Top 10 Reasons Why Your Business Needs An Inbound Call Centre

Swastika Dhakal

Author

Contact Center Service

September 20, 2019

5 mins read eye

Table of content

If you run a business, prioritizing your customers above everything else is the best way to progress faster. inbound call centers software happen to be the key to fulfilling this requirement. They are a platform for your customers to contact you to resolve their problems or addressing different needs. According to this source, call centers help you build customer confidence and loyalty.

Nowadays, it is much more difficult to retain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. The primary reason being a drastic increase in the number of competitors in the market.

Hence, customer satisfaction should be the primary goal of your business. Having an inbound call center helps the customer to reach out to you conveniently without much efforts and wasting any time.

What are Inbound Call Centers?

Inbound call centers are departments where that receive incoming customer calls to address their queries and help them resolve their problems. The calls can be related to complaints, placing an order, or any other inquiry regarding the product or services.

Some common examples of an inbound call center include the customer support department helping a customer deal with a defective product, or the billing department of a SaaS company helping people make timely payments.

Benefits Of Inbound Call Center

There are many advantages of securing an inbound call center services. While some businesses have been enjoying these benefits for a while now, there are some still struggling to decide whether they need a call center or not. If you happen to be the latter one, this article will help you make up your mind.

1. Improves Customer Service

Inbound call centers can significantly improve customer service by providing a prompt and effective response to customer inquiries and complaints.

By having a dedicated team to handle customer calls, businesses can ensure that customer needs are addressed in a timely and efficient manner, leading to higher levels of satisfaction.

2. Boost Customer Loyalty

When businesses prioritize customer satisfaction and provide prompt and effective support, it creates a positive customer experience that can lead to loyalty.

Customers who are satisfied with the level of service provided by a business are more likely to become repeat customers, which can increase sales and revenue for the business.

3. Cost-Effective Support

In addition to enhancing customer loyalty, inbound call centers can also provide cost-effective customer support for businesses.

Outsourcing inbound call center services to a third-party provider can help businesses save on operational costs, as they only pay for the services they need.

This is particularly beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses that may not have the resources to invest in an in-house call center.

4. Increased Efficiency

Call centers come with a bunch of automations and advanced features that reduce the workload on support agents.

Features such as automated dialers, scheduled callbacks, in-depth analysis, and multiple device compatibility allow agents to handle calls more efficiently.

Whether you get an in-house call center, or outsource it to a third-party department, they can handle larger number of calls in a day without hampering the quality of service being offered.

5. 24×7 Support

Inbound call centers offer 24/7 support. This is a significant advantage for businesses with customers in different parts of the world or those that operate in multiple time zones.

Providing support around the clock ensures that customers can access assistance whenever they need it. It helps build trust, increase customer satisfaction, and loyalty in the long term.

6. Personalized support

Support agents can provide customers with customized support tailored to meet their unique needs. Whether a business requires technical support, sales support, or customer service, an inbound call center can be customized to address those specific needs.

This allows businesses to create a support infrastructure that aligns with their overall strategy, helping them achieve their goals and objectives more effectively.

7. Utilising customer information

Inbound call centers provide businesses with an opportunity to gather and analyze customer data, including feedback and preferences. This data can help them make informed decisions about product development, marketing strategies, and customer service improvements.

By leveraging this data, businesses can gain valuable insights into their customers’ needs and preferences, which can help them provide more personalized and effective customer service.

8.Reducing abandoned rates

Businesses can significantly reduce call abandonment rates with this software. It is a critical metric for businesses that rely on phone sales or customer support. By providing prompt and efficient service, businesses can reduce wait times and decrease the likelihood of customers hanging up before their call is answered.

Features such as on-hold music, smart call routing, and Interactive voice responses (IVR) aid this process too. They ensure that customer calls are being timely answered and being provided with relevant solutions.

9. Informed Agents

Providing high quality customer service demands well informed support agents, and inbound call center solutions make that happen. Cloud-hosted inbound call centers make sure agents possess all the critical information with quick accessibility.

These solutions provide all the customer information in the form of detailed reports which are available on the portal itself as well as the agent’s inbox.

10. Result-Oriented Features

Features like the IVR and toll-free numbers make inbound call centers even more versatile. An IVR allows customers to redirect themselves to the right department by navigating through in-call menu options. The IVR interacts with the callers, collects their information and routes them to the appropriate agent.

Toll-free numbers help in providing customers with a medium to reach out to a business without bearing any call charges.

Conclusion

Inbound call centers can provide businesses with a range of benefits, from improved customer service to cost savings and increased productivity. By partnering with a reputable call center provider, businesses can create a support infrastructure that aligns with their overall business strategy, providing customers with the high-quality service they expect and deserve.

If you wish to enhance your customer services too, you can connect with us by calling at 1888-859-0450 or write an email to [email protected].

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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.

8 Qualities of a Highly Efficient Call Centre Agent

Karan Beniwal

Author

Contact Center

September 19, 2019

6 mins read eye

Table of content

Update: This article was recently updated to provide accurate and up-to-date information on the page.

A contact center is one of the most critical setups for delivering smooth customer experiences. While advanced technologies can improve the efficiency of these services, the final call is always in the hands of those who use these technologies—agents.

There is no dearth of agents, however, a business must have a keen understanding of what qualifies as a good contact center agent.

Similarly, aspiring agents must also develop the skills that companies seek in such positions.

Having the right agents is also crucial to developing lasting relationships with customers. In a world that is increasingly demanding superior customer service, agents have found themselves in an important role to deliver the same.

Each caller is different. Each query varies. While scripts may help speed up the resolution process, in the end, going off-script is what makes the difference between a positive and neutral customer interaction.

For this, agents must possess specific skills and traits that can help them deliver unparalleled customer service.

We have compiled a list of the skills that a modern customer service agent must possess to work efficiently in a contact center.

1. Communication skills

Good communications skills are now a prerequisite for all types of jobs. However, for a contact center agent, it is one of the most important skills to possess. An effective agent is one who chooses the right words at the right time.

In fact, speaking the right things is not always sufficient; when to speak, how to speak, and when not to speak are all skills that aspiring agents must develop. Additionally, contact center agents must also be excellent listeners.

Often people try to get a word in. This is true in contact centers also. Agents might think they have understood the problem and jump to solutions without listening to the complete issue.

However, this can be negated by becoming a good listener.

Remember, customers prefer agents who listen to all their concerns and then act.

2. Multi-task

Contact centers are areas with intense workloads. While automated technologies such as smart Interactive Voice Systems (IVR) and virtual receptionists, among others, are easing the processes of agents, many customers still want to interact with a human agent.

Agents are constantly juggling calls. With tools such as auto-diallers, calls are often made one after the other.

While the phone rings, the agent must equip themselves with the history of the caller. They are expected to go over the history, listen to the customer, prepare a response, and move on to the next caller in this short time.

All of this requires them to be master multi-taskers. Not only does this allow agents to better their output, but it also improves the efficiency of the overall contact center.

3. Working under pressure

Taking over the last point, contact centers are areas with intense workloads. This often means countless hours of calls with customers and managing data entries.

With a high number of callers, some are bound to be frustrated at a product or service. This can even lead to customers raising their voices at agents, building pressure on them for quick resolutions.

Additionally, modern contact centers are heavily micro-managed. With metrics such as first call resolution and average handling time, agents have to perform their best to meet the standards set by managers.

This adds to the pressure of the workload on these agents. Thus, agents must be equipped to handle pressure from both customers as well as managers.

4. Empathy

Empathy is a necessary trait to possess as a contact center agent. Understanding problems from the other person’s perspective helps provide the right solutions on time.

In fact, showing empathy for a caller’s issues can turn them into loyal customers.

Agents must make every caller feel heard. Listening to the caller’s concerns and understanding their problems is the key to superior customer service.

When callers feel they are heard, they are more likely to stick to your service, as well as propagate a good word of mouth to their peers.

In a world cluttered by similar products and services, an empathetic contact center agent can be the difference between a positive and neutral customer interaction.

5. Positive attitude

Customers reach out to contact centers for all sorts of complaints. Displaying a positive attitude on-call can help agents keep these callers calm and avoid escalation.

Especially during times when problems are taking longer to resolve, a positive attitude ensures the caller that their complaint has been heard and is being worked upon.

A positive attitude can help build an aura of trust between the company and a caller.

6. Organisational skills

Agents have to browse through a lot of customer data. Not only that, but they also have to make regular entries on CRM platforms and update them after every call. Additionally, they have to make notes about every customer request and preference.

All of this information, if not organised correctly, can lead to loss of data and mismanagement. And, poor organisation skills also harm the overall delivery of customer service from a contact center.

7. Collaboration

In addition to the above point, organising is vital for individual use as well as the whole team. Contact centers often employ a large workforce so that all agents can work in tandem and clear customer queries.

It is essential to store the correct information at the right place not only for safe data-keeping but also for future reference to other agents.

Furthermore, if an agent cannot answer a particular query, teams can help them arrive at a quick solution. It builds a more robust network of qualified agents working towards a common goal.

8. Speed

Lastly, one of the most crucial skills to have is speed. Contact centers are often overburdened with work. On top of that, constant supervision forces agents to meet strict deadlines and KPAs (Key Performance Areas).

Speed is an important skill because of customer resolution. In today’s hyper-active world, customers are looking for instant gratification.

Therefore, agents must rise to this challenge and aim to solve queries and concerns promptly.

Summing up

Agents are the soul of a contact center. Without them, machines will continue to do repeated tasks without providing an excellent customer experience.

While many of the above-listed skills can be developed independently, companies must also provide proper training to their agents. They must make sure that agents have sufficient knowledge about the product and services to deliver quick service.

Additionally, training on contact center software can significantly improve the overall efficiency of the agents.

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Karan Beniwal

Author

Karan is a communications graduate with a passion for film and writing and is on an indefinite journey to search for and capture stories from around the world. He is currently exploring the world of content marketing to bring to life the products and services we use every day. Connect with him on Linkedin

UCaaS: New Buzz in Business Communication

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

September 18, 2019

5 mins read eye

Table of content

Gone are the days when desk phones and telephony tools were the only means for business communication. Today, businesses demand a solution which is handy, cost-friendly and easy to scale. UCaaS, here is the perfect solution that rescues the company from a complex communication system.

UCaaS expanded as Unified Communications as a Service, is a cloud-hosted service which streamlines all the business voice solutions by centralizing it over a single platform. Let’s break the term “UCaaS” to understand its functioning better.

Unified Communications in ‘UCaaS’ refers to the unification of communication channels including social media messaging, chatbots, voicemail, calls, email, video conferencing etc. It unifies all the communication on a single platform to ensure hassle-free management.

The fragment ‘as a Service’ (aaS) refers to the unified communication software hosted over the cloud, which is accessible from anywhere at any time. As the software is hosted on the cloud, it eliminates the need for dedicated infrastructure or maintenance team. Instead, the cloud service provider takes care of all the purchase and maintenance for you.

Types of UCaaS Architecture

UCaaS offers two types of models

i) Single-tenant Model

As a client of the single-tenant model, you get a personalized PBX (Private Branch Exchange) system in a data center. In this model, the client only shares the hardware and gets his personalized software.

Concerns over shared infrastructure are significant for clients who like to stay accountable for data they share and customize. Hence, the single-tenancy model is favoured from a security viewpoint.

ii) Multi-tenant Model

Being a customer in the multi-tenant model, you won’t have the option to roll out any necessary improvements in the software application like, modify the code or scale the capacity. You can only perform little touch-ups, such as altering the colour scheme or display of the menu.

Here multiple clients are served by a single system which means you have to share the same system assets and cloud computing capacity. Multi-tenant systems are usually cheaper to deploy and operate.

Why Go for UCaaS?

By deploying a unified communication system for your business, you can establish your brand in a short time. With the ongoing digital transformation, UCaaS has gained immense popularity in recent years. Small businesses are adopting UCaaS due to the shortage of resources to manage and maintain the communication system. Not only that companies are leveraging UCaaS in many other ways.

1. Reduces Capital Investment

In earlier days, when small businesses wanted to upgrade their system, they had to make a lot of capital investments. From purchasing equipment to installing them, every step demanded effort and cost investment along with the maintenance hassle.

UCaaS reduces the cost of capital investment by a considerable margin as everything got managed by the cloud service provider. It also relieves the business from the hassle of employing a dedicated IT team that spend hours on configuring and maintaining the equipment.

2. Saves Office Rentals

The most significant advantage of UCaaS is that it makes communication possible from any device with a stable internet connection. Communication can be initiated and regulated from anywhere, whether office premises or remote location.

Consequently, you do not need to establish a new communication setup for every location you plan to expand. This helps you save office rentals and improves your initial setup cost.

Let’s suppose you are currently operating a business in Delhi and plan to expand in Bangalore.

Will you invest and set up a dedicated communication team in Bangalore?
With unified communication software, you wouldn’t. You can purchase a dedicated phone number for Bangalore operations and divert calls to the Delhi center, that means, you can regulate all the communication from Delhi itself.

3. Scales Easily

If you plan to expand your business at multiple locations and scale your infrastructure to meet the rising customer’s demand, then UCaaS is the right solution for you. As a unified communication system is hosted on the cloud, it is easily scalable. That means an administrator can easily add or delete users as per the changing staffing needs.

As the system is easily scalable on the cloud, you do not need to worry about the infrastructure needs. You can sit back and focus on other pressing issues at hand that require your immediate attention.

4. Promotes Remote Working

The trend of remote working has become the choice of many millennials these days. The latest report by Upwork stated that recruiting managers expect 38 per cent of their staff to work remotely in the upcoming decade.

Sticking to the legacy of the desktop-based interface might have repercussions. Here arises the need for a mobile communication system such as UCaaS operates it efficiently. UCaaS allows the employees to use their mobile devices to communicate with customers, collaborate and generate leads by working from any part of the country.

5. Empowers Updated Technology

With UCaaS you need not deploy any bulky hardware for your system as well as the updation is not your job. This is managed by the UCaaS provider who ensures that you get access to the latest technological updates automatically.

Summing it Up

As the no. of communication platform expands, it becomes difficult for a business to manage and toggle between the various platforms. UCaaS makes it easier for the business to manage the communication by centralizing it over a single platform. Also, the added benefits of the cloud such as scalability, remote working, disaster recovery and more, makes UCaaS a one-stop solution for all the communication issues.

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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.

How Different Industries Are Using IVR Solution

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

September 13, 2019

4 mins read eye

Table of content

Do you have to communicate with customers and answer the same set of questions regularly?

If yes, then Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is what your business needs.

Interactive Voice Response automates the hassle of attending calls manually or answering the mundane question every day. It automatically greets the caller with a pre-recorded welcome message and interacts with the customers through DTMF inputs (generated by your numeric keypad responses). Welcome greeting used in the IVR can be fully customized to include your company’s name and other details.

Most of the leading businesses have started using IVR solution to capture more leads and connect with the customers in real-time. Not only that, but companies are also utilizing this solution to serve other business purposes. Here’s a list of IVR use cases which are already in use by different industries.

1. Receive Customer Feedback

Interactive Voice Response is used as a useful tool to obtain feedback about products or services from the customers. To prompt responses, you can easily design an IVR for your business and ask yes/no or multiple-choice questions. These feedback questions can be easily customized depending upon the product or services.

Collected response of IVR can be further discussed, evaluated and implemented in the next product or service updates. This allows the business to remain at par with customer’s expectations without demanding much effort.

2. Manage Incoming Calls

Companies are using Interactive Voice Response to manage the humungous volume of customer calls. With IVR, these calls from customers can be easily routed to the concerned department for further assistance and query resolution without any human intervention. As IVR replaces human receptionist with virtual receptionist managing calls become a lot easier, cost-effective and efficient.

Also, IVR greets the caller with a pre-recorded welcome greeting and provides the caller with a detailed list of options to choose from. It responds to the customer with dynamically generated audio with the help of text-to-speech feature.

3. Conduct Surveys

Surveys are a priceless tool to measure the service quality. Generally, these surveys are of two type – Inbound and Outbound IVR survey.

Inbound IVR Survey

In an inbound survey, customer approaches the business with the queries. Once the interaction is complete, the same call gets transferred for a quick survey to evaluate customer satisfaction for the provided assistance. Such surveys give businesses quality feedback as the conversation is fresh in the customers’ minds.

Outbound IVR Survey

These surveys are routinely conducted to gauge customer’s satisfaction with your product and services. Here an automated call which includes set of questions is sent on the customer’s number. The caller responds to the survey using the numeric input options.

4. Gather Account Information

Interactive Voice Response facilitates the customers by providing account information in no time. It gives customer the opportunity to fetch instant information such as account balance, last five transactions, subscription pack renewal date etc. This service is often used by customers of banking, insurance and financial services.

When the customer calls on the business phone number, IVR responds to the call and presents several options. For instance, if a customer wants to know the account balance or outstanding bill, they can follow the IVR instructions to fetch their account details. It greatly helps customer to gather information of basic queries without any human assistance.

5. Generate Leads

Marketers have started using Interactive Voice Response as an efficient tool to generate leads. Instead of running ads and sending emails to collect contact information, they are using IVR service to attract leads into giving their contact information.

For instance, “Take our survey and avail 50% discount on all our products” or “Call on 9xxxxxx to know more about our product” are few of the lines that can be used to attract relevant leads. At the end of the call, IVR can connect the interested leads with the company representative.

6. Track Orders

E-commerce industry has leveraged Interactive Voice Response intelligently by allowing customers to track the status of their orders through this solution. E-commerce companies allow their customers to call them and know the location and status of their order in a hassle-free manner using Interactive Voice Response solution.

For instance, when a customer calls the company to track order, IVR greets them and asks them to enter their order ID and verification details. After the customer provides the relevant information, IVR fetches the order details from the database and announces it to the caller using the Text-to-Speech feature.

Summing it Up

Setting up an IVR clearly impacts the ROI of the business. Also, it has emerged out to be an essential self-help platform where customers can resolve their queries without interacting with an agent. Due to which a large number of companies have started utilizing IVR for various business purposes. The perfect blend of self-help and talk to company representative options present in Interactive Voice Response has been the key catalyst in the widespread adoption of this solution.

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Will Chatbots Replace IVR?

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

September 11, 2019

5 mins read eye

Table of content

Customers these days are greatly inclined towards self-service options. A customer experience study conducted shows that 71% of customers want to solve customer service issues on their own.

These statistics indicate that customers prefer to use self-help tools instead of contacting company agents. Due to this rising demand for self-service options, market is flooded with self-service tools. Among the various options available, IVR and Chatbots are the most preferred self-service tools.

IVR enables customers to solve customer service issues on their own by using self-help options. Whereas chatbot – Artificial Intelligence (AI) program, provide answers to quick customer queries on the chat without any manual intervention or human assistance.

According to IBM,

Chatbots help businesses to reduce customer service cost by answering up to 80% of routine customer service questions.

Many businesses leverage virtual assistants to reduce response time and improve first call resolution. Analysts have already stated chatbots as the future of customer service.

According to Reuters.com,

“The Interactive Voice Response Market is expected to witness growth at a CAGR of 7% during the forecast period from 2017 to 2023. Increasingly being employed by a variety of business organizations, the global market is expected to reach an estimated value of USD 3.7 Bn by the end of 2023.”

Consistent growth of global IVR market suggests that chatbots will not replace IVR fully in the near run. Businesses prefer IVR to chatbots when it comes to deploying self-service strategies. There are several reasons which support that IVR is in the market for a long haul.

5 Reasons Why Chatbots Will Never Replace IVR Systems Completely

1. 57% Customers Still Prefer Talking to a Real Person

Most customers these days contact a business using more than one communication channels. But 39% of customers call a business frequently when they are ready to make a purchase or transaction. Likewise, 57% of customers prefer resolving customer service issues by talking to a real person. Hence, it is evident that customers prefer to talk with a live agent before going for a big purchase.

Using an IVR system enables a customer to access relevant information and discuss concerns directly with a real person. Having a chat with a real agent instils trust in the customer and nudges them to make the final purchase. IVR provides a perfect integration of agent-based assistance and self-help options that increases overall customer experience and loyalty.

2. IVR Solutions are Easier to Access the Chatbots

To initiate a chat, customer need access to the internet. It is impossible to use the chatbot in the absence of internet connectivity. Also, if the internet connectivity of your network operator is poor, using chatbot can get tricky. Lag in the messages makes the conversation inconsistent and infuriates the customer.

However, unlike chatbots, IVR solutions can be accessed without any internet connection. Customers only need to dial on the company number to connect with the company IVR. Hence, a wide range of customers finds it easier to access and use an IVR system than chatbots.

3. Customers Value First Contact Resolution

According to a customer experience report,

“Customers still value first contact resolution, but 40% say they must contact a brand two or more times before a customer service issue is resolved.”

The businesses cannot improve customer service experience without increasing first contact resolution consistently.

Like chatbots, IVR systems also help businesses to boost customer service experience by increasing first contact resolution. Cloud IVR solutions increase first call resolution by supporting skill-based incoming call routing. The feature enables businesses to resolve customer service issues on the first call by transferring the incoming call to the best-suited agent, department, extension, or call queue.

4. Chatbots Have Their Own Shortcomings

While implementing customer self-service, decision-makers must remember that IVR is a mature technology while chatbot is a new age technology which is continuously evolving. Chatbots suggest or recommend the best answers to a customer by leveraging machine learning algorithms. Although, answering complex queries can become be risky with ML algorithms. Most companies are deploying chatbots to tackle simple or basic queries.

The solutions or options provided by the chatbots vary depending upon the complexity of the queries asked due to which customers are often frustrated while using a chatbot.

To cater to every possible query asked by the customer, the business needs to build complex and customized chatbots. But a large number of businesses still lack the skill and resources required to implement self-service through complex chatbots. Whereas in the case of IVR, the complexity of the query doesn’t impact the functioning of the IVR. Every kind of query from simple to difficult is quickly answered through self-service or live agent options.

5. IVR Technology Has Been Evolving Continuously

IVR system has been evolving consistently. Hardware-based models of the telephony systems were providing callers with simple voice menu prompts. But the businesses can now use hosted IVR solutions without investing in hardware-based infrastructure. Cloud IVR solutions are easier to use, customize, extend, and scale than conventional IVR systems.

They further help a business to boost customer experience with features like real-time call monitoring, call recording, built-in text-to-speech solution and third-party application integration. Cloud IVR system helps callers to resolve complex customer service issues by leveraging advanced technologies like Automated Speech Recognition (ASR), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and Computer Telephony Integration (CTI).

Best of Both Worlds

Both self-service options – chatbot and IVR – help a business to boost customer experience and reduce the customer service cost. But each of these customer service technologies has its pros and cons. Thus, best solution is to integrate IVR and chatbot. You can use chatbots for simpler queries or queries with direct answers and can use IVR to handle complex set of queries. By using strengths of both these tools in your business, you can easily accelerate customers service quality in no time.

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How to Safeguard Your Business Transactions Using OTP Service?

Acefone Editor

Author

IVR Service

September 6, 2019

5 mins read eye

Table of content

According to the 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report released by Verizon,

81% hacking-related breaches leveraged either stolen or weak passwords.

The report further adds,

Social engineering is a common means for cybercriminals to establish a foothold. And employees are making this further easy by using easy-to-crack passwords. Users and IT departments are even often guilty of not changing the default passwords that devices come with and can be easily looked up online.

The growing instances of social engineering attacks depict ineffectiveness of user-generated passwords to safeguard sensitive customer data and business transactions. In addition to making customers abandon a business or brand, these attacks often make businesses incur financial and reputation losses. Thus, your business must implement a robust alternative to protect various business transactions continuously.

To enhance transaction security and prevent social engineering attacks businesses these days are switching to one-time password from user-generated passwords.

What is One Time Password?

Technopedia.com explains One Time Password (OTP) as a secure way to provide access to an application or perform a transaction only one time. Unlike user-generated passwords, an OTP is valid only for a single transaction. The OTP expires automatically after a few minutes after the user has utilized it.

The OTP service helps your business to send one-time passwords to customers in various formats – emails, text messages and voice messages. Your business can trigger the OTP automatically based on the request made by the customers during the transaction or login process. These OTPs are hard to crack and hack due to the randomly generated string of alphanumeric characters.

Businesses can implement transaction security by integrating the OTP SMS API with the website, mobile app, and third-party applications. In addition to delivering OTPs through SMS and voice platforms, you can track OTP delivery status – successful, failed and reattempted based on automated analytics reports. The OTP services help your enterprise to safeguard business transactions in several ways.

7 Ways OTP Service Helps Your Enterprise to Keep Business Transactions Secure

1. Overcome Shortcomings of Static Passwords and PINs

Most customers still perform financial transactions and share sensitive information using static passwords or personal identification numbers (PINs). But they often fail to ensure that passwords used are difficult to guess or crack. They further keep the financial transaction and sensitive information vulnerable to targeted security attacks by using the same password for multiple transactions or login session.

Many cybersecurity experts these days advise customers never to use certain passwords which are dangerously easy-to-guess. OTPs help your business to protect both customer data and digital transactions by overcoming shortcomings of static passwords or PINs. Many cybersecurity experts these days advise businesses to improve data security and privacy by replacing static passwords/PINs with dynamic and transaction-specific passwords. The OTP service helps your customers use dynamic passwords and implement two-factor authentication.

2. Prevent Password-Based Security Attacks

The easy-to-guess nature of user-generated passwords makes it easier for cybercriminals to execute security attacks like password sniffing, brute force attack and dictionary attacks. The OTP services make it difficult for cybercriminals to guess passwords using mathematical algorithms.

The algorithm used to create OTPs generates temporary passwords randomly by combining numeric or alphanumeric characters. Hence, it becomes easier for your business to combat various types of password-based security attacks successfully.

3. Keeps Password Valid for a Few Minutes

Employees impact the security of business transactions and customer data adversely by using the same password for multiple transactions. Unlike user-generated passwords, an OTP is valid only for a single transaction or login session.

It expires automatically after a short period despite being used or not used by the customer. Time synchronization techniques are used to expire these passwords after a short period automatically. After the password expires, the customer must request a new OTP to complete or repeat the transaction.

4. Send Critical Information Timely and Securely

Your business has the option to send OTP to customers through multiple communication channels – text messages, emails or voice. But it sends the code to an email and mobile number both to strengthen the security of the registration process.

These codes are sent in a time gap of fewer than 10 seconds using the fast and secure SMS APIs. These APIs can be integrated with any application to trigger OTPs at important checkpoints for a secure and reliable access.

5. Authenticate a Variety of Business Transactions

OTP services have replaced static passwords with dynamic ones. B2B and B2C businesses are using this service to safeguard a variety of transactions – eCommerce purchases, digital payment, account reactivation, account deletion and password resets.

Enterprises are leveraging the difficult-to-crack feature of OTPs to enhance customer data security, eliminate chances of data loss, and protect digital transactions.

6. Implement Two-Factor Authorization

Two-factor authentications safeguard various business transactions by replacing user-generated passwords with OTP. The security technique enables your business to cross-check the identity of a customer by sending OTP to his or her registered mobile number.

It requires the agent to validate his or her identity by submitting the OTP after logging in to the online account using the existing username and password. In addition to protecting business transactions, the two-factor authorization adds an extra layer of security to the website, mobile apps or enterprise software solution.

7. Choose from Multiple OTP Generation Approaches

The OTP service providers generate the password using advanced algorithms. The algorithm keeps the password difficult-to-guess by using alphanumeric or numeric patterns. Some providers even allow your business to choose from various approaches for OTP generation.

For instance, you can opt for time-synchronization based approach to make the dynamic password expire in a specific amount of time. Likewise, you can use different algorithms to generate the password based on the previous OTPs sent to the customer. The complex algorithms further allow you to trigger OTPs based on specific conditions.

Moreover, a business can leverage OTP service to deliver a one-time password to customers over SMS and voice platforms in 10 seconds. They can further generate custom OTP messages and track OTP delivery status without putting extra time and effort. A reliable OTP service helps your business to prevent reputational and financial losses by keeping business transactions secure and combating password-based security attacks.

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Things You Need to Know Before You Switch to Cloud Telephony

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Cloud Telephony

September 4, 2019

9 mins read eye

Table of content

Introduction

With the rapid changes in technology these days, traditional and manual ways of communication have been replaced by automation. Nowadays, automating your communication processes has become a necessity in place of leisure. And cloud telephony is one such solution that has brought this change in the communication industry.

Cloud has impacted the masses far and wide. And, when we talk about its impact on the business, it has been a catalyst for many recent developments which has prompted better customer experience and steady business growth. Hence, moving to cloud telephony is the best decision a business could make to stand out in the communication industry.

Cloud telephony is a communication technology where all the communication infrastructure is hosted over the cloud by a service provider. It is an efficient way to interact with customers by providing enhanced customer satisfaction.

It can be accessed via two networks:

1. PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network)

It is a traditional circuit-switched telephone network running on copper wires. It has proved to be a trusted means of communication since the 1800s. However, due to legal concerns, mixing of PSTN and VoIP calls are strictly not allowed in India and countries from the middle east.

2. IP (Internet Protocol)

In this case, calls are initiated and facilitated via the internet. A vast number of western countries are already providing Internet calling, or VoIP enabled services.

Types of Cloud Telephony Services

Types of cloud telephony services

1. Toll-free Number

A toll-free number acts as a platform over which customers can contact your business without paying for any call charges. All the expenses of inbound and outbound calls are borne by the business instead of the caller.

2. Virtual Number

A virtual phone number routes your business calls to your personal number and enables you to receive calls from anywhere. It is comparatively cheaper than a toll-free number and allows you to use a personal number for your business.

3. IVR

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) automates your business telephony system. It automatically answers all the incoming calls without fail and greets the caller with a pre-recorded voice. IVR also takes response from customers through DTMF inputs via keypad buttons.

4. Bulk SMS

With bulk SMS, you can deliver messages instantly to multiple recipients simultaneously. It makes sure your marketing campaign reaches out to a maximum number of the target audience.

5. Voice Broadcasting

Voice Broadcasting helps you broadcast a voice message to a huge audience in no time. It also enables you to schedule multiple promotional campaigns as per demand and track the result further.

How Is It Better than Traditional Telephony?

There are several reasons which state that cloud telephony is better than the traditional methods of communication. Let us understand the comparison between On-premises and Cloud Telephony

difference between cloud telephony and on premise

1. Deployment

A cloud telephony-based system is hosted on the service provider’s data center and can be accessed through a web portal. Hence, the organizations need not purchase a dedicated space for their business communication system.

Whereas on-premises telephony system is installed locally on the premises of an organization. Also, the company needs to buy additional and dedicated space for bulky hardware. This results in additional expenditure, which might affect the ROI of the company.

2. Cost

Cost-saving is an essential deciding factor that every business considers before purchasing any service.

Cloud-based telephony systems do not demand high upfront cost investment. They involve a basic cost in the form of operating expenditure which the organization needs to pay for whatever services they use.

However, on-premises systems demand a high capital investment to set up a communication system. To get started, you need to invest in the bulky hardware, office space and dedicated infrastructure management team.

3. Security

The data stored over the cloud-based system is secure and handled by the service providers. These cloud service providers are proficient in handling crucial data and are always equipped with the latest updates and tools. It is the sole responsibility of the vendor to process any security threats. The data is stored at the service provider’s data center and managed by a highly professional and dedicated team.

With your data hosted on-premises, it becomes your responsibility to manage and keep it secure. You might need to hire security managers to handle the data manually, which demands an extra workforce. Also, your security staff needs to stay updated with security threats and other safety concerns.

4. Scalability

Expanding your business becomes hassle-free with cloud technology. Delivering the on-time requirements is what businesses strive for, and this becomes possible with the cloud. Cloud technology is a convenient option if you plan to migrate your business from one geographical location to another. You can easily add new agents and departments in the cloud-hosted systems.

It might take weeks or months to deliver the increase in demand with the traditional telephony system. These systems come with a limit to scale and need to be replaced continuously to maintain efficiency and quality.

5. Accessibility

With your data hosted over the cloud, you can access it from anywhere and anytime. You just need an internet facility and authority to access the data. All your valuable data can be accessed over your system in a couple of seconds; this gives you the flexibility to access data even while travelling.

For example, one of the best examples of hosting data over the cloud is Google Drive. When you upload your files on the drive, you do not need to carry your system everywhere to access the data. All you need is a device and internet to access your data.

In the on-premises system, you cannot access your files from another system. As these systems are fixed and are not connected over the network, you cannot access the data on-the-go or from anywhere other than the system.

6. Disaster Recovery

The primary concern for most of the businesses remains disaster recovery management. With the cloud, your data always remains safe as it hosted on the service provider’s data center. Also, multiple replicas of the data are stored at different locations as a security measure. So, if a natural calamity hits the data center, the data will not be lost.

On the other hand, on-premises systems do not have disaster recovery option as the data is stored at the premises of the company. If any hazard or disasters strike the company premises, the data could never be recovered, until you have a backup for the same.

Which Industries Can Leverage It?

The advancements in technology have made an impact on all the industries across the globe be it education, healthcare, e-commerce, hospitality or finance. With the up gradation in technology, companies nowadays ensure that they are updated with the latest trends and technology. Irrespective of the industry your business belongs to, there are many benefits of cloud telephony solution for every business.

1. Education

Schools and other educational institutions can switch to the cloud and create a platform to connect with students instantly. They need not spend hours making manual calls to the students to update them about an unexpected holiday or change in schedule.

They can send bulk SMS instantly to the parents regarding the timings of parent-teacher meeting or any other felicitation function. Fee reminders can also be sent to the parents over call via voice broadcasting.

Educational institutions can get a single toll-free number for all their branches working in multiple states across the nation or globe.

2. Healthcare

The healthcare industry is undergoing a digital makeover by switching to digitalized records and medical subscriptions. The healthcare industry can leverage cloud telephony in diverse ways to support their patients.

Hospitals can use SMS and voice reminders to remind their patients about an upcoming appointment or medical subscription.
With the help of virtual receptionist, patients can book their appointments in a couple of seconds with a single click.
Different departments of hospitals can send motivational messages to their patients to help them stay positive.
Hospitals can deploy IVR so that no call by a patient goes missing. This ensures there is no loss of life due to any communication gaps.

3. E-commerce

E-commerce sector has leveraged cloud technology in the industry very efficiently.

We can observe this in our daily lives. Whenever we purchase from online shopping sites, we get an order confirmation message from the company. From order dispatch to delivery, we are informed about the progress of our order at every step. Cloud telephony also provides number masking feature which secures the personal information of the customer. With number masking, the contact number of the delivery person and the customer is not shared with each other.

4. Real estate

It is essential to keep yourself updated if you happen to be in real estate. In the modern world, clients do not prefer the traditional methods of driving all over the city to check out properties, instead they prefer to research on their own. Cloud telephony provides enormous opportunities to real estate sectors, due to which a large number of real estate organizations have already migrated to cloud.

Agents and builders can have a single number for all their ongoing project sites so anyone who wants to purchase a property can communicate with them easily. They can also send instant messages to their clients regarding instalments and due dates.

5. Finance

Most of the industries have started switching to the cloud at a fast rate as it provides a platform for innovation and improves the efficiency of the business communication process. The finance industry is no exception in this field.

Finance departments are using bulk SMS services to inform their employees about salary credit and other relevant information. They can also advise the clients to clear their debts with the company with the least human interaction by sending instant messages or voice messages.

6. Travel and logistics

Travel organizations can use cloud telephony services to help their customers and enhance customer satisfaction in various ways. They can use services like bulk SMS to send a text to their customers.

Travel and logistics organizations can have a single toll-free number for all their branches across the nation so the customers can communicate with them easily.
They can remind their customers of their bookings via bulk SMS/voice broadcasting a couple of days or hours before their journey.
Local travel agencies can deploy a virtual number and provide a convenient platform for customers to connect with them. They can also continue using their personal number as a business phone number with the help of a virtual number.
Hotel booking agencies can inform their clients about their booking and update the check-in and check-out timings.
Travel agencies can send voice recordings to multiple users in case of a bus cancellation or any other issues with voice broadcasting. This eliminates the need of manually calling the clients to inform them about the cancelled booking and hence saves time.

Conclusion

Cloud telephony is an all-in-one communication solution. Its low cost and easy scalability make it a star choice for every industry. Above mentioned industries have already started using cloud telephony for their business communication purposes. Not only it is more secure but also easy to set up. It is high time to switch to the cloud.

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Points to Keep in Mind Before Choosing Your Business Phone Number

Acefone Editor

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Contact Center

August 28, 2019

6 mins read eye

Table of content

In the past few years, tablets and smartphones have turned into a fundamental part of modern workplaces. Businesses and its employees utilize mobile devices for internal and external corporate communication, but businesses cannot carry out communication seamlessly without a dedicated business phone number.

The dedicated business phone number encourages you to keep the personal and business calls isolated. Additionally, it makes your business proficient and lucrative by providing on-time support to the customers.

Comparing Different Types of Business Phone Numbers

There are various kinds of business phone service available in the market.

Landline numbers
Toll-free numbers
Virtual phone numbers
Vanity numbers

But you must keep in mind that every type of business phone number has its pros and cons. Let us dig deeper to understand the basics of these business phone numbers.

Landline Numbers

The landline numbers are the most basic and regular type of telephone numbers. Organisations can use a landline number and avail a basic plan to run their communication processes. It empowers both the clients and leads to communicate with your business without paying high call charges.

But landline phone number has its set of constraints. Due to its wired structure, it remains fixed and immobile. Moreover, the number pattern of landline numbers is difficult for customers to recall and the major setback is the call handling capacity of these numbers. You cannot answer more than one call at a time on a landline number. Also, organizations today have a heavy inflow of customer calls where they need an efficient system to handle multiple calls at the same time.

Toll Free Numbers

Toll-free phone number is usually 1800 number which enables customers to contact your business without paying for any call charges. These easy-to-remember phone numbers further make it simpler for the customers to call business for assistance. Additionally, a toll-free number enhances your brand’s reputation and visibility by providing you with the flexibility to relocate and expand your business without any hassle.

Toll-free numbers make it easier for your business to manage inbound calls efficiently by providing salient features like call routing, forwarding and monitoring. You can also integrate an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) solution to the toll-free number to automate customer calls and allow callers to use the self-service option.

Virtual Phone Numbers

Unlike standard telephone numbers, virtual phone numbers are not linked to a specific telephone line or system. You can use the virtual numbers to forward the incoming calls to other numbers. Services provided along with the virtual number allow you to route the incoming call to landline phones, mobile devices, and VoIP devices.

By forwarding your business calls to your personal numbers, the virtual phone number allows you to use your personal number as the business phone number. Like toll-free numbers, you can integrate IVR with your virtual number to automate your customer calls.

The cloud-hosted virtual phone number solutions help your business to handle high volume incoming calls efficiently by facilitating call routing, forwarding, recording, and analysis. You can further make the virtual number easier to remember and recall by choosing from an array of premium numbers. Business should go for virtual phone numbers to overcome the shortcomings of other types of business telephone numbers.

Vanity Numbers

Vanity phone numbers are nothing but fancy-looking toll-free numbers. They are easier to memorize as compared to local and traditional toll-free phone numbers. Vanity phone numbers also act as a powerful marketing and advertisement tool as the number represents your brand or services. These numbers are an efficient tool to enhance lead generation and run inbound marketing campaigns. But vanity phone numbers are available at premium prices in comparison to other existing business phone numbers.

For instance, a flower delivery agency can use 1800-FOR-FLOWERS as their vanity number. Here, the number is associated with their services and is quite easier to remember for customers. 1800-CAB and 1800-FOR-PIZZA are a few other vanity numbers used by organisations to expand their brand reach and promote easy brand recall amongst customers. Also, vanity numbers do not come with any restriction on number of digits like other toll-free numbers.

Choosing the Suitable Business Phone Number

You have the flexibility to choose from a variety of business phone numbers. But each type of business phone number has got its positives and negatives. Hence, it is essential to keep in mind several important factors before choosing a suitable phone number for your business.

1. Expands Business Presence

Nowadays, every business wants to enable customers to connect with them effortlessly from any geographic location. In such cases, you need to go for a telephone number that encourages you to set up and expand business presence across the globe.

The cloud-hosted virtual phone number solutions make it easier for you to enhance business presence. Businesses can market a single virtual number for all their business locations and then forward the incoming calls to their call centers.

2. Facilitates Call Management

You need to choose a phone number that helps your business to manage high volume incoming calls efficiently. The virtual phone numbers help your business to handle the surge in incoming call volume by routing the calls to various devices and numbers. They further simplify call management by providing advanced features like call routing, forwarding and recording.

3. Available at Affordable prices

A business phone number which is available at affordable prices is what all the businesses look for. Be it a start-up or a renowned brand; cost is a thing which affects the ROI of every business. A virtual number comes with a convenient setup at easily affordable prices. Also, virtual number is cheaper than a toll-free number as the calling charges are borne by the customer as well as the company.

4. Ports Easily

While running a business, expansion or relocation is an ongoing process. Thus, there are high chances that you are relocating or expanding your business in the long run.

Traditional landline numbers are fixed and thus are not a preferred option for such businesses. But in case of a virtual phone number, you can keep using the same number regardless of your geographic locations.

5. Implements IVR

Your business needs to hire additional call center agents to deal with incoming calls throughout the day. But you can allow customers to call your business anytime by automating customer service with IVR.

Unlike traditional business phone services, virtual phone number solution enables you to automate customer service delivery by implementing IVR solutions efficiently. The self-service options provided by the IVR will help you to deliver 24/7 customer service without deploying dedicated agents.

Many businesses these days prefer virtual phone numbers over other types of business phone numbers to handle inbound calls efficiently. But you need to opt for cloud-hosted virtual phone number solutions to avail smart call management features like call routing, forwarding and recording.

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14 Call Center Metrics to Measure Your Customer Satisfaction

Acefone Editor

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Contact Center

August 19, 2019

7 mins read eye

Table of content

Call center managers have to take a lot of critical decisions to ensure their team delivers exemplary customer service. As easy as it sounds, making these decisions are no cakewalk. You need to have measurable performance indicators in place to assess what is working and what is not working for your call center.

Here is a list of 14 such performance call center metrics that can ease your decision-making process by providing insight about your call center performance.

1. First Call Resolution

How many times do the customers call your agents before their queries are resolved? If you can solve maximum customer queries in the first attempt, your first call resolution will soar high, and customer churn will dip substantially.

Studies reveal that if the agents can fix customer issues in the first interaction, the churn rate will go as low as 3% to that of 38% in case of the unresolved problems. Among the several formulas used in the industry to calculate FCR, the most-used formula is,

First Call Resolution = Calls Answered in the First Attempt/ Total Number of First Calls

2. Call Abandonment Rate

Call Abandonment Rate is a crucial metric that gives you a peek into how well you’re handling customer calls. It indicates that the callers were trying to connect with your agents but failed because of confusing IVR prompts, long call hold time, or busy tone.

Callers who dial wrong numbers are likely to disconnect the call after listening to the welcome IVR, therefore calls abandoned in the first 5-10 seconds are excluded from this calculation.

Call Abandonment Rate = Abandoned Calls/ Total Incoming Calls

The low value of call abandonment rate indicates that no customer is disconnecting the call without resolution. Thus, the lower the value of this call center metric, the higher is the customer satisfaction rate.

3. Average Speed of Answer

Speed at which your agents answer the incoming calls determines the value of this call center metric. It is calculated as the time taken by the agents to answer customers calls, including the call queue time.

If you’ve less number of agents to handle customer calls, chances are your average speed of answer will be high. And the higher this value goes, the more alarming it is for your customer experience and business profits.

Average Speed of Answer = Total Waiting Time/ Number of Calls Received

For instance, if you have 100 minutes of waiting for ten calls, this means every caller remains on hold for 10 minutes before their call gets answered.

This value is unacceptable if your call center promises a prompt and quality customer service. Thus, as a call center manager, keeping a tab on this call center metric is imperative for your call center performance.

4. Queue Time

Another important parameter that decides your call center’s efficiency is the average time your caller spends waiting in the queue.

Queue Time = Total Time Callers Wait in Queue/ Total Number of Calls Answered

The efficiency of your customer service is vastly determined by the time your caller has to wait before getting connected to the company representative. If they are waiting longer than expected, it indicates that your call routing or handling mechanisms need improvement.

5. Average Call Handling Time

It is a critical call center metric that determines your agent’s productivity. The duration of your call is considered as the handling time, i.e., the time from when the call is picked until it is disconnected.

Call Handling Time = (Total Talk Time+ Total Hold Time+ Wrap-up)/ Number of Calls Handled

However, deducing the agent’s performance based on this call center metric can be tricky. For instance, If the handling time is high, chances are customer’s request was complicated and demanded attention. Whereas, if it is low, it may mean that quality assistance wasn’t provided.

average handling time of contact centers

6. Percentage of Calls Blocked

This call center metric assesses the percentage of customers who received a busy signal in their attempt to call you. A high value of this metric means you’re missing on a large volume of customers, which is damaging for your reputation and pockets. And if you struggle to keep this value low, it means you don’t have enough agents, or efficient customer handling strategies in place. The lesser the value, the better it is for your business.

Percentage of Calls Blocked = (Calls Missed by Agents/ Total Incoming Calls) *100

7. Service Level

Service level is defined as the percentage of calls answered within an estimated target time. The faster your agents answer a call, the higher are your service levels. This call center metric is generally used by call center managers to assess the team’s promptness in answering calls.

Service Level = Percentage of Answered Calls/ Target Time

If you answer 80% of calls in 20 seconds, your service level is 80/20. Although there is no threshold to achieve, a recommended practice is to reach the mark of 80/20 or 70/30. This mark is a balanced approach to keep your response time high without draining energy.

8. Wrap-up Time

‘After Call Work’ or ‘Wrap-up Time’ is a part of call handling time calculation where the customer is not directly involved in the process. It is a task that an agent completes after the interaction to wrap up the whole conversation.

The wrap-up activities include logging in the customers’ detail, conversation outcome, follow-up activities, and other important information. Only when the agents complete the after-call processes, they can answer the next incoming call.

Total time taken in logging in conversation details (customers name and details, conversation outcome, follow-up activities)

9. Occupancy Rate

Occupancy metric is used to understand how much of the agent’s time is occupied in attending calls. It’s the measure that checks your agent’s efficiency during the working hours.

Occupancy rate = Total Call Time/ (Total call time + Available Time)

For example, a low occupancy value (<70%) reflects that agents are not attending calls and are idle majorly during their working hours whereas a high occupancy rate (>85%) reflects your agents are exhausted with calls. A healthy occupancy rate lies between 70% – 80%, which means your agents are not under or over-utilized with the calls.

10. Customer Satisfaction

This metric is calculated by sending out post-call survey forms to the customers. As soon as your call with the customer disconnects, a survey is texted on their number to evaluate their satisfaction with the delivered customer service.

While other call center metrics can be calculated to understand the quantitative aspect of your delivered service, customer satisfaction metrics informs you of the qualitative aspect. Generally, these forms are comprehensive, which include all the quality parameters.

11. Conversion Rate

It is one of the most sensitive call center metrics which charts the growth of your business. A low conversion rate pulls your business profits down, whereas a high rate pushes it towards the growth. It is generally calculated as the percentage of calls or incoming leads that end up purchasing your product. However, conversion targets for every call center might differ depending upon the service they provide.

In the case of sales, the conversion rate can be calculated as

Conversion Rate = Total Number of Sales / Number of Leads * 100

But for support call centers it is determined by the number of successfully closed queries.

Conversion Rate = Total Number of Closed Queries / Number of Incoming Queries * 100

12. Cost Per Call

Running a call center is an expensive affair. From employee wages to electricity costs, there are a number of expenses involved in the running of a call center. Here, cost per call provides you insight about the ROI of the involved expenses. Unlike other call center metrics, it has a simple calculation.

Cost per call = Total Call Center Cost / Number of Calls during the period

For example,

If your call center has a total expenditure of $70,000 in a year and answered calls during this year is 100,000, then cost per call comes out to be $0.70 per call.

13. Agent Attrition

Attrition is the rate at which your call center agents are leaving your workforce. For your call center, it can be the most critical call center metric that evaluates the quality of the work environment. Studies have also shown that the success rate of your organization is co-dependent on the attrition rate. According to a customer service report rolled out by Benchmark Portal, 69 percent of respondents agreed that attrition hinders their way to success.

Attrition Rate = No. of employees that left during a time period/ Average number of employees for that period

14. Agent Absenteeism

Unauthorized or unapproved absence of agents from work counts as agent absenteeism. Reasons such as unpaid sick leaves, late arrival at work, unapproved holidays, family emergency and more, are included in the absenteeism calculation.

Unplanned agent absence is expensive for the business as it demands last-minute backup arrangement. And it also hampers the agents’ productivity who fills in for the absent agent.

An exception in the absenteeism calculation is paid or approved holidays. These types of leaves are planned in advance which gives managers significant time to prep the backup and prevents any hindrance in the smooth running of the call center, beforehand.

Agent Absenteeism = Number of hours taken off for unauthorized absence/ Total hours logged in by the team over the same period

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What is Toll free Number : A Comprehensive Guide

Acefone Editor

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Contact Center

August 2, 2019

10 mins read eye

Table of content

Most of the businesses these days depend upon communication as it gives an edge to the businesses in the market. If you happen to be a business owner who is looking for ways to connect with your customers to enhance customer satisfaction, toll free number is the right solution for you. It is a two-way street that benefits both the company and its customers.

What is Toll free Number?

Toll free number is a business phone number that allows callers to reach an individual or a business free of cost. Customers can contact on toll free numbers to solve their queries or express their concerns to the business.

Toll free number is an important business asset, irrespective of company size. It provides businesses with bundles of opportunities to boost their profits. A large number of organizations integrate IVR solution with the Toll free number to provide enhanced customer service to their callers.

Is Vanity Number the Same Thing?

Vanity numbers work similar to a toll free number and differ only in appearance. These numbers are fancy toll free numbers which include words related to your service to make the number easier to memorise. They work successfully because a number that represents your brand is much easier to remember than a random combination of numbers.

For example, a pizza company may use 1800-FOR-PIZZA as their vanity number. This alphanumeric pattern makes the number easy to remember. This can be dialled as 1800-367-73992. If you have a look at your phone’s dial pad, you will notice that on each button, there are three english letters printed.

1800-FLOWERS OR 1800-TAXI are the famous vanity numbers used by several organizations to represent them as a brand and keep themselves user-friendly. However, unlike any other toll free number, vanity numbers have no restriction on the number of digits.

How Toll free Numbers Came into Existence?

In the era of electro-mechanical call switching, network operator’s participation was required to connect the calls, which means bundles of manual work. But, with the advancement of technology, developers have made it a fully computerized process which is automated and time efficient.

Initially, collect calls were used in which the calling party made an outbound call at the called party’s expense. This system got evolved to manually operated toll free systems in which the call charge flow was reversed. Later in 1966, AT&T introduced a direct dial system which was still based on electro-mechanical call switching system but was accepted worldwide. In the end, modern direct dial system established its presence and still continues to be a success.

In this era, as a result of modern direct-dial systems, toll free numbers have gained extreme popularity. With the increased demand amongst businesses, we now have a variety of toll free numbers.

However, there are a lot of variations in the toll free plans which vary according to the toll free number service. There is a broad spectrum on which toll free numbers can be categorized.

Types of Toll free Number

There are three types of a toll free number, although all of them serve the same purpose – to enable customers to call businesses free of cost, yet there are some subtle differences.

1. Universal International Freephone Number (UIFN)

UIFN is an eleven-digit number which can be used by companies that operate in multiple countries across the globe and want to use the same number for all their locations. Such organisations should use UIFN to communicate with their customers.

UIFN is usually preferred by large enterprises, including e-commerce giants, high-end resorts, etc.Such companies prefer having a single number for all their areas of operation.

But, before going for a UIFN number, there are three things that businesses need to keep in mind.

UIFN is operational in hardly 50 countries, so it doesn’t cover much of the market.
Cost of service is higher in comparison to International Toll-free number and Domestic Toll-free number.
Organisation needs to be registered in at least two countries in order to purchase a UIFN.

2. International Toll free Number

These are country-specific toll free numbers, which means that making outbound calls to such numbers from any part of the country is free for the callers; instead, charges are borne by the company.

Any organisation using International Toll free number or a US phone number gains loyalty amongst the customers. Also, it encourages organisations to maintain a national presence and enables them to move without changing their business phone numbers.

Although International toll free may incur additional charges for calls made to mobile phones, there are some restrictions in using International Toll free number.

3. Domestic Toll free Number

Domestic toll free numbers are the most preferred means for companies having a national presence. Any company having its offices across the nation can leverage domestic toll free number to facilitate their business communication. Domestic Toll free numbers are like International toll free numbers, these numbers don’t incur any add-on charges for making calls to mobile phones, and they have negligible restrictions.

Working of Toll free Number

The working of a toll free number follows the idea of charging the party being called and provides the caller with a free of cost calling experience. The cloud service provider’s server acts as an interface between the guest and the agents and establishes a secure connection between them. It involves two outbound calls made at the server over the cloud.

Working of Toll Free Number

Toll free number follows these steps of working:

Customer calls at the company’s toll free number.
Call gets landed at cloud service provider’s server like Acefone.
The caller is then greeted with IVR followed by a welcome greeting. It displays several options to connect with agents from different departments like sales, billing and support.
The server then makes an outbound call to the agents of the concerned departments according to the selection made by the caller.

How to Get a Toll free Number

Get a toll free number is as easy as signing up for one. There aren’t any costly equipment or surprise expenses involved in the process. You just need to sign up and purchase toll free with leading service providers like Acefone.

Also, toll free comes up with easy scalability, so you need not worry about the high demands if your business is growing. The service provider does the scaling for you as per your needs.

Why You Need a Toll Free Number?

Communication with your consumers determines your relationship with them and ultimately your brand image. Hence you need a technology that compels them to maintain with your company. A toll free number may be just the thing you need. Why You ask?

Need a Toll Free number

Benefits of Toll-free Number

There are endless benefits of a toll free number. Few of them include:

1. Improves Customer Relation

If a person can’t reach out to you, why would that person want to associate with your business?

The toll free number allows your customers to communicate with you directly to voice their concerns or ask queries.

When the customers have a reliable number to call in case of an issue, they begin to develop trust in you. This trust takes the form of customer loyalty being in the long term and helps improve customer retention for your business.

2. Enhances Brand Image

Toll free numbers aren’t just for large organizations in the industry; they work great for all companies, irrespective of their size.

Displaying a toll free number on your website and portraying it on the advertisements gives a brand image to your business making it more reliable and robust. This makes customers believe in you and creates a positive image in the minds of the customer.

3. Available at Affordable Prices

Toll free numbers come with hassle-free setup and at affordable prices. Any organization can afford a toll free number, be it a start-up or any small business. Many service providers offer toll free number at rates lower than that of regular telephone services.

It comes with affordable monthly plans or a pay-as-you-use model, which makes it easier and economical for the businesses. They need not pay for a full amount. Instead, they need to pay for whatever number of services they use.

Benefits of Toll Free Number

4. Scales Easily

Toll free number provides you with the ease to quickly scale your communication channels as per your needs. With a toll free number, your customers are never ignored, neither kept on waiting for their calls to be received.

Sometimes there is a surge in the incoming calls due to high demand or festive season. In such situations, the toll free number helps you manage all these surplus calls. It provides the flexibility to add more channels as per your demand so that the required number of concurrent calls can be received simultaneously.

5. Ports Without Any Hassle

With a toll free number, business phone providers need not switch to another number while moving to different geographical location. If you relocate your business due to some reasons, you can still use the same number for all the business communications.

Toll free number facilitates organizations with business continuity feature even after changing business location. You won’t lose any potential clients, and the prospects can reach out to you on time and facilitate seamless communication.

6. Used as a Marketing Tool

Using a toll free number makes it easy for businesses to keep track of their marketing efforts. Businesses use various strategies to advertise and promote their products and services via billboards and pamphlets.

But the problem arises with the tracking of these marketing campaigns as it becomes a tedious task to know which marketing campaign works the best for you. Toll free number is the one-stop solution to this problem. You can deploy different toll free numbers for each of your marketing campaigns and analyse which number works best for your business.

7. Expands Business Reach

Toll free number makes it simple for businesses to connect with the clients other than their base location or office. It enables customers from any part of the country to contact the business in a simple and cost-effective manner.

If you run an online store which deals with your customers across the globe, it makes sense to have a toll free number for your business. National chains usually deploy a main toll free number along with local numbers meant for each branch or franchise.

8. Boosts Brand Recall

One of the many benefits of toll free number is the ease of remembering it. Customers are highly likely to retain your number when it’s easy to memorize. In India, the initial four numbers are 1800 number followed by three digits which are provided by the network operator, while in the USA, the initial digits are 800. The remaining digits vary for every other toll free number. This increases the call rate and fortifies the customer base.

Easy to remember toll free number pattern enhances your brand’s recall among your customers. Other than your existing customers, this adaptability helps you grab more leads and convert them into potential customers.

Summing It Up

Nowadays, customers want to save money on every step and businesses strive to deliver high-class service. In such scenarios, the toll free number proves to be the perfect path for both the businesses as well as customers.

It allows the customers to call a business free of cost. On the other hand, it enables a business to reach out to more customers and enhance their customer experience. Toll free number has proved to be useful for businesses as it acts as a convenient platform to connect customers with the business effortlessly.

If you are looking to buy toll free number which perfectly fits your business needs, give Acefone a call.

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