smart combination of IVR and toll-free numbers can help; it serves immense flexibility whether you want to increase the number of agents or expand the customer base being served. Moreover, there is also the benefit of portability that helps businesses to set up establishments at different locations or expand offices across the country and globally.
Drive extensive cost savings
Both IVR as well as toll free numbers are easy to set up in addition to being affordable, which makes them ideal for small businesses as well as startups. The subscription rates charged by your toll-free number provider can be even lower than the regular telephone services. They usually offer affordable monthly plans, which are available on pay as you go basis rather than binding you with a contract.
Moreover, the implementation of IVR in combination with toll free numbers is affordable as well. You can get the advantage of scalability as well. As your business grows later, you can subscribe to premium offers that cover any additional requirements at this stage.
Wrapping Up
These incredible benefits of this combination of IVR and toll-free number are enough to justify an investment in them. If you want to win your customers, nothing is more important than being available, and this is exactly what this amazing combo can help you with. Moreover, this is a small price to pay, considering the benefits they can drive from the branding perspective. The best approach would be to collaborate with a reliable IVR and toll-free number provider. Seek one that offers advanced features at best-in-market pricing as well.
Acefone is a name you can trust for getting the best services to empower your business with IVR and toll-free number, regardless of the size or scale of your business.
