5 IVR Complaints That You Should Fix Immediately

Acefone Editor

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Uncategorized

December 26, 2019

7 mins read eye

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Handling hundreds of calls every day and answering the same questions is not easy for the agents. IVR systems are of immense help in such cases. Although it doesn’t eliminate the calls entirely, it does cut down the call frequency to a significantly low number.

Here, it is important to understand that employing an IVR is not enough. This boon can turn into bane in no time if the IVR performance is not constantly monitored and optimized. As a company who keeps customer experience at the utmost priority, it is inevitable for you to constantly enhance your IVR’s performance.

And it starts with collecting feedback and addressing common customer complaints. Claiming to be a customer-friendly brand yet ignoring customer complaints is the biggest mistake that can lead to damage your brand and kill your customer experience. To prevent your brand from such damage, here’s a list of 5 common IVR complaints that you should immediately address.

1. Circling in IVR

What Kills

When customers call on your customer service number, one thing is sure that they are looking for a solution which they couldn’t find otherwise. It might sound obvious but, alarmingly, a large number of companies ignore this fundamental aspect of customer service while designing the IVR.

In the hoard to create an IVR with scores of options, companies neglect to test the usability of these options. An IVR with too many levels and more than 5 options in each level is confusing for the callers to operate. This can lead callers to an indefinite loop of menu options where they are left with no other alternative except to disconnect the call. Such a situation not only kills your IVR customer experience but also puts an irreversible dent in your brand reputation.

What Saves

To understand whether you’re doing the same mistake or not, you need to sit back and evaluate the simplicity of your IVR structure. Identify whether the defined structure is providing the intended solution to customers or is escalating their problem. To start with, ask yourself these simple questions.

How many levels are there in your IVR?
How many menu options are there at each level?
Do these options cover broad categories of customer queries?
How easily can a caller connect with the company agents?

Besides, answering these questions you should also evaluate these answers against the customer experience you want to deliver. And then put yourself in the customer’s shoes to check if it fits the desired CX.

2. Asking Callers to Repeat Information

What Kills

Callers comply when it comes to verifying their authenticity or providing some basic information to the agents. To ensure they get a quality and accurate resolution, callers don’t mind answering agent’s questions. But at the same time, they don’t want to reiterate the information every time their call is transferred to a new agent or is answered by a different agent. It is a major turn-off.

They are looking for a quick resolution and answering a repeated question only delays the process and tests their patience. To reach an agent they have already traversed through IVR, thus the last thing they look forward to is answering redundant questions.

What Saves

To save customers from this trouble, companies can deploy Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool. It is an excellent platform to store a customer’s entire information. Agents can fetch information from CRM quickly and easily on a few drags and drops.

They don’t have to manually search customer’s information in the database. Just by entering customer ID into the portal, agents can get all the information on their screen. Moreover, CRM is a centralized portal thus, any and every agent can retrieve customer’s data without bombarding customers with questions.

3. Keeping Customers On-hold

What Kills

It is a common yet the most dreadful experience for the callers. The uncertainty of how long the call will be kept on-hold make callers anxious. High chances are callers can go ballistic if the call hold time crosses the 1–2-minute mark. Inter-department call transfers can further worsen the situation as in such cases call hold time is significantly higher.

Studies also cite that 75% of people said they were “highly annoyed” when they couldn’t get someone on the phone in a reasonable amount of time.

The average call hold time is also one of the most crucial call center metrics that defines the efficiency of any call center. High average call on-hold times indicates that call centers are unable to provide quick customer support.

What Saves

First of all, make sure you have enough agents to handle calls. No call handling strategy can make up for scarce resources. In case of budget limitations, go for call back option. To initiate a callback, ask your customers to leave a miss call or SMS on your marketed number. Doing this can save the customer’s effort and time that earlier went into navigating the IVR. Also, it gives you the leisure to connect with customers at your ease and time.

4. Conversing in a Scripted Tone

What Kills

To get into the detail, it is essential to cognize a basic rule that if callers opt for a “connect with an agent” option, it means they are looking for a personalized one-on-one conversation with a human agent. Thus, it eliminates any scope of the robotic conversation.

On contradiction to this expectation, agents generally follow a programmed method of conversation. They are trained to follow a script for every situation where from welcome greetings to thank you messages, everything is mechanized. Situation deteriorates further in case of disagreements between the customer and the agent. In place of infusing compassion into their tone, agents’ robotic replies intensify customers’ anger.

In the era of personalized customer experience, robotic conversations are bummer. They are a huge disappointment that hurts the CX of your call (in the current scenario) and brand (in the longer run).

What Saves

Only solution to save you from this mess is prioritizing personalization. In no ways, your agent should indulge in a scripted conversation. Personalization over call in simple words can be understood by the phrase ‘It is not what you say but how you say it’.

Yes, the only way to add personalization into the conversation is to follow the natural style of conversation where the tone of the conversation varies. Having said that, agents cannot afford to lose their calm over the call. Thus, they need to be conscious of the conversation pitch all the time.

5. Playing Shrill and Lengthy Advertisements

What Kills

Companies stuff their hold times with lengthy and ear-piercing voice ads to make the waiting less burdensome for the callers. While the purpose is noble, the results are opposite.

The last thing a caller wants is to listen to your offers, especially when they have approached you with a problem that needs an immediate solution. Although a caller is left with no other option other than to wait, but if the call holds are longer than expected, chances are callers will disconnect the call mid-way or will have second thoughts before contacting you the next time.

What Saves

Albeit you cannot totally eliminate on-hold time but aspire to cut down your on-hold time to the minimum. Also, cap your on-hold time with a maximum of 2 minutes, this will automatically trim the waiting.

Doing this helps you in two ways,

You don’t need to play on-hold music or ad anymore. Instead, use a simple countdown that informs the caller about the remaining on-hold time. It is a helpful psychological trigger that calms down the anxiety of the caller during the wait. Once the uncertainty of how long the caller has to wait is answered, remaining on-hold becomes a lot easier.
Customer is ensured that he/she will not be asked to wait for longer than 2 minutes. And if you want to inform the customer about an upcoming offer, you can keep the ad concise and short (preferably one minute). This puts the customer and you in the win-win position.

Conclusion

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems are revolutionizing voice communication. They are a must-have for businesses looking to enhance their customer experience. If your business prioritizes customer satisfaction, then the IVR system can prove to be a boon for your business. However, ignoring customer feedback and complaints will lead to severe repercussions. Cater to the above mentioned 5 user complaints and skyrocket your customer satisfaction.

If your business is located in India and is looking for an IVR solution, then a cloud telephony provider like Acefone is the best option for you.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

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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.

How Cloud Phone Systems Are Transforming Businesses

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

December 23, 2019

4 mins read eye

Table of content

Traditional phone systems were designed for businesses who are exclusively office-based and, while this worked for many businesses, the way we work has changed; something which traditional phone systems just haven’t kept up with.

This is where business cloud phone service have come in, supporting the changes in business and allowing businesses to progress into modern times.

Cloud-hosted Phone Systems Set Your Business Free

Many workers expect to be able to work flexibly; similarly customers expect to be able to contact your business at all times; so it makes sense to have a phone system which can allow both of these things.

Where a traditional phone system doesn’t have the capacity to support this, with a cloud-hosted phone system your team can access their phone systems from anywhere in the world, on any device they want to so they can work at home or on the go with no disruption to your clients or customers.

This freedom also allows you to make your business contactable 24 hours a day, having employee based from any country your business operates – meaning there’s always someone your clients or customers can connect to.

Host A Contact center Without The Need For Premises

Office premises are expensive and often are impractical and limiting to the amount of staff you can hire.

With a cloud phone system, you can host your own contact center remotely, with access to everything you need from an online portal. The online portal can be accessed from any device and gives you insights into the performance of each agent, call costs and much more.

This gives you all the tools you need to run an effective contact center and give excellent service to each and every customer who contacts your business.

There Are No Limits With A Hosted Phone System

With a cloud phone system, the limitations on the number of extensions you can have are gone. You can add and remove extensions as you need to, so there’s nothing stopping your business growth.

This also gives you the opportunity to bring in more staff seasonally, so you can ensure you have enough cover for your phone systems at all times of the year, elevating your customer service.

Strengthen Your Brand With A Cloud Phone System

Cloud phone systems give business owners the opportunity to strengthen their brand using their phone systems, with access to a range of features such as virtual receptionists, freephone number, local numbers and branded numbers.

With these amazing features, you can create a personalised experience for your customers and enhance your brand, for example, a memorable branded number could help customers recall your number and make them more likely to call you.

A freephone or local number can help you get across to customers what your business is about. If you want to become more respected locally, a local number can give the impression that you are invested in the area and have roots there; where a toll free number gives customers the impression you are a well established national business – creating a more trustworthy view of your brand.

Keep Control Of Costs

With a cloud phone system, you can keep an eye on costs and are free to adapt your plan to suit your business’ needs. You can add or remove extensions and ensure that you are staying within budget for your call costs.

Each hosted phone system plan is bespoke, so you’ll be able to find the best phone system for you at a price you are happy with.

Cloud phone systems are changing the face of businesses, providing a more flexible solution that both customers and workers expect. If you’d like to transform your business with a hosted phone system, call our expert team today and find out how we can start creating your bespoke phone system; get in touch on 1888-859-0450 to find out more.

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How Cloud Communication Promotes Mobility And Enhances Productivity In Your Business

Swastika Dhakal

Author

Contact Center

December 18, 2019

5 mins read eye

Table of content

We ditched telephones for mobile phones today because they are portable, and we can access it from anywhere. We know how flexible and efficient mobile phones are and have switched from telephones to mobile phones, especially for personal use.

Similarly, it is important for businesses to understand the benefits of adopting the latest communication solutions. Cloud communication uses the internet for voice and data communications.

With cloud communications, you can collaborate and communicate from anywhere and on any device. Employees can work remotely on any device, which makes them happier and satisfied at work. The business communication medium should be updated as well, offering remote access and portability.

Let’s understand how cloud communication promotes mobility and enhance productivity in your business.

Research by Strategy Analytics showed 1.75 billion people, or 42% of the global workforce, will be mobile by 2020. It will be a challenge for IT professionals to meet the demands of such a high number of employees, but with the concept of enterprise mobility, it can be achieved.

Before we go any further, let’s understand the meaning of enterprise mobility.

Enterprise Mobility

It is an approach to work where employees can work while they are away from the office with cloud services. The company data can be accessed from anywhere and on a variety of mobile devices.

It connects all the employees through mobile devices. Enterprise mobility gives employees the flexibility to work that further improves job satisfaction and boosts productivity. It is becoming popular as mobile users are increasing day by day.

Cloud Communications Promote Mobility

Mobility is the ability to work from anywhere and on any device and changes the way you do business. You no longer need to be physically present at the office; you can use your own devices like smartphones, laptops, and tablets to do your work.

Communication is a crucial part of any organisation, but often many organisations neglect the need to have a cloud-hosted phone for communication. Following are the ways how cloud communications can promote mobility.

1. Real-Time Collaboration

Businesses that deal with customers or clients have to provide service 24/7; in such cases, agents or employees who are away from the office can still take or make calls.

Urgent calls need an immediate response, and by adopting a cloud-based communication solution, you can integrate with apps that provide real-time collaboration from anywhere and anytime.

2. Unified Communications

Unified Communications (UC) is an integration of all the communication mediums in a single dashboard. It includes communication channels such as voice calls, video conferencing, email, SMS, and instant messaging.

Your agents or employees can access it from anywhere irrespective of the location and device. UC makes it easier for the agents as they get all the information of call log details on a single dashboard.

3. Bring Your Own Device

The Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy allows employees to use their personal devices for business purposes. Data is stored on the cloud and thus can be accessed from anywhere, anytime without any difficulty.

Employees are comfortable with their own devices, and it boosts productivity. The company’s data stays safe and protected by enabling guidelines for the devices and apps that are accepted. With the increasing demand for remote accessibility, BYOD was introduced to promote mobility.

Cloud Communications Enhances Productivity

Mobility and productivity are basically two concepts that are interconnected because mobility enhances productivity. Let’s understand how cloud communications and mobility together contribute to enhancing the productivity of your business.

1. Cloud Collaboration

When employees are able to collaborate easily and share files remotely, it increases employee efficiency and productivity. With cloud communications, multiple people can access or work on the same file at the same time from different locations.

With cloud collaboration, employees can connect and collaborate, enhancing team productivity.

2. Saves Time

Switching to cloud communications save time in collaboration as teams can share files and collaborate with each other from anywhere and anytime. Employees are not restricted to their desks and can work even when they are travelling or on vacations.

Cloud allows employees to have flexible working hours, and when they get the freedom to work as per their convenience, then it results in employee efficiency and business productivity.

3. Integration with Existing Systems

Cloud-hosted phone systems are integrated with software programs (such as CRM) that your business requires.

Integration makes switching between the tools seamless by eliminating the need to transfer data from one source to another manually. Multiple devices can access data and integrate cloud services at the same time via the internet from different locations.

Conclusion

Mobility has changed the way we work, and it is the future of modern-day businesses. It promotes portability by letting you use your mobile devices, and you get the flexibility to work as per your schedule. More and more companies are encouraging mobility because of the kind of benefits it provides.

You will also experience an increase in productivity when your employees are free to work from anywhere and on any device. Get seamless communication experience by shifting to the cloud and connect with your team no matter where you go.

Every organisation wants an increase in business productivity, and cloud-hosted communication solution will help you achieve that. When your employees get flexible working hours and can use their personal devices, employee productivity increases.

According to a study by Stanford, allowing your agents to work from home has proven to increase productivity and helps in retaining employees as well. With cloud communications, employees can connect, collaborate, and remotely access data while they are on the move.

Also, employees take less leave when they are allowed to work remotely. With cloud collaboration, multiple people can work on the same file together, saving time and effort.

Statistics states that employees who work remotely at least once a month are 24% more likely to be happy and productive.

Want to know more about cloud communications, talk to our expert at 0800-084-3663 to get assistance in understanding our cloud solutions for your business. Get a perfect communication solution for your business with Acefone. Try now!

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Swastika Dhakal

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Swastika Dhakal is working with the Digital Marketing team at Acefone. She is interested in technology and likes to write on it. She loves to explore historical places, as well.

How To Design An IVR That Customers Will Love

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

December 17, 2019

4 mins read eye

Table of content

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a technology that allows interaction with callers before they reach an operator; giving you the ability to gather the required information and route the calls to the right operator.

With a hosted PBX system, you can implement an IVR which can help ease the journey your customers go through when getting in touch.

A properly designed IVR can help elevate your customer service and leave customers with the best impression of your business and can help your customers get the answer they need the first time, rather than being passed around operators who aren’t equipped to deal with their query.

When calling any large business, you’ll more than likely be greeted by an IVR system. This is widely used by banks, large retail outlets and call centers to help with the flow of calls and ensure they are making the most of their staff’s time and expertise and not wasting resources.

Due to this, if you own a smaller business and are trying to establish yourself in your field, an IVR system can give customers the impression that you are much larger and more professional as a business; potentially winning you more customers as a result!

Define Departments

Your IVR system should accurately reflect the different departments in your business; for example, you could have options for finance, sales, marketing etc.

The IVR system should solve customer problems, so when designing you should consider what customers generally call your business for, and who in your business is best placed to help with each query – then you can divert accordingly.

Right Message

The message should be friendly and professional, and you should make it as clear as possible to customers which option they should be choosing.

The language should be clear and concise and simple enough that anybody calling your business will be able to understand and select the right option for their needs.

As your giving customers a more personalised experience, your customer service is taken to the next level; so when designing an IVR, you should ensure that whatever options the customer chooses, they are directed to the correct department with someone available to take their call.

Agent-friendly

An IVR should be designed with your agents in mind too, as customers are giving information about their enquiry before coming through to an agent. This gives agents more information to start the call with, meaning they can get to the root of the query more effectively and can add this data to a customer’s records to help the next agent who answers their call have more background.

Not only does this help your call center agents, but this gives customers an enhanced experience as they will appreciate the attention to detail and personalised service they are getting from your company.

Include FAQs

An IVR can also be designed to answer frequently asked questions.

For example, if you have customers calling your business asking about opening times, you can use an IVR to answer this question automatically, so you don’t need to use up your agent’s time on questions such as this.

The customer will be happy as they’ve quickly received their answer, and your agents will have more free time to dedicate to more pressing enquiries.

Conclusion

If used correctly, an IVR system can save your business money and expand your capacity to take calls. By eliminating the need for a switchboard operator, you can save money on wages/office premises and focus on making a profit.

Also, installing an IVR system which can work 24 hours a day, means that your calls aren’t limited to office hours. You can take messages at any time of the day from customers and call them back when your office reopens – or alternatively, with a hosted phone system you can have operators based anywhere in the world, so someone is always online to take your call.

There are plenty of ways you can design an IVR system your customers and your agents will love, to get more information and advice call one of our expert VoIP team on 1888-859-0450.

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Unleash Business Efficiency: How VoIP Empowers the Modern Enterprise (2024)

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

December 16, 2019

10 mins read eye

Table of content

The advancement of technology has brought upon a substantial change in how businesses operate. The technology of today will be obsolete next year and this advancement is only pacing up. The only common thing today and 10 years before in an office is the telephone. So is the telephone the ultimate invention? In its true essence, this is not so true. The underlying architecture of the telephone has changed to an unrecognizable extent.

The rise of the cloud has brought upon the ultimate communication revolution and consequently given rise to what we today know as cloud telephony. Cloud telephony providers are changing the ‘Enterprise Voice’ as we know it and bringing a complete unification and automation of the telephony paradigms such as voicemails, call forwarding, call and message based campaigns, customer interaction and call routing.

If this isn’t enough, cloud telephony has enabled the integration of data and records from various sources and even goes on to automate data management. So let’s look at what led to the rise of cloud telephony in the enterprise environment and how it is transforming the enterprise functionality.

How is cloud telephony different and what makes it better?

On-premise telephony systems require setting up of the whole infrastructure at one location. Now, this does give one complete control of the telephony systems but it comes with its drawbacks. Because these are traditional landline systems, they require high maintenance and are affected by weather conditions. As such they are also susceptible to damages that may occur due to a variety of reasons.

Cloud telephony systems are based out of the cloud and as such these do not require any hardware or infrastructure except for the telephones themselves. Also, being hosted over the cloud these are not much inflected by any change in environmental conditions or susceptible to damages per se. Yes, one may feel that it gives them less control of the infrastructure but it also takes away the responsibility setting up and maintaining the infrastructure.

In this regard, the amount of time, money and manpower saved is substantial enough to negate what one might consider as less control. And in reality, one gets as much control as an on-premise system and more.

When comparing traditional and cloud telephony systems, the scalability of the later is found much higher. An organization can meet its demand fluctuation with a mere call. They can scale up or down whenever they want and hence only pay for what is required. On the other hand, a traditional system can only be upscaled (at the intensive cost of expensive investment in hardware and manpower).

The Rise of UC&C

With the cloud in play, a new method of transmitting voice and multimedia took place. To understand this better let’s see what happens at traditional 2G and 3G based networks.

When a phone call is placed a link is set up between the caller and the recipient. A particular bandwidth is allocated to this link and the call takes place via the link. The link exists as long as the call is connected. A fairly simple method and a reliable one, this method is known as the Circuit Switching method.

With the advent of the cloud, the idea of transmitting voice and multimedia over the internet took birth. This gave birth to the IP technology or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). With VoIP, there is no need to reserve any bandwidth for any call. Instead, the data is segmented into various packets. The packets are transmitted individually and hence the bandwidth can be allocated to multiple users.

But this is easier said than done. Because multiple users send various packets via a shared line there is a possibility of some packets arriving late and some getting lost in transmission. This poses a serious problem in voice-based communication as parts of words, complete words, or even complete sentences may be lost, making any conversation meaningless.

With the advancement in technology, a lot of improvements have been made in the packet-switched network, and they are more reliable today than ever.

Quality or Cost? The big debate:

While using VoIP enterprises got the ability to use just their broadband networks to make calls, thereby making business easy and affordable. An organization could cover multiple geographical locations without the need for an on-premise system to be established at all locations.

But the drawback of unreliability was still too much for many organizations to accept VoIP Phone Service and hence the choice between VoIP Phone System and Traditional Systems became the choice between Cost and Quality.

This was settled with the advent of 4G LTE. LTE stands for Long-Term Evolution and has greatly enhanced the internet speed. Compared to 3G, 4G LTE is at least 10 times faster. 4G LTE uses the following two technologies for voice calls:

CSFB (Circuit-Switched Fall Back): CSFB came as a simple solution that data shall be transferred over LTE network whereas when a call is made, the LTE network simply latches to a 3G or 2G network and hence avoid any latency issues in voice conversations.

VoLTE (Voice over LTE): Much like VoIP, VoLTE uses packet switching to make voice calls but the network provider invests heavily in the underlying network infrastructure to avoid any latency issues. Also, since LTE is at least 10 times faster than the 3G, the latency reduction is exponentially better.

VoLTE did not just mark the end of the big debate, but also provided the stepping stones for the rise of UC&C: Unified Communications and Collaborations. It is the unification of multiple enterprise communication tools. In simpler words, all of an enterprise’s e-mails, voicemails, voice communications, web, messaging, real-time communications and conferences along with schedules and dates can be integrated into one system capable of managing all of this.

Cloud Telephony is More Than Just a Telephony Service

The real success of cloud telephony is because it has become more than just a telephony service. For any enterprise, business generation is irrefutably the most prominent factor in determining their success. As such the goal of every enterprise is to focus on how to make their operations smooth.

Here is how cloud telephony has changed that:

Remote Control:

With the advent of cloud telephony it possible to monitor and control the sales team, processes and strategies remotely from any corner of the world. Cloud telephony service providers also include a supervisor panel which enables one to monitor all activities in real-time. This comes with options such as listening to a call, whispering to the agent so that only the agent hears what the supervisor says and the client don’t, and taking over a call, which allows a supervisor to take over an ongoing call shall they find the need to do so.

All that is required is an internet connection. Complete control served remotely!

Real-Time Analysis and Updation:

A big hassle with enterprises is the continuous flow of heavy data coming from multiple sources. Managing the database in real-time takes a lot of effort and manpower. With cloud telephony services, not just the data coming from various sources but that acquired from the calls can be integrated with the database in real-time.

Also, because it is linked with the cloud and the integration of cloud-based AI has made database management an automated process there is no manpower invested.

Unmatched Scalability:

Unlike traditional PBX systems, cloud telephony does not require any setting up of hardware infrastructure. A simple call is sufficient to scale to match the requirement.

Also, this scalability is not permanent, shall the requirements reduce one can relatively downscale. One only pays for what is utilized without compromising on the business requirements.

Smart Lead Generation:

Generating leads is an important task for all businesses. What’s more important is the conversion rate of the leads so generated. With cloud-based telephony, one can monitor all leads from multiple telephony services simultaneously to determine which leads will be best converted.

This, when backed with AI, can be done without any human intervention and with more accuracy. On the other hand with the traditional telephony system, this is an immensely difficult task.

All campaigns at a single dashboard:

An enterprise uses multiple campaigns for various purposes. These may include awareness campaigns, press 1 campaign, voice broadcastings and may more. With cloud telephony, all these campaigns can be easily managed from a single dashboard.

Their outputs can be easily integrated automatically in real-time with the database. The agents, therefore, are always aware of what the current scenario of a particular campaign is. Shall a campaign not be required anymore or it may not be producing results, it can be terminated right away.

The Introduction of BYOD methodology:

Because all that is required with cloud telephony is an internet connection, it has given rise to Bring Your Own Device methodology in the enterprise realm. There is no longer the need to provide a device to each individual. Individuals can bring their own devices and work with those.

The host provides the services over the cloud, and consequently, these can be availed on any device. Most employees prefer using their own systems that they are comfortable with hence, the flexible working policy or the BYOD is becoming more coming as time progresses.

True Automation:

The enterprise world is moving towards automation. It is no longer the future of enterprise but the very present of it and for good reasons. Automated systems are error-free and more efficient than human agents. But true automation cannot be achieved without cloud telephony.

It is not possible to update real-time data of all campaigns with a traditional telephony system. With cloud-based telephony not only can one remain updated at all times but an organization can integrate features such as virtual agents and chatbots. Virtual agents are meant to be the future of business-customer interaction.

This simply isn’t possible without cloud-based telephony.

No Downtime:

With cloud telephony, the service provider manages all the underlying functionality. Also unlike traditional systems cloud telephony system suffer little to no downtime. As a matter of fact, cloud telephony boasts of 99.9% uptime which ensures that all of your opportunities are attended to.

Reduced Expenses:

A major part of an organizational expenditure is in office space and hardware. It is well-established how an organization can reduce infrastructure costs as no on-premise infrastructure is needed. It also noteworthy that an organization can outrightly reduce its office space expenditure to zero by going remote!

As cloud telephony is based out of the internet there is no need to have agents work from an office space. Agents can work from their homes as well and having a supervisory account enables the organization to track the performance of each agent in real-time.

Also, the fact that cloud telephony is capable of routing calls to agents based on availability, department, and preferability (a customer who has previously been dealt by a particular agent is likely to get the same agent if the agent is available) adds to improving performance and reducing call time.

Therefore an organization never has to struggle with a remote agent. Organizations also have access to a detailed performance sheet of every agent and can therefore easily administer their incentives and promotion policies.

Synopsis

In light of the above illustrations, it is evident as to why cloud-based telephony stands where it stands today. It is an imminent component for organizations of this age that want to keep up with the pace of technological advancements. Cloud telephony holds equal significance to enterprises of all levels.

While startups need cost reduction, large enterprises need the ability to manage all geographical locations. However, all enterprises need integrability with advancing technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Agents, Chatbots, Automated data management systems, client behavior analysis, real-time updation and analysis, Cloud and Hybrid Computation, et al., irrespective of their size or span.

This could not but be achieved without telephony being available via the cloud. Hence this era has marked the rising of the cloud telephony service in the enterprise environment at a pace much faster than imagined. And much like every technology of yesteryear, the traditional PBX is going to become obsolete sooner than later.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

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5 Must-Have Cloud Phone System Features for Call Center Agents

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

4 mins read eye

Table of content

A cloud phone system provides all the tools call center agents need to provide an outstanding service to customers, no matter where you are based.

Here, we’ve put together our five must-have tools for call center agents.

1. Call Alerts

Make sure you start all your calls professionally with call alerts. A call alert lets you see if a call is internal or external so you can answer accordingly and ensure a consistent customer experience.

A call alert also ensures as an agent that you don’t miss an important call while taking care of other work, whether you’re finishing up on customer notes on their account or putting customer requests through your system, you won’t need to worry about missing anything while you’re busy.

It is important for a business that all calls are answered professionally, so customers get the best possible impression from the very first contact – call alerts can help make sure this impression is given every time.

2. Call Forwarding

If you’re out of the office, or training, or simply taking a well-earned break, you can make sure customers aren’t affected by forwarding any calls to either another device or another free agent.

With call forwarding, you aren’t bound to staying at your desk – if you have other business to attend to you can do so without worrying about missing a call, simply forward the call to any other compatible device and enjoy seamless, crystal clear communications with customers.

You’ll also still be able to access customer information via the online portal from whichever device you use.

3. Call Monitoring

For call center managers, the call monitoring function can help you develop your team. With access to detailed analytics, you can keep track of all calls; from waiting time, to the number of calls taken by each agent.

This gives management the power to work with agents on the areas they may need more training to ensure you get the best possible results from your customer service team.

Call monitoring can also help agents in the event of a customer complaint, as part of the monitoring on the online portal calls can be recorded and played back – so in the unfortunate event of a dispute, a resolution can be reached easily between the customer and the company.

By using all of these monitoring tools, agents can show their own performance and find ways to improve their service; which also helps improve the profitability of the business and customer satisfaction.

4. Easy To Use Online Portal

Most of the VoIP phone service providers such as Acefone provides an easy to use online portal that gives customer service agents access to customer data, so they can easily bring up previous call logs and get up to speed with where a customer enquiry is up to.

This allows customer service agents the chance to deliver an even better service and solve queries on the first point of contact, you can also deliver a more personalised service having more knowledge on the customer.

5. Control Your Caller ID

If you want to maintain your privacy when calling customers or returning calls, you can do so easily with a hosted phone system. VoIP phone systems allow you to change how your number appears on outgoing calls, so you can have this come up as withheld or as a memorable number which your customers can call you back on.

Controlling your caller ID can help call center agents who are required to call out as you’ll be able to control your privacy firstly, but secondly, customers will be able to find the correct number easily to call you back.

For example, setting your number to show up as your general enquiry number means that if a customer misses your call they can call back and have their call answered right away by an agent on the switchboard, rather than having to wait to get back in touch with you if you’ve finished your shift or are dealing with other enquiries.

If you would like to know more about how your call center agents could benefit from the features of a cloud hosted phone system, call one of our expert VoIP advisers on 1888-859-0450.

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6 Reasons Why You Should Switch To VoIP

Swastika Dhakal

Author

Voice - VoIP

December 13, 2019

5 mins read eye

Table of content

For any business, seamless communication is a must, and without it, a business gets adversely affected.

With the evolution of the communication medium, VoIP has proved that it is a necessity for companies because of the number of advantages it offers. It creates a brand image and a considerable customer base, which ultimately will increase your sales by moving towards cloud communications.

If you think why there is a need to switch from your current phone system to cloud, then read this blog and find yourself what all innovations that VoIP is bringing in today.

1. Convenience with VoIP Technology

Traditional phones require additional hardware and complex cabling if you ever wish to add more users. You will need a technician for its installation, making it more expensive.

Whereas, VoIP Phones are user-friendly, even if one is not familiar with the technology behind it. With its user-friendly online portal, you can simply add or remove users without the requirement of an IT specialist.

They are highly scalable and grow with your business. Seasonal businesses make the most out of scalability as they can scale up or down as per their varying business needs.

You can also make or receive calls on the go; all you need is a robust internet connection. You can do so by transferring your calls from your hosted phone to your mobile. VoIP phone system are flexible as you can access them remotely from anywhere, other benefits like portability and scalability make VoIP even more convenient.

2. Customisable Advanced Features

The analog-based phones do not include any feature besides calling, but a VoIP based phone offers many advanced features that can be customised according to your individual business needs.

Let’s take a look at some of the advanced features that suit your business.

You can maintain and customise your privacy with features like call alerts, call screening, and do-not-disturb.

VoIP-based solutions like free phone number give your business a professional look and improve customer experience when they do not have to pay for contacting you.

Music on Hold will engage your customers while they are put on hold. With Call Blocking, you can block calls by area code, and with Call Conferencing, you can connect and hold meetings with your employees across the world.

There are more features like Call Forwarding and Voicemail to Email, which allows you to work remotely from anywhere. These additional features save time and increase the productivity of your business.

3. Affordable Monthly Charges

Installing a traditional phone system can be very expensive as you need to purchase extra equipment along with cable wires for installing it. You also require hiring a technician because the installation is complicated.

After some time, due to the technology upgrade, you will need to replace the hardware with the upgraded ones. Also, hardware can wear out after serving for some time, and you have to repurchase it then. Long-distance calls are costly because analog-based phones take distance of caller and receiver as a factor.

According to statistics, small businesses that moved to VoIP save 40% on calls and 90% on international calls.

As Voice over Internet Protocol works on digital signals, it does not consider distance as a factor for the charges behind the call. That means long-distance calls are charged very less compared to traditional phones. Small businesses have a budget for their expenditures and can save a lot by investing in cloud communications.

Cloud phone systems are so easy to install that you do not need to hire a technician for its installation. You can install the phones by following simple instructions.

Also, VoIP phones require minimum hardware; thus, you do not have to worry about hardware getting old and outdated.

4. Pay-As-You-Go Model

With a traditional phone, you have to specify in advance about the number of phone lines that you may require. Thus, you have to purchase extra phone lines in advance because your business might grow in the future, else you have to re-install the phone lines all over, increasing the installation cost. This may also end up in paying for the phone lines that are not even being used.

VoIP follows the pay-as-you-go model, where you pay only for the services that you choose. You are charged based on the plan that you choose, and the features added as per your business’ requirement.

Seasonal businesses take the best advantage of VoIP by adding or removing channels as per the varying needs of the business.

5. No Maintenance & Technology Upgrade

In traditional phone systems, you have to take care of all the hardware and software upgrades.

But with the introduction of VoIP phones, you do not have to either purchase or maintain any equipment. Through its online portal, you can install, add or remove phone lines easily, eliminating the need of a technician.

Yes! you do not have to worry about the maintenance of your VoIP phone system as your service provider is responsible for both its maintenance and upgrades. The time and effort that you save can be utilised on other important tasks that require attention.

6. Robust Security & Reliability

A disaster is a disturbance which can be a natural calamity or a network outage. It disturbs the business for a while; hence, a reliable and robust communication medium is required ensuring business continues even during unfavourable circumstances.

Traditional phones are located in the office itself; thus, communication data does not have a backup. Data once lost is not retrievable, and with an analog phone, your employees cannot work remotely.

But, in VoIP, data is stored on the cloud and is safe during disasters. VoIP phones ensure that communication continues even during uncertainties. During any disaster, your employees can work from home or anywhere by transferring the calls to their device and can access data from the cloud easily.

Conclusion

The above-mentioned benefits that VoIP offers will improve the ROI of your business, and the advanced features will increase the productivity of your employees. With VoIP, you get detailed reports of your agent’s performance so that you can monitor them, ensuring agents work efficiently.

Before you decide to switch to VoIP for your business, make sure that your provider offers secure and reliable VoIP services.

Know more about VoIP based phones and how they can increase productivity and improve the sales of your business; call us at 1888-859-0450.

Click here to learn more about VoIP setup and installation .

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

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Swastika Dhakal

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Swastika Dhakal is working with the Digital Marketing team at Acefone. She is interested in technology and likes to write on it. She loves to explore historical places, as well.

How Can Call Recording Improve Your Customer Service?

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

December 12, 2019

4 mins read eye

Table of content

If your business deals with customers on a regular basis, you want to ensure that each and every interaction is as positive as it possibly can be.

Unfortunately, it is inevitable that some interactions with customers won’t go as planned; but call recording will give you the opportunity to learn from every possible situation.

Help agents learn from other’s mistakes

As with any business dealing with customers, there may be times when your agents don’t handle a customer query in the way you would like them to.

Whether this is due to a difficult customer, or a bad day for the agent, even negative calls can be a learning curve. A call recording can help you explain to the agent where they went wrong and how they could improve the call next time, as they may not realise how they went wrong without hearing the conversation again.

Also, you can use this recording when training new recruits, so they know what types of customer and query to expect and can be better prepared when the call comes through.

Help with training new recruits

New hires will be learning a lot about company policies and procedures. To make this easier, we should streamline the onboarding process. This will help new hires understand how the company works. Other than that, if you need to conduct sanity checks on their background and find out essentials like their age, you can use an age verification software. The best age verification providers will offer you the guarantee of authenticity, multiple features, and flexible pricing plans.

New employees can listen to any calls which have come into your company, whether good or bad, to get a feel for what they should expect when they’re live on the phones.

They can also listen to different types of enquiries and see how your experienced staff handle these queries, then can model their own responses based on what they’ve learned.

These invaluable training tools are all available as standard with your phone pbx solution and are easily accessible through a web portal.

Gives you the opportunity to rectify any disputes quickly

A customer and an agent might disagree on the nature of a conversation and what was discussed, so disputes might begin to arise.

To ensure you are supporting your staff and upholding your high customer service standards, reviewing the call recordings is an effective way of finding out exactly what has been said, resolving the dispute quickly.

You can also send copies of the recording should any further proceedings be taken, protecting both your staff, and the customers on the other end of the line.

This simple and effective solution will increase your levels of customer service as any doubt is removed and you are able to deal with customer queries quickly and provide a resolution before there is any bad feeling.

Gives agents the chance to take better notes to help customers in future calls

Agents are busy listening to your customers and trying to figure out a way to solve their problems during a call, so they may not have time to take detailed notes to save in the customer files on the online portal.

Call recordings allow agents the time to go back and make any necessary notes which could help the customer if they need to call back in the future.

This helps improve your customer service as the customer won’t have to repeat themselves on each call to each different agent, they can simply refer to the notes and be up to speed with the customers individual situation in minutes; helping your agents solve any queries on the first call.

See how your communication has improved over time

You always want your customer service to be improving and your agent’s skills to develop, so call recordings are helpful to see how your customer experience has changed over a period of time.

You can compare customer calls from years ago to today’s calls to see how your service has improved and see if there is any more room for improvements.

Investing in your customer service shows customers you care about their experience with your business; making them much more likely to remain loyal to your business and ensuring you keep them as a customer for a long time.

Call recording can give you a range of options to help improve your customer service and help give your customers the best possible impression of your business. From a simple addition to your phone system, you can create some great improvements for your customer service and use your customer calls as an excellent training tool for new staff. If you’d like to find out more about how your business can use call recording solution, call one of our customer service advisers on 1888-859-0450 .

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SMS Guidelines in India: The Do’s and Dont’s

Acefone Editor

Author

SMS Service

December 10, 2019

5 mins read eye

Table of content

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has formulated certain restrictions and regulations for broadcasting and bulk SMS services. The authority’s mission is to create the growth of telecommunications industry such that India leads the role in the emerging global information society. A business or telemarketer intending to send either transactional or promotional messages to its customers must first register with the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India and obtain a registration number. The business should comply with the guidelines provided by TRAI.

TRAI has established guidelines and regulations on the following fields of SMS:

Transactional SMS
Promotional SMS
DND Scrubbing
Sending time
Termination charges
Sender’s name
Penalty fees and so on

1. Transactional SMS

A Transactional SMS is a business SMS which is used by an organization to send any informational messages like order alerts, one-time password, booking and payment information, and so on. They send SMS to the customers in order to pass on information that is necessary for buying the product or service. However, a transactional SMS is not intended for business marketing, unlike a promotional SMS. A business should thoughtfully choose between promotional and transactional SMS. A Transactional SMS service comes with standard business templates, which can also be modified by the firm. For instance, if you are holding a product-based firm and a customer has purchased your product online, a transactional SMS will be sent to the customer saying ‘Your order no.123456 has been shipped and will be delivered to you by dd/mm/yy. Thank you for shopping with us.’

2. Promotional SMS

A promotional SMS is used to send offers, discounts and promotions as the name suggest to existing and new customers as well. However, the messages may or may not be solicited by the recipients. Promotional messages can be set within a fixed time interval (9 a.m. to 9 p.m.) and cannot be sent to customers who have availed the Do Not Disturb (DND) status. The sender ID of a promotional SMS is usually comprised of a random 6-character Sender ID allocated by the telecom operator.

3. DND Scrubbing

Do Not Disturb (DND) is a service initiated by the TRAI for customers or generally the public who do not wish to receive unwanted calls or SMS for promotional purposes. Telemarketers should be careful while sending SMS to their customers and should be cautious in not sending the SMS to DND customers. DND scrubbing is a service provided to help telemarketers differentiate between DND customers and non-DND customers.

4. Delivery Time

TRAI has also established a set of restrictions on the SMS delivery time. A business can send transactional SMS round the clock anytime anywhere whereas a promotional SMS can be sent only within the standard working hours, i.e. 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. By setting guidelines on the SMS delivery time, the public or the customers are relieved of the unsolicited messages and calls when they come back home from work.

5. Termination charges

Termination charges are fees charged by one telecom operator to other for handling calls. Even in cases free mobile –to –mobile calls provided by certain operator plans; these charges are hidden.

6. Sender’s name

Sender IDs include the name of the brand, and it is necessary to register the ID and the message template to be delivered prior to usage. If a message is sent outside of the sender ID and template of the message, it might not get delivered even after causing charges to the sender. The sender IDs vary based on the type of SMS.

The sender ID format of transactional SMS has nine characters from which the business can choose 6 alphabetic characters that denote the name of the brand.

E.g.: 12-ABCDEF

Where:

1 is the access provider’s code
2 is the service area code

ABCDEF is the sender’s name identifier in the message delivered which is representative of the name of the business or organization.

For Promotional SMS, unique sender IDs are available based on the category listed by NCPR such as:

Banking, Insurance and Finance sector
Educational institutions
Healthcare
Real Estate
IT, broadcasting, communication and entertainment industry
Tourism sector

A business can pick an alphanumeric identifier in the format AB-CDDDDD, wherein:

A is Access provider’s code
B is a service area code
C is a numerical from 0 to 7
DDDDD is the 5-digit identifier allotted by the service provider which is unique

7. Penalty Fees

Non-adherence to the above guidelines will result in incrementing penalties and blacklisting for a period of around 2 years.

8. Other restrictions:

Supporting Unicode
Reliability of handset delivery receipts
Restrictions on sending stock or share related messages through transactional routes. In order to obtain permission to send stock or share related transactional SMS, a business to obtain valid certification from entities registered with SEBI.
Any social media or website invitations need to be validated and whitelisted prior to sending through transactional accounts. Violating this can result in heavy fines.

Suggested Don’ts

Sending promotional messages through transactional route
Calling Do Not Call (DNC)customers for marketing
Sending promotional messages to DND customers
Sending promotional messages to customers who have opted-out the feature
Sending more than six messages to the same recipient within an hour
Assuming website-based opt-ins as accepted ones
Sending opt-in messages to customers through transactional routes

Suggested Do’s

Asking registered users for permission to send any information regarding their offers and services by asking them to accept the opt-in clause
Providing an opt-out option for customers who have accepted for promotional messages.
Sending transactional messages to opted-out customers.
Sending messages transmitted on the directions of the government or any other authorized body.
Sending SMS of the following types to DNC listed customers:

Political SMS- It is to be noted that political SMS are prohibited during the election period throughout the entire country
Charitable SMS
Informational SMS
Survey SMS
Personal SMS

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How Cloud Hosted Phone Systems Are Reshaping The Call Center Industry

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

4 mins read eye

Table of content

When thinking of a call center, most people think of a large building filled with agents each with an assigned phone at their desk. Call centers are fixed in one place where all customer calls will go through and often involve long waits and frustrating connection issues – but due to the introduction of cloud-hosted phone systems, this doesn’t have to be the case!

Cloud-hosted phone systems give call center owners the ability to leave their premises and run their call center from anywhere they might be with an internet connection, through an easy to use online portal.

The online portal gives owners and managers access to detailed call logs, call recordings and many other useful statistics which give them the power to make changes and ensure everything is running smoothly.

With a cloud phone system, call centers aren’t restricted by space. At busy times, you can add as many extensions as you like added to your phone system, with agents based anywhere in the world with an internet connection.

You don’t need to be mindful of the number of desks you have on-site, as you can have all agents based from home or hire remote working agents as you need them to ensure customer service levels are kept at a high standard even when you’re rushed off your feet.

Cloud-hosted phone systems are changing the face of the call center industry, which is in need of an update. Customers are expecting more and more from companies and expect their calls to be answered quickly and queries dealt with efficiently – so more expect to be able to contact you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

With a cloud phone system, this isn’t a problem; you can hire agents all over the world who can work remotely from their devices, so there’ll always be someone to answer an important customer call no matter what time of day or night.

Customer experience can be the deciding factor between a customer choosing you or choosing a competitor, so as a call center owner, you need to ensure your customer service is exemplary.

With a cloud phone system, you can store customer data and notes about previous calls within the phone system and can link this with your CRM system.

When a customer calls, the customer data can easily be accessed by whichever agent takes the call, so there’s no need to waste agent and customer time by asking them questions about their query they’ve already been through. Because it’s all right there ready for the agent to review and follow up on.

Call centers can be costly operations; with the cost of office premises, the cost to install and maintain a traditional phone system, and the potential loss of business if something were to happen to your business.

A cloud-hosted contact center takes away this risk and lowers your costs. By your phone system running in the cloud, you can rest assured that if anything did happen to your premises, you can seamlessly switch onto another device without interruption to your customers – whether you’ve switched to a mobile device, tablet or computer, customers won’t know the difference and will get the same crystal-clear sound quality.

Hosting your telephony in the cloud also lowers call costs, meaning you can call anywhere in the world for an extremely low cost – expanding your customer base and helping boost your profits.

Of course, hosted phone systems also take away the need to have business premises altogether, which is a large expenditure for most businesses. With this taken away, your business can focus on delivering great customer service and being consistently available to customers – not just during office hours.

Hiring staff who live in different countries and time zones also helps keep costs down as you won’t need to arrange extra security for night-time workers, they can work in the comfort of their own home.

Finally, a cloud-hosted call center can have employees from a range of backgrounds with a range of expertise. As you can hire people from anywhere, you won’t be restricted to choosing people from a certain location.

You can afford to hire the best staff for the job and ensure that their skill sets and expertise are varied enough to serve your customers well. Additionally, with the conference calling feature of a hosted phone system, no matter where these staffs are based, they can share expertise and collaborate as a team at no extra cost to you or your business.

If you are a call center owner who would like to streamline your operation and make it more efficient or would like more control over your calls and agent performance get in touch with Acefone’s Solutions Consultant who can help you get started today!

Call on 1888-859-0450 to get started with a hosted call center.

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