Top Most Hosted Call Centre Statistics That Will Make You Shift To The Cloud

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

February 24, 2021

5 mins read eye

Table of content

Contact centers are an integral component of organisations. They help facilitate seamless communication between the target audience and your business. And considering how important support interactions are, you shouldn’t leave any stone unturned to deliver the best of customer experiences.

Callers value contact centers that offer round-the-clock-availability, approachable representatives, and prompt resolutions. Businesses, on the other hand, value call centers that are cost-effective and centralised with a robust infrastructure to work even during critical situations like a natural disaster.

So, with these varying expectations, what kind of a contact center do you think will succeed and sustain in today’s competitive ecosystem?

Cloud-hosted contact centers come with the aforementioned capabilities and much more to enable frictionless communication between the customers and your business.

Before we delve into the intricacies of cloud-hosted contact centers, let us understand more about them.

What Is a Cloud-Hosted Contact Center?

A cloud-hosted contact center is one that is hosted on a centralised server. Contact center data is placed in this centrally accessible repository. Furthermore, it allows access to business-sensitive information irrespective of the agent’s location.

Cloud contact centers also facilitate multi-channel communication through email, chatbox, social media, and voice channels.

This capability of cloud contact centers paves the way for efficient customer service and, hence, creates a positive impact on customer experiences.

Moreover, cloud service providers ensure end-to-end support for the cloud-hosted environment. This includes maintenance, regular updates, taking care of security patches, disaster recovery, and scaling infrastructure based on specific needs.

With that in mind, let us delve into a few important statistics that throw light on the importance of cloud contact centers.

Cloud contact centers have lower abandonment rates when compared to on-premise contact centers.
Cloud contact centers are 27% cheaper and lower the possibility of downtime by 35% when compared to on-premise contact centers.
73% of cloud contact centers prove that the capability to provide increased uptime is the primary reason to embrace the cloud.
72% of users state that obtaining access to applications through on-premise centers is expensive.
70% of contact center users identify high-end security and best compliance practices available in the cloud as the major reason to invest in it.

Still, confused about migrating to the cloud? Here are a few more statistics that will change your mind.

Customer satisfaction is considered to be the most important metric according to 95.7% contact center professionals.
Customer service will be given more importance when compared to the price of the product and will be the key differentiator.
86% of customers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.
70% of customers wish for a consistent and seamless process when they contact a brand using any customer service channel.
58% of customers state that the quality of service impacts their choice of brand.
Poor customer service costs businesses a whopping $75 billion annually.
88% of customer service professionals state that customer expectations have grown with time.

Sources: Microsoft, Forbes, Salesforce, Hubspot

1. Cloud-hosted contact centers boost efficiency

Contact centers can no longer be limited to just phone calls. Customers now look for multiple ways of reaching out to your business. Cloud contact centers ensure multimodal communication through video calls, SMS, chat, and voice calls.

These statistics will further throw light on the significance of these capabilities.

66% of consumers prefer brands that have more than one communication channel.
Almost 92% of organisations offering multiple contact channels identify customer experience as a significant factor to attract customers.
59% of customers prefer organisations that seriously take up complaints posted on social media.
35% of customers wish to be able to reach out to the same contact center agent from any of their preferred communication channels.
Email is the preferred medium of communication with a brand for 54% of customers.
Web and email are cheaper mediums of contacting a brand. They cost 81% of the voice medium.
66% of companies use live chat for B2B and B2C contacts.
Live chat is preferred by 41% of consumers when contacting customer support.

Sources: Marketing Week, Microsoft, Forrester, ICMI, Zoho

Furthermore, according to this report, the global cloud-based contact center market is expected to grow at a CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) of 25.8% to reach USD 36.1 billion by 2025 from USD 11.5 billion in 2020. The prime reasons behind this are the enhanced reliability, security, and scalability that help businesses exceed expectations.

2. Ability to scale

Cloud contact centers come with several state-of-the-art capabilities like the flexibility to scale operations based on unique business requirements. For example, consider a scenario wherein your business has a sudden requirement of infrastructural resources due to an unexpected spike in the inflow of calls.

Equipped with a cloud contact center, all you will need to do is inform your cloud services provider and then rest assured that your infrastructure will scale up within minutes. The best part? This capability to scale up comes as a pay-as-you-use model.

So, you only need to invest in additional resources as long as the increased demand lasts and can conveniently scale down later. This ensures a cost-effective yet competent manner of using resources by eliminating wastage of infrastructural capacity.

3. Equipped with features for better productivity

Cloud-hosted contact centers come with numerous next-gen features like auto-diallers, IVRs (Interactive Voice Response) systems, auto-attendant systems, and monitoring tools.

Auto diallers improve agent productivity while facilitating inbound and outbound calls. IVR systems direct the customers to the desired department. And monitoring tools enable business owners to gauge the performance of their workflows and in-house agents.

Check out these statistics to know more about the importance of these features:

Reports suggest that the use of auto-diallers contributes towards enhanced productivity, about 200 to 300% more when compared to the use of manual dialling in an hour.
The first impression of an auto attendant on a consumer plays an important role. Reports say that the phone is the preferred medium to contact a business for 48% of respondents.

Wrapping up

Undoubtedly, cloud-hosted contact centers are here to stay and help businesses reach greater heights. They offer a wide array of benefits like cost-effectiveness, state-of-the-art features, and easy accessibility, as we discussed above.

Hopefully, these statistics and points will reiterate the importance of cloud-hosted contact centers and why they are a must-have for current-day businesses.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

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Yukti Verma

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Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Little Known Mistakes While Running a Bulk SMS Campaigns

Acefone Editor

Author

SMS Service

February 23, 2021

6 mins read eye

Table of content

Every business has one ultimate goal––to make profits. The only way to thrive in such competitive and saturated markets is by focussing on innovative marketing strategies. SMS marketing is one such strategy that will help you boost your revenues.

With smartphone users increasing to more than 90% of the population, it is imperative for businesses to be where their customers are––on mobile-friendly platforms.

Thus, there lies a flood of opportunities for marketers in the arena of SMS marketing. Done right, bulk SMS service can magnify your reach manifold. However, if you don’t implement it correctly, there could be a potential revenue loss, and you could also end up damaging brand reputation.

If your SMS marketing campaign hasn’t been yielding desired results, then this blog is for you. We’ve curated a list of mistakes that you can avoid while designing your bulk SMS marketing campaigns.

7 Mistakes to Avoid Wth Bulk SMS Campaigns

Not knowing your audience

Knowing your audience and understanding their behaviour, buying patterns, requirements, etc. should be every business leader’s first priority. You can’t create impactful SMS campaigns without knowing what your audience connects with.

Marketers need to consider demographics such as age, gender, pain points and lifestyle preferences. Align your campaign according to the said criterion to make it more appealing and personalised.

To be able to do this effectively, it is important that you segment your audience into relevant groups and design effective message templates for each of them.

Lack of personal touch

Once the SMS has reached the target audience, only content matters. Your content should hit the nail on the head—make readers feel special and, at the same time, brief them about your product.

Do not forget to include the customer’s name in the text. And if you combine it with their purchase history, that’ll be the cherry on top! Don’t forget to keep them updated about your latest offers and promotions and ensure regular check-ins tailored to their needs. Additionally, if you include links that allow customers to expand images related to your product or offer, it can create a more engaging and personalized experience.

Effective CTA is missing

SMS stands for short message service and, hence, the content should immediately draw the reader’s attention towards the CTA (call to action) ––a.k.a. the purpose of the message.

The presence or lack of a CTA can make or break your SMS content. If you have one, you can lure the reader into clicking on that link or placing that call. However, if you don’t have one, you can leave your readers feeling uncertain about the next steps that they need to follow and, subsequently, your brand.

Thus, always remember to place CTAs strategically to ensure that your audience does not miss out.

Bottom line: Never forget CTAs while developing bulk SMS campaigns.

Wrong timing of SMSes

Timing is everything. And this mantra applies to bulk SMSes as well. Customers are highly likely to feel annoyed if they’re contacted at odd hours. And rightly so.

Although India has managed to regulate promotional SMS timings (from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm), one can still go wrong.

Have you noticed how prominent F&B brands usually send out their SMSes during mealtimes? That’s a smart strategy to persuade users to hit that CTA in case they’re planning to eat-out.

Keep in mind:

Never text too early––before the person has his cup of coffee or too late when the customer is already preparing for bed or is asleep.
Avoid sending messages during peak hours when people are preoccupied with other activities.
Avoid sending messages during weekends as that can lead to a high unsubscribe rate.

Your customers may always be on their phones, but you still don’t want to buzz them at the wrong time. Choose your time window carefully based on your industry and customer’s preferences.

Read more: SMS Guidelines in India: The Do’s and Don’ts

Lack of consent

Make sure to add opt-in and opt-out options to your bulk SMS services. Always take consent from your audience before making them a part of your bulk SMS group. With so much noise from thousands of brands, customers are bound to get annoyed with too many promotional SMSes.

This also affects your brand reputation because customers will look at your business as inconsiderate. Lack of consent or permission can also force them to take legal action against your brand.

Long and convoluted SMS template

Modern day customers don’t have the time to open and read every text. They usually glance at SMSes and other updates from the notification bar and clear it right away. A short and smart combination of words in a line should be enough to put your message across and influence them positively without taking up too much of their time.

Always try to follow the 3C practice for your bulk SMS service—clarity, concise and call–to-action. Lengthy messages depict unprofessionalism and confuse your audience.

Using colloquial or casual tonality

While every customer will not connect with professional sounding content, it is important for businesses to avoid unprofessional language and abbreviations as these make your brand look overly laidback.

The content should sound neither too casual and nor too professional. And it should be easy to understand. In order to improve your brand’s credibility and reliability try to use a language free from jargons and acronyms.

Not being consistent with bulk SMS strategy

Make sure to set an optimal frequency before you launch your campaign and stick to that pattern. The aim should be to strike a balance.

If you send too many messages in one week and then, too less in the following week following, customers will be confused and will opt-out of your bulk SMS service.

Being annoyingly frequent is also a common mistake made by marketers while running bulk SMS service campaigns. In these cases, even if people don’t opt-out, they will still disregard your texts.

Both scenarios are risky.

Therefore, depending on your sector and type of subscribers, find the best and most optimal frequency for your business.

Choosing the wrong bulk SMS provider

You need to be very careful when choosing your technology partners. Markets for bulk SMS are more than saturated and you need to evaluate them on the basis of several aspects such as cost, uptime, delivery rate and backup. Carefully analyse and study online reviews for these service providers before investing your hard-earned money.

You can choose a reliable organisation like Acefone. Our customers love us for the delivery rate and after-sales support offered by our experts.

Parting words

These common mistakes can be easily taken care of if one pays close attention to the details. Focussing on them will help you design the ‘ideal bulk SMS campaign’. Make the most of this tool as smartphones are the closest devices to customers and easiest to capitalise on.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Acefone Editor

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Acefone provides a broad range of cloud communication services to businesses of all sizes, which includes Hosted Phone Systems, Free Phone Numbers, and Cloud Contact Center Solutions. Being the UK's leading provider of VoIP service provider, we always strive to provide excellent customer service and high-quality custom solutions to our customers.

Make Outsourcing Work For You With Cloud Contact Centres

Acefone Editor

Author

Hosted Contact Center

February 22, 2021

6 mins read eye

Table of content

Every business, based on its industry type, faces a myriad of challenges. An organization that is from a non-IT background may find it difficult to maintain an in-house IT team. Similarly, a software company may find it tedious to handle an asset management team.

The best workaround to overcome these challenges is to outsource certain organizational responsibilities so as to streamline business workflows. For example, although having a Cloud contact center may sound out-of-scope for a production business, it is pivotal to ease the process of contacting the target audience.

So, does outsourcing solve all your concerns? The answer is yes. Outsourcing, backed by the right partner will reduce your workload, minimize costs, and improve productivity, thereby helping you focus more on your core business.

A Capital Counselor report says that the main reason for contact center outsourcing (59%) is to save money and cut costs.

Here, we have consolidated a few best practices that should be kept in mind when you outsource your cloud contact center. Let’s check them out.

To begin with, ensure that you communicate the purpose behind contact center outsourcing. This should include the following:

Your organizational objectives
Fixed KPIs to gauge the team’s performance
The required equipment and tools
Effective leadership to take charge

With this idea, let us elaborate on these further.

1. Ensure seamless collaboration and communication

During this pandemic, several firms have shifted to remote work, which has undeniably impacted day-to-day communication. To overcome this, you should implement collaborative tools that facilitate instant communication within your teams.

Collaboration and friction-free communication are integral to the success of any organization. You should focus on creating a cordial environment within your business.

For example, in a contact center set-up, if new joiners have trouble handling callers, they may use instant messaging apps to ping their superiors for clarifications. This expedites processes.

Furthermore, if your support center has a distributed set-up, collaborative tools will help bring your staff together—from conducting team-building activities to hosting virtual meetings.

Team feedback sessions can also be hosted over messaging apps. You can gather appropriate BPO KPI (key performance indicator) metrics and provide regular feedback (perhaps even via video contact center ) to ensure your outsourced contact center is aligned with your organizational goals.

2. Maintain a state-of-the-art monitoring system

Although your cloud service provider is responsible for taking care of your contact center outsourcing requirements, you should still install a state-of-the-art monitoring system to supervise operations. This will help you predict bottlenecks, identify flaws in your system, and rectify them promptly.

Moreover, your team should be monitored for both qualitative and quantitative performance. The average call handling time, rate of successful issue resolution, and the kind of feedback they obtain are categorized as qualitative parameters. Quantitative performance includes the number of calls handled, number of missed calls, calls transferred or issues escalated, etc.

This kind of call monitoring and recording hugely contributes towards timely intervention in case of technical or functional issues, thereby eliminating major concerns of business interruption.

3. Utilise a next-gen CRM software

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools can help improve your business processes, support the technology you use, and back organisational strategy.

A CRM will offer you all the required customer information to efficiently handle calls, establish meaningful relationships, contribute towards their retention, and drive sales growth.

All customer information—like name, contact information, details of social media accounts, and their history of interactions with your brand—is always at your fingertips.

For example, your agent will be able to track previous chats with a caller to maintain consistency and context in case of a persisting issue. This will help save time for both the parties and help them start off without having to waste time on repeating details.

Integrating your call center with a CRM will enable your agents to fetch important customer information effortlessly. Everything they need will be on a single screen and they won’t be switching between various tabs or windows. Therefore, your contact center outsourcing team should have a CRM that can be integrated with your internal processes.

4. Invest in a high-end VoIP solution

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) enables your support representatives to receive and make calls over the Internet. In contrast to conventional phone lines, VoIP phone system involve a centralised connection that can be used from anywhere across the globe.

For example, if your agents work from different locations, they can connect over VoIP for inbound and outbound calls. You only need a reliable network connection along with a VoIP number and you are good to go. Even if you have slow Internet, you can still experience high-quality calls.

Another major advantage it offers your agents is the ability to work from anywhere using the same number—any device, any location. This facilitates uninterrupted customer service even in the face of unexpected disasters or situations like the COVID-19 pandemic.

Furthermore, this option is highly scalable. If your contact center faces a spike in call traffic, the capacity of your hosted phone system can be adjusted to meet the increased demand. Also, you may scale back to the original capacity after the demand recedes.

Since it’s simply a service on the cloud, you will need to pay only for the additional resources you may have used in the specified period. This option helps businesses toggle preferences without spending on hardware and additional phone lines.

5. Check for appropriate hardware

The ability of a contact center to perform well depends on the availability of both hardware and software. Equipment like computers, telephone lines, and USB headsets are equally important for the success of your contact center ecosystem.

You should make sure that your outsourced service provider equips your contact center with all the necessary hardware that will support your team in meeting emerging requirements.

Moreover, you should also ensure that your contact center is equipped with an IVR system. This system comes with several capabilities like call forwarding, monitoring, and tracking that significantly enhance performance.

6. Ensure centralised access

One commendable capability of cloud contact centers is centralised access. Data used in the contact center is saved in a secure cloud repository. This can be accessed only by authorised individuals irrespective of their location.

For example, if your agents are working from home owing to the current pandemic, centralised access will enable your contact center to offer uninterrupted services to the customers. Your team members will be able to obtain customer information, work on files, and edit team documents simultaneously. This will help in seamless customer services irrespective of the agent’s work location.

To conclude

Cloud contact centers can be difficult to manage. Outsourcing them can relieve you from critical responsibilities. Your cloud service provider will ensure that you obtain all the benefits of a cloud contact center while they take complete charge of its nuances.

However, you should make sure that you check on a few factors while doing so. Hopefully, all the points that we have discussed can tell you what areas to focus on when outsourcing your contact center.

To know more about cloud technologies and their use for your business, reach us at 1888-859-0450 or simply send an email to [email protected].

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

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Phone An Expert: Mastering Customer Service with Ian Golding

Diksha Gusain

Author

Expert Opinion

February 18, 2021

5 mins read eye

Table of content

What do my customers want? Am I catering to their needs satisfactorily? What more can I do?

In a market as consumer-centric as the one we see today, these questions often give business leaders sleepless nights.

In a growing economy like ours, people tend to spend more and save less. No longer do markets exist solely as a place to purchase essentials. Now, businesses vie for meaningful interactions with clients so as to create long-term relationships.

And truth be told, customers can make or break any business. One good review on social media could potentially go viral and skyrocket your business. Conversely, negative word-of-mouth could bring you crashing down.

What does all this teach us? It’s quite simple—focus on the customers, make them your priority. This means you have to make sure your firm’s customer service does not stop at satisfactory but is absolutely delightful.

This may sound like a Herculean task, but even the tallest of buildings are made brick by brick. Certain smaller changes in your business practices can make all the difference and elevate your customer experience. And we know just how to get you started.

Ian Golding is a customer experience specialist and certified CX professional, having spent 20+ years in business improvement. A keynote speaker and featured columnist for CustomerThink, he has worked across various industries, advising businesses on the field. Ian’s first book, Customer What?: The honest and practical guide to customer experience, was published in April 2018.

Here are some insights from our exclusive interview with Ian wherein he gives tips to businesses—new and established—on how to tackle customer experiences effectively.

Ques 1: Why did you choose customer experience as your career?

I am not sure I chose CX as a career—I’m absolutely certain it chose me. I, like many other CX professionals, had been practising customer-centric ‘thinking’ many years before CX became recognised as a profession.

The big turning point in my career was the time I spent working at General Electric in the ’90s. Still led by Jack Welch, GE was a wonderful example of customer-centricity at the time. Jack had a huge influence on what I have done ever since.

Ques 2: According to you, what is the difference between a good and a great customer experience strategy?

This is an interesting question. It’s difficult to provide a concrete answer generically—it would very much depend on the specific circumstances. However, if an organisation has a desire to become sustainably customer-centric, defining and embedding a customer experience strategy is a core component of doing so.

A CX strategy defines what the intended experience is–how an organisation wants its customers to feel every time they interact with them. I would define a good strategy is one that has been clearly articulated and understood but is not yet consistent or mature enough to lead to differentiation.

A great strategy is one that has been embedded in the way the organisation works, enabling it to differentiate not just on its products and services, but on the whole experience!

Ques 3: You started your career as an auditor, and today, you are a founder and CEO of Customer Experience Consultancy Ltd. How would you describe this journey?

It has certainly been a rich and rewarding one. Having spent 17 years in corporate organisations, I learned that my brain was wired to do ‘the right thing’—for customers as well as my colleagues.

However, I learned the hard way that organisations do not always want people to ‘do the right thing’. All too often, I was told to do things that would benefit my organisation in the short term, but to the detriment of the customer.

This I found very difficult to do. I would regularly challenge thinking—very often to my own detriment. In fact, I’ve been belittled and patronised for my desire to do what’s right for customers. I’d end up thinking I was the anomaly.

But over the last 8 years, I’ve come to realise that changing the way traditional organisations think and act is incredibly challenging. I consider myself to be hugely fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with hundreds of firms, of all shapes and sizes, in 44 countries around the world.

I can now combine my experiences of doing CX on the inside, to support businesses to do CX from the outside. Additionally, I am hugely passionate about supporting individuals—my fellow CX practitioners.

Ques 4: What difficulties did you face in the beginning when advising companies on delivering better CX?

There were many, actually. It all depends on the specific scenario, but the top three are:

Lack of support from and involvement of leadership: Very often, fellow practitioners needed my help or support, but the ultimate decision-makers were not on board.

Lack of knowledge: CX has become a science. Firms sometimes think they know what CX is all about, but bringing the science to life in full can be very eye-opening.

Lack of awareness: Many businesses aren’t aware of brilliant CX professionals who can bring in genuine specialist knowledge to the table.

Ques 5: How do you think businesses can provide the best customer experiences effectively?

By keeping it simple! While I do describe CX as a science, it’s no rocket science. People tend to radically overcomplicate things, and as a result, fail to realise any demonstrable change.

If a simple but structured approach can be adopted, a customer experience focus can completely change the fortune of an organisation. That is why I am such an advocate for the need to embed a customer experience framework. Structure and rigour are essential.

Conclusion

Ian Golding has a lifetime of experience in the field of customer service. By witnessing and initiating client-centric changes himself, he’s realised what works best and what doesn’t. He is also very inclined to help out others in the field.

The insights from this interview can really help you boost customer service, and consequently, customer relationships, for your company. In no time, you’ll be reaping higher profits and improved productivity.

Feel free to reach us at any time to understand how cloud technologies can aid your customer service ventures. Simply call 1888-859-0450 or drop an email at [email protected].

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

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Diksha Gusain

Author

Diksha is a junior content writer at Acefone. As a tech-lover, she aims to bridge the gap between tech articles and non-savvy readers. She’s equally interested in pop culture and worldly affairs. And in her free time, you can find her with her nose buried in a book or discovering new music for her chaotically diverse playlist.

Do’s & Don’ts For Curating Your Voicemail Greeting

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

February 17, 2021

6 mins read eye

Table of content

The first experiences your customers have with your business are the deciding factor when it comes to customer retention. Your contact center plays a pivotal role in creating these experiences.

When a customer contacts you for the first time, their buyer journey––starting from the greeting till the call is disconnected––reflects the credibility and professionalism of your brand. Therefore, you need to craft the most contextual and seamless experiences with every call, thereby earning more customers.

The importance of a voicemail greeting

A welcoming and professional voicemail greeting can ensure that you have satisfied and returning patrons, and not disgruntled one-time customers.

Pleasant voicemail greetings help facilitate an effortless customer experience. However, unfriendly ones, especially if they have excessive IVR prompts, can confuse callers. Such greetings ruin a client’s mood who is then bound to have a bad experience even if they connect to an efficient agent.

Having said that, we have consolidated a list of dos and don’ts that should be considered when designing your voicemail greetings. Check them out right away!

1. Do keep it simple

Your voicemail greeting is simply to welcome the caller—not to resolve concerns. Keep it simple with a welcome message and a little more about what to expect.

The optimal length of a voicemail greeting is considered 20 to 30 seconds. So, try to fit the information you’d like to impart within this timeframe.

Ensure that you do not include too much marketing jargon in your greeting. Keep it straightforward for better understanding.

2. Don’t sound overwhelmed

The tone of your voicemail makes a huge difference during the call. Though the greeting should be welcoming, it shouldn’t lean towards sounding overenthusiastic or overwhelmed. This may drive away customers with a negative image of your brand.

Maintain a balanced tone to accommodate customers with varying concerns. By ensuring neutrality, you can offer a decent experience to happy, confused, or angry clients alike. Remember, this is not a platform to promote your services—your representatives will do that job once the call has been connected.

3. Do keep consistency

Callers don’t find it appealing when voicemail messages sound different across different levels of the menu or every time they call. Imagine looking at a website that goes from red to blue to orange with each click. Not an appealing thought, right?

Similarly, a change in pitch, tone, or volume each time is jarring, to say the least. Not only does this showcase a lack of professionalism on your part, but it also gives the impression that you were careless while designing your voicemail greetings.

Thus, ensure that you use the same tone, volume, and pitch for all your voicemail greetings and throughout the multi-level menu.

4. Do reflect your brand

Branding guidelines play an important role in creating a unique identity among your target audience. When customers call your contact center, they’ll like to see and feel the reflection of your brand.

Maintain a consistent message that is conveyed across all your marketing and branding mediums. Make sure that the material that you use in your voicemail and calls fit the tone of your brand.

For example, if your products are for kids, you have to maintain a child-friendly, light, and fun tone in your greetings––whether it’s in your greetings, your calls, or your marketing collaterals. And if instead, you end up sounding stuffy or distant, you’re bound to confuse your callers and leave them feeling unhappy about your interaction.

5. Don’t overload callers with information

Your voicemail is simply meant to establish a connection and make your customers feel comfortable during the call. Remember, your voicemail helps create an image for your brand, it is not a sales pitch.

Keep it clean—only include basic information rather than stuffing the recording with your history, offers, and values. This is counterintuitive and may make the customer feel irrelevant.

6. Do update your greetings

The world is dynamic, so why shouldn’t your business keep evolving as well? Try to change your voicemail regularly. This will give a fresh perspective to your brand and show your callers that your business is alive. It’s also a good idea to incorporate the latest trends and address important happenings.

For example, when a customer is associated with your brand for a prolonged period, they may feel bored and indifferent to the same voicemail that’s played every time. Eventually, they’ll stop paying attention and get sick of waiting while listening to the same message.

Changing the voicemail greeting with varying tactics will show your versatility in dealing with clients along with creating a positive image among the target audience.

7. Do inform the customer about call status

The best voicemail greeting is one that is short yet informative. Ensure that you provide all the necessary information to your customer during the call. Cutting down on cardinal information in an attempt to shorten the call ends up wasting more time in the long run.

For example, as the call connects, introduce your brand, department reached as well as the average call waiting time. The caller can make sure they’ve reached the right place and determine if they’d rather shift to a different medium of contact.

8. Do give appropriate options

Self-service is the trend in the call center ecosystem. Ideally, present-day call centers implement a multi-tiered IVR system. This enables customers to resolve simple queries themselves, eliminating the need to connect with a live agent for all concerns.

To begin with, provide the customers with information about your working hours and agent availability. Give updates on holidays and specific phone line numbers.

Moreover, you need to tell them how to reach these multi-tiered IVR systems. Details on how you have categorised your departments and how your customers can reach their desired department will help customers navigate easily.

Make sure your customers know just how they can connect to live agents—or find resolution elsewhere. If their query can be solved from your FAQ base, don’t waste their time with an agent and simply direct them to the knowledge base.

This allows you to keep your call queues and waiting time in control and allow smooth call flows in your contact centers.

Wrap up

Voicemails are important when it comes to kickstarting the right type of conversations with your customers. You should draft simple, easy-to-understand, and friendly voicemail greetings to strike the right chord among your target audience.

Hopefully, the aforementioned do’s and don’ts of creating voicemails will help you create the best-suited voicemail for your brand.

Learn more about cloud-based communication services to boost your brand today. Call 1888-859-0450 or send an email to [email protected] to get started.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Yukti Verma

Author

Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

7 Invaluable Lessons That The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Taught Us And How We Can Apply Them In 2021

Acefone Editor

Author

Operations

February 15, 2021

6 mins read eye

Table of content

The year 2020 was tough, to say the least. COVID-19 changed the way organisations functioned. Businesses were thrown off-track and forced to pull their shutters down on brick-and-mortars to adhere to social distancing norms.

Needless to say, the impact of this on business processes was huge too. Stakeholders were left confused about how to manage cybersecurity issues, maintain collaboration, handle their workload, and deliver good customer service while taking care of their remote employees.

Finding a workaround for these challenges and preparing hardware and software to set up a remote environment for the entire organisation consumed most of last year.

Now that we have stepped into 2021, it is time for business owners to look back at 2020 and understand what they’ve learned to enhance their work processes accordingly.

Here are a few lessons that the COVID-19 pandemic has taught us and how they can be applied this year.

1. Accept remote work as the new norm

Traditional office culture required the employees to come to the office every day. Stakeholders believed that meeting in person was the only effective medium for establishing a successful company. Several companies include this punctuality to gauge employee performance and rate them.

However, with COVID-19 taking over in 2020, many companies were forced to shift to remote working culture. But, work from home allows employees flexibility and keeps their comfort and safety in mind. Your employees can do things in their own time as long as it doesn’t affect the quality of their work.

Stakeholders should understand that organisational ecosystems have undergone a massive shift and working from home has become the new normal to stay for long.

2. Consider employee safety

Employee safety was always important. Manufacturing industries and companies that involved heavy machinery insisted on using the right safety gear and spent a sizable amount of their funds to maintain the same.

However, now, employee safety is more than just a guideline. It is essential to running a business. Considering the rapid spread of COVID-19, it has become pivotal to reconsider employee safety norms not just during this pandemic but even after it.

A few steps that can be considered:

Check the temperature of the employees once they report to work
Provide hands-free sanitising equipment at the doorstep
Try and ensure social distancing in common areas like the restrooms and pantries
Allocate fixed timings for your employees to take a break in a phased manner
Do not hesitate to provide sick leaves
Organise periodic health check-ups for your employees whenever possible
Provide the necessary safety gear like masks and gloves if your business demands close physical contact

Ensuring these precautions will help in maintaining your employees’ health.

3. Going digital is critical

Exploring digitalisation was once an option for companies. A lifesaver for organisations that did not have any other means to reach out to their target audience. Companies that couldn’t afford to have a dedicated marketing team used to work on social media platforms and maintain their websites to attract organic traffic.

COVID-19 has changed this notion. Digitalisation is here to stay as a major medium of customer communication. It is important to maintain a positive brand image across social media platforms. In fact, marketing specialists insist on sharing collaterals over multiple platforms.

Send emails, post blogs, and market content from your website to customers. Participate in discussions over social media, initiate interactions and answer queries trending in your industry. Reach out to influencers and most importantly, do not hesitate to connect with your customers and obtain feedback on your products and services. This will turbo boost your online brand image for years to come.

4. Prioritise collaboration

Collaboration is how you survive in the industry, regardless of the size of your business. With remote work on the rise, employees operate from different locations and it has become necessary to weave them together with state-of-the-art collaborative tools.

For example, consider your team working remotely. If a team member faces trouble with something or needs an explanation, how will they contact the other team members instantly?

Though calling is the conventional way, having the right collaborative tool can make things easier.

Instant messaging apps come in handy in such scenarios. Your team members will be able to text and clarify things in a jiffy. These tools also facilitate video and audio conferencing. This will enable your team to meet up virtually once in a while. Though it may not be possible to meet in person, virtual meetings give the feel of an in-person meetup.

These messaging apps can be further used to build team collaboration by organising online team activities like games and informal discussions. They also help in initiating informal chats for relaxation, thereby creating a connection within the team.

5. Be prepared for a crisis

One lesson that COVID-19 taught us is to be prepared to face any crisis.

The first response is data readiness. This pandemic has taught us to incorporate new-gen disaster recovery solutions. It is important to have a data backup that aids uninterrupted access to information anytime and anywhere.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic was overnight. Offices were asked to close down and employees were refused entry. A repeat of this situation will be chaotic for businesses that may not have considered centralised access to business-critical information.

Furthermore, staying equipped with the necessary tools is also important. Businesses were left helpless when their employees had to work from home. They had to provide hardware (like laptops), necessary software, and a secure Internet connection.

Instead of grappling to find these at the last moment, it is recommended that you be prepared with additional tools that can be used in case of a crisis.

6. Break siloed environments

The free flow of information within different departments of an organisation is extremely important. In conventional ecosystems, data was limited to stakeholders, and information was guarded by supervisors. Limited people had access to it.

Though authentication of data is still important, we also need to share data across the organisation. A siloed system will not serve any purpose in the current work environment. We need to break the virtual barriers and help employees make informed decisions.

Put all the critical information on a centralised repository and allow authenticated people to use this information. This will reduce dependencies on individual employees and facilitate a friction-free environment.

7. Adhere to security regulations

Businesses deal with different types of data. This pandemic did not provide the time for companies to renew their security compliance before switching to remote work. The need to initiate remote work started overnight.

The important lesson from this is that companies should strictly adhere to security protocols. We shouldn’t wait for a crisis before looking into compliance regulations.

Take complete charge of your IT infrastructure. Renew the compliance and security protocols from time-to-time. Also, make sure that security patches, system upgrades, and maintenance happen in a scheduled manner. This will keep your system crisis-ready at all times.

Wrapping up

2020 took a toll on numerous businesses across the globe. We can only hope that 2021 will be better and at the same time, be equipped to handle any unprecedented situation.

The points mentioned above throw light on the lessons learned from the pandemic, how they change the industry and how we can be better prepared for any crisis.

If you would like to learn more about cloud solutions and how your business can benefit from a cloud-hosted contact center, connect with one of our experts at 1888-859-0450 or send us an email at [email protected]

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How UCaaS Eliminates Virtual Team Communication Challenges?

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

February 11, 2021

7 mins read eye

Table of content

Seamless communication between the moving parts of an organisation plays an important role in defining its success. In the present-day scenario, remote work is not just preferred, it’s vital. With several companies shutting shop due to the pandemic, business owners have begun to consider extended remote work seriously.

However, even before the pandemic, there were many companies that preferred to work remotely in hopes of achieving a better work-life balance and improved savings on infrastructural investments.

The biggest challenge in a remote ecosystem is to successfully create a virtual working environment. And although there are risks associated with working in total silos, businesses are adopting unified communication systems to overcome this major challenge.

So, what are UCaaS systems? Let us understand better.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) is a communication model delivered by providers on the cloud. This model facilitates the unified delivery of communication across an organisation—empowered by virtual meetings, enterprise telephony, unified messaging, and improved mobility. UCaaS enables you to establish a frictionless connection within your organisation and with customers alike.

So, let’s explore how virtual teams rise above their challenges with UCaaS.

1. Improved productivity

When employees work in silos, they do not get access to a holistic view of the problems presented by the customers. In the absence of a free flow of information within the different departments, you’re likely to propose inconsistent solutions to clients.

And without proper resolutions, customers tend to come back with the same concerns. By doing so, they highlight the lacklustre quality and productivity of your business and have overall unsatisfactory experiences.

UCaaS is a cloud-based system, and therefore, can be accessed from anywhere across the globe. It provides a holistic view of the business processes to the employees. Your teams can access all the tools and infrastructure required to deal with customers on a single page, even when working remotely.

For example, let’s say you run a UCaaS-based contact center. If a returning customer connects with your agent, you can pull out the customer’s previous call history and personal data from the CRM, and access product details from the knowledge base simultaneously.

When your agent is equipped with all the relevant information to deal with the customer’s query, he can resolve issues in no time, and with confidence. Therefore, productivity is enhanced right from your employees’ home offices.

2. Boost collaboration

Collaboration is essential for a successful remote ecosystem. A simple miscommunication can snowball into a massive organisational error. Therefore, you should ensure that you adopt the right collaboration tools to weave your team together.

Traditional systems do not support a virtually cooperative environment. They do not offer collaboration tools and work best only if your team meets in-person.

UCaaS overcomes these limitations. It supports the unified working of your employees even in a distributed environment. All this is possible with the use of virtual team meetings, instant messaging, and online team building activities that improve collaboration.

Furthermore, UCaaS offers features that enable document sharing and simultaneous editing. This allows your team to work on the same page even when they’re miles apart.

3. Simplified integrations

With unified communications, you can combine the capabilities of different technological platforms to improve business workflows. In distributed work set-ups, the potential of these platforms is best met when they work in unison.

Conventional communication systems may not accommodate the integration of third-party apps. They would have to be completely shifted to a separate technological platform along with the tools for the best results. This can be a time-consuming and expensive affair.

However, UCaaS supports integrations and helps employees deliver seamless services even in a virtual ecosystem.

For example, a CRM is used to save customer information. It can provide pivotal customer details and interaction history that result in faster resolutions when dovetailed with your telephony system. It also helps deliver contextual and personalised experiences that build customer loyalty.

4. Showcase reliability

With all said and done, the COVID-19 pandemic did end up giving consumers an idea of the preparedness and reliability of brands. Businesses that strived to sustain and work remotely to provide uninterrupted services will continue to emerge successfully. However, companies that did not give this aspect a thought may find themselves struggling to keep up.

Reliability is an important quotient that reflects the strength of your business. You should ensure that your brand delivers uninterrupted services even in the case of a disaster or crisis. The mark of a professional firm is its ability to bounce back to normalcy even in tough situations. That’s how your target audience knows they can trust you.

In legacy systems, your sensitive business data is not stored on a centralised repository. In case of data loss, you’re unable to operate and your business could even come to a standstill. This will definitely impact your brand negatively.

UCaaS eliminates this concern completely. It guards your data by adhering to high-level security policies. Moreover, data is automatically backed up and, in the event of a crisis, restored spontaneously. Your day-to-day operations continue smoothly.

Essentially, UCaaS ensures business continuity and high-end disaster recovery, thereby showcasing your brand as a reliable one.

5. Safeguard data

Security is a huge concern for all kinds of organisations—especially when employees work from their homes. There is always a threat of security breaches and data theft and misuse by fraudsters. Traditional systems are exposed to these threats as one has to manually intervene to obtain compliance and maintain security measures.

UCaaS ensures that all your data is guarded by foolproof security policies and GDPR best practices. These include 256-bit industrial-grade encryption and multi-factor authentication. Moreover, all your data is stored on the cloud and can be retrieved if a cyber-attack occurs.

Again, your provider will automatically keep updating the system to the latest security best practices. The provider will also necessarily include antivirus firewalls and anti-spam ware to further safeguard your data.

6. Portability

Traditional communication systems can only be connected to specific devices. It demands the presence of the employees in the office who can access the system and perform everyday activities.

However, UCaaS systems are highly portable—a major boon for companies having a remote workforce or widespread operations. All you need is a stable Internet, regardless of geographical locations.

Your team will be able to work collaboratively from anywhere across the globe with the same efficiency as in-house teams.

And this system enables your employees to use any device they prefer to work on. Moreover, they can flip calls within devices, eliminating the need to be glued to their desk during work hours. This flexibility makes UCaaS the most preferred communication platform amongst companies having a virtual workforce.

7. Easy onboarding of virtual talents

The onboarding process helps strike the right chord with your employees. A thorough onboarding process can assure a nurturing working relationship with your workforce. How do you think this can be achieved in a virtual environment?

In the case of legacy systems, businesses will have to compromise on the quality of the onboarding process or they will need to stop their hiring process even if there is an urgent need.

UCaaS, on the other hand, comes with inbuilt messaging and conferencing capabilities that can be used to virtually meet recruits. A huge advantage of remote work is that you are free to hire talents from across the globe irrespective of their location. When you can seamlessly onboard remote employees through virtual conferencing tools, it further showcases your company as trustworthy.

Conclusion

Having an effective communication system is pivotal to the success of remote businesses. However, you must choose your communication platform with the utmost care. Hopefully, these points will throw light on a few of the advantages of UCaaS. Everything from portability and reliability, to data security and remote tools are at your service.

Feel free to let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!

To get a virtual team communication solution curated just for your needs, contact us at 1888-859-0450 or send an email to [email protected].

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Yukti Verma

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Yukti is a content marketing enthusiast with a soft spot for Saas. She loves weaving complicated concepts into simple stories. When not at work, she is found reading books or watching movies.

Expert Opinion: An Inside Look at Customer Experience Strategies with Katie Stabler

Kritagya Pandey

Author

Expert Opinion

February 10, 2021

5 mins read eye

Table of content

Modern-day customers demand more than just satisfactory prices and standard services. These buyers are empowered like never before, and exceptional service is the only way to stand out and drive customer loyalty.

Customer experience, thus, is no longer merely a part of your strategy—it is a way of doing business and maintaining relations.

In fact, CX can be considered the new battlefield for all types of businesses. Every company now strives to make their customers a priority and outshine each other in extending exceptional services.

According to a Superoffice study, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. Thus, it is clear that a positive consumer experience is a driving force behind boosting sales and multiplying revenues.

In continuation of our ‘Expert Opinion’ series, we have Katie Stabler, Founder and Director of CULTIVATE Customer Experience by Design. She will share with us her CX journey and valuable opinions on the customer service domain.

Katie has co-authored the Amazon No#1 bestseller ‘Customer Experience 2’ and has been named one of 150 top Global CX Thought Leaders in 2020. Also a keynote speaker, trainer, and a global team leader, Katie brings the best of industry research and customer service knowledge to the table.

Here are some insights from an exclusive interview with Katie. Read on to know more.

1. Your CX journey has been really fascinating. Would you like to tell us about it?

I started, like most, with humble career beginnings. I worked in a fish stall as a checkout girl on my local seafront, and then as a customer service representative in contact centers. And I’ve always been in customer-facing roles.

In fact, I spent a decade in the not-for-profit sector, where my interest in the area really started to grow. After all, you can’t get a more organically customer-centric organisation than a charity––a place that literally exists to serve its ‘customers’.

I then took my first major corporate role, managing the customer experience programme for one of Europe’s largest credit management companies, a.k.a. a debt collection company. It was a huge cultural change and an ambitious challenge. But I worked with an amazing team and we saw fantastic results in the two years I spent there.

I now run my own customer experience consultancy. We advise organisations on their strategic and operational practice, working with them to work more effectively, efficiently, and profitably.

2. Being a customer experience expert, how do you feel while interacting with and serving your customers?

I believe conversing with customers is highly enlightening––what you learn from every interaction is invaluable. Client communication is essential in my role, and I encourage everybody to take that opportunity in their organisation. Team leaders, managers, directors, MDs, wherever appropriate, should keep their feet on the ground and speak with customers.

3. What are some obstacles that you faced on your journey to becoming a customer experience leader?

Organisational performance measures are often the most common obstacles I have faced. It isn’t unusual to see organisational goals benchmarked against performance measures with little or nothing to do with customers. This can pose to be a challenge when trying to introduce new tactical customer-focused initiatives.

4. Can you advise readers on delivering a good experience, regardless of business size and industry?

Very much in relation to the previous question, the more you focus on what is important to your customers, the more likely you will be to perform on outcomes important to the business.

5. When responding to a customer, how do you decide what information to include or not?

This absolutely depends on your conversation, but the bottom line is that your customers want quick, friendly, and straightforward responses. So, always make sure to acknowledge what they have said and provide the information they seek in a concise yet familiar manner.

6. Can you tell us about a time when you were particularly impressed with an experience with a client?

Many years ago, when I worked for a debt charity, my role was to give legal advice on debt management. There was truly no better feeling than when I spoke to a despondent person who genuinely believed they had no solution and was able to tell them there was a way out for them.

If you empower your employees and enable them to do a great job, they will always provide a great customer experience. And they will enjoy their employee experience to boot!

7. Since you co-authored Customer Experience 2, would you be willing to share some tips from the book?

My chapter focuses on customer experience recovery. It’s about the reality of business—that sometimes things simply go wrong despite our best efforts. Customer experience recovery is about planning to fail; it’s about being prepared to turn a bad customer experience into a great one! (Minimise complaints, stop bad reviews and retain customers.)

8. Do you have a new book that we can look for in the stands soon?

Watch out for my new book sometime soon! Why not head over to my website for my existing books information and other services available – www.cultivatecustomerexperience.com

9. Lastly, how did you feel when you were named one of the top 150 Global CX Thought Leaders in 2020?

What a fantastic accomplishment! It’s a privilege to be recognised among some genuinely amazing CX contributors and I’m thankful to have a spot on the list. It’s a badge I wear with pride and one I hope to maintain over the coming years.

To wrap up

Customers can take your brand from rags to riches (quite literally). However, to make sure that your clients keep coming back and purchasing from you, it is essential to provide world-class services.

Customer satisfaction is now a dated concept. To gain customer loyalty, businesses must take a step forward and exceed buyer expectations.

We hope that this interview provides you with exceptional CX enlightenment and actionable steps that help you craft your next strategy.

To know more about Katie’s opinions and views, you can follow her on LinkedIn.

Visit our ever-expanding content repository for more resources on customer service, experience, and cloud technology.

You can reach our expert agents at 1888-859-0450 or simply send an email to [email protected]. We look forward to hearing from you.

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Kritagya Pandey

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Kritagya Pandey is a creative and technical content writer, editor, and strategist. She has been writing on customer experience, customer service, artificial intelligence, cloud communication, and more. She invests her time researching the current business, market trends, and studying about social media strategies.

5 Ways To Make a Better Home Office

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

February 9, 2021

5 mins read eye

Table of content

COVID-19 pandemic has deeply affected all aspects of our lives. We can’t tell what the future holds, but the world will surely be a different place. Among the various changes we’ve incorporated, remote working is definitely here to stay. Therefore, it’s essential to create a better home office experience—for both your employees as well as customers.

At the heart of every business is customer experience. This doesn’t change just because your working location has shifted. This far into the pandemic, you’re expected to have adapted to the new model and create a safe and comfortable working environment with the utmost professionalism. It can be tricky to maintain this balance, but our guide will help you navigate through your remote set-up and improve your staff’s remote offices.

Ensure your employees have all the equipment they need

Firstly, and most importantly, you must ensure that your teams have all the equipment they need to work comfortably from home. Depending on the nature of your business, they may need a laptop, tablet, or a smartphone—in addition to a stable Internet connection.

Once that’s taken care of, they can focus on improving the customer experience rather than struggling with substandard equipment. In terms of data protection and privacy, providing your staff with company equipment is a great way to ensure that necessary security protocols are followed at all times.

Check-in with teams frequently and encourage meetings

Remote working can be lonely and monotonous at times, particularly for employees who live alone. Their mental health can suffer due to heavy workload and the burden of preventing a burnout rests in the manager’s hands. A hosted phone system allows colleagues to connect in a matter of mere seconds, simply by dialling or clicking on their number/extension.

Instant messaging is also a great platform to utilise. It allows people to share specific details and also simply chat without disturbing their workflow.

Remote team meetings via conference call further help the teams and leaders feel engaged in the organisation. They can also freely share their ideas and opinions for the firm and be better involved, even from home.

A simple video call can drastically increase the personalisation level, and therefore, bring people closer together. Whether it’s a team meeting or a check-in from a manager, hosted phone systems make it easy to keep in touch with colleagues during remote working.

When teams collaborate effectively to solve problems and share information, customer experience is bound to benefit too. Well-informed staff can give great customer service even when remote working. Since the online portal stores all customer data as well as product information the agent might need to solve queries, customer experience doesn’t need to suffer at all!

Greater access to relevant information

Working remotely can be a real struggle for employees as they may find it difficult to access information which would freely be available in the office. To ensure that all workers can access the same information in real-time, Acefone’s online portal is the ideal solution.

The online portal is capable of storing all the information you need, including customer phone numbers, purchase information, and more. Each employee can access the portal from their compatible device and can see detailed notes on customer accounts. It also connects seamlessly with most CRM systems, so data is shared freely back and forth.

So a simple log-in into a secure portal (with two-factor authentication) gives agents everything they’ll need on a single screen.

With access to this information and the ability to collaborate and leave notes for other employees, say about customers preferences, your remote workers are at no disadvantage from not being in the office. They can provide excellent customer service from the safety of their own homes. Customers are much more sensitive to the struggles businesses are facing through the pandemic, and will appreciate your investment and dedication to providing consistently strong solutions even more.

Encourage self-care

Happy, healthy staff are more likely to provide a great customer experience. It’s in the interests of both employer and employee to ensure that teams take regular breaks, spend time away from their home offices, and have the correct set-up.

So how should an ideal home office look? There needs to be a suitable desk and chair to avoid back pain, and good lighting to prevent straining the eyes. You need to support your teams to ensure they’re getting such basic amenities, in addition to their cloud-compatible devices and Internet connectivity. Their comfort is essential to enable their productivity.

Encouraging staff to take regular breaks is also a great way to keep them motivated, and safeguard their energy for delivering exceptional customer service. Having these simple considerations in place will optimise your teams’ productivity as well as enhance consumer experience—as agents will likely go the extra mile when they’re comfortable and motivated.

Create a better home office experience with a hosted phone system

Hosted phone systems provide a flexible solution for remote working. It allows agents to have access to everything they need, and they can work from the device of their choice, as long as they can connect to the Internet. Acefone’s cloud phone solutions are secure and robust; they can support your remote workers, regardless of where they’re based.

Once your staff has all the tools they need, they can focus on delivering excellent customer experiences to each and every person who calls.

To find out more about remote working and creating a great home office experience, call our team today on 1888-859-0450.

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Building Brand Trust: 3 Hidden Barriers & How to Overcome Them

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

February 8, 2021

7 mins read eye

Table of content

To attract and retain customers, you need brand credibility and a great reputation.

This may seem simple, but there are often barriers to overcome when trying to create a decent brand reputation.

Your brand’s reliability doesn’t just create loyal customers, it can also be the deciding factor between a new customer using your services or opting for a competitor. We all make these decisions every day based on how much trust we have in a brand.

This is the reason people visit the same supermarket every month or choose a branded product over a cheaper alternative—we have more trust in some brands as compared to others.

Once you know the barriers, you can take steps to solve these issues and ensure that nothing stands in the way of building a credible brand. This article will explore exactly what brand trust is, highlight three of the biggest barriers you may face on the way, and how you can solve them.

Why Do you Need a Brand Trust?

Brand trust measures how much confidence customers have in your product and your business. As an important element in any customer’s buying journey, brand trust helps you retain customers for the long haul. Businesses trusted by consumers will retain their loyalty even with attractive competitors nearby.

Therefore, you need to refine every client interaction, offer outstanding service and offers, and quality products. Brand trust isn’t just about positive interactions though. It is about the ability to bounce back from a negative occurrence and deal with problems effectively that make a massive difference.

The Hidden Barriers to Building Brand Trust

Sometimes, you do everything right and still don’t receive the level of trust you would like. This is why it is important to identify the hidden barriers to brand trust and how your business can overcome them.

Here are some of them:

1. Companies aren’t ready for remote work

Although many firms have been working from home for quite some time now, others are still not correctly set up for remote working. A virtual office might face issues like missed phone calls, lost connections due to poor equipment and infrastructure, and lack of proper devices.

While the start of the pandemic may have garnered you some leeway, customers expect firms to have settled and started professional operations by now. Failing to do so will have a detrimental effect on your brand image, and therefore decrease client trust.

So, if a customer is not able to get through to the company easily, or is finding wait times to be excessively long, they will start to lose faith in the service. Furthermore, if your agents struggle to access customer data and find relevant information in real-time, it results in a negative customer experience.

Ultimately, this will cost you clientele and lead to loss of revenue.

How to solve this

With a cloud phone system, you are set up to work remotely in seconds. Hosted phone systems work on a plug-and-play basis, so they are really easy to set up and maintain. Your virtual office can be up and running instantly—with all the capabilities of your physical office.

Employees using hosted phone systems can easily handle customer issues via their work or personal WiFi-enabled devices. They also have access to an online portal that gives them detailed information about each customer account, daily goals and performance, and much more.

For more complex queries, employees can easily switch between devices—without disturbing the ongoing call. So you could go from your smartphone to your laptop instantly to access certain details. The customer won’t know the difference, and will simply receive great service from your advisers.

With access to all the relevant information they need in real-time—and even integration with your CRM system—your employees are well placed to offer support and make sales effortlessly. With hosted phone systems, it is easy to add or remove phone lines so you can hire and connect temporary workers from around the world to help out in stressful times.

Another great advantage of a cloud-based communication suite is that you can mask your agents’ private contact details from callers. This comes in handy in a world that greatly values privacy.

Customers can call your usual business number and get routed to the best-suited agent. Similarly, for outbound calls, you can assign a caller ID to your number to maintain a high level of professionalism and credibility right from home.

As a manager, you can keep track of everything from costs to call waiting times through the online portal and make informed decisions and insightful strategies. By keeping everything running smoothly through difficult times, customers will feel they can rely on your brand and you’ll appear much more reliable and prepared—therefore increasing your brand trust!

2. Lack of focus on customer privacy

The importance of privacy goes both ways—for agents as well as consumers. Customers value their privacy and do not wish to get spammed or scammed if their number gets out into unwanted hands.

Businesses with a lack of focus on customer privacy are much more likely to run into problems when building brand trust. Important data has been leaked even from multinational corporations that promise unparalleled security to their high-profile clients. This, inevitably, damages trust.

So it’s important to invest wisely and generously to implement privacy measures for clients. Here, we’re referring to communication solutions such as number masking (or freephone numbers to conceal identity), 2FA, security provisions, multiple data centers, and more, as examples to safeguard customer privacy.

How to solve this

With a cloud-hosted phone system, you can mask customer and agent contact details by creating temporary virtual numbers for the interaction. However, adopting proper security protocols is the most important step that you need to take.

Acefone’s hosted phone systems hold data in multiple geographic locations. So if something does happen to your physical premises, your data is securely saved elsewhere and can be backed up right away. Additionally, hosted phone systems include multi-level security measures, including firewalls, encryptions, and more.

A reliable provider will keep your customer data in the cloud and be fully compliant with regulations like PIC, FCC, GDPR, and CPNI. Therefore, opting for a hosted phone system is a great way to show your clients that you take data privacy seriously and gain their trust.

3. Lack of focus on customer-oriented integrations

If a business is not focussing on ways to make interactions smoother for customers, it will struggle to build solid relationships. You need to take a proactively customer-centric approach to your business operations.

When calling with a query, the last thing customers want is to have to keep repeating the same information while the agent fumbles for solutions. If you can’t resolve queries on the first call, you’re bound to lose credibility. Dissatisfied customers don’t just take their business elsewhere, they might also spread their negative review of your brand—thereby deterring you from getting any new clients as well.

How to solve this

With a cloud-hosted phone system, you and your customers can benefit from seamless integrations with CRMs, Google Contacts, and more. These integrations are designed to make it easier to connect with customers and truly understand their issues.

You’ll have real-time access to call notes from previous conversations, data from your CRM, and much more—all on the same screen. With all this information at your fingertips, your employees will be able to handle calls more efficiently and in a professional manner.

This information can also help employees connect with customers and deliver a more personalised experience, such as by offering add-on services and beneficial offers. If you deliver personalised support, your clients will feel much more valued, and therefore, will have more trust in a brand they feel really knows them.

Overall, brand trust is an integral part of any business’ customer service strategy and businesses should strive to curate relationships with customers at every opportunity. Hosted phone systems make things simpler for employees and enable them to connect and build rapport with customers, so why not switch today?

To find out more about switching to a cloud phone system, call our team on 1888-859-0450, and our experts will get you started right away.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

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