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UCaaS: New Buzz in Business Communication

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category Contact Center calendar September 18, 2019 clock 5 mins read eye Reads: 484

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

UCaaS expanded as Unified Communications as a Service, is a cloud-hosted service that streamlines all the business voice solutions by centralizing it over a single platform. Let’s break down 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 a 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 business 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 VoIP for remote workers communication solutions 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 providers 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 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

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category Contact Center calendar September 13, 2019 clock 4 mins read eye Reads: 680

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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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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.

Will Chatbots Replace IVR?

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category Contact Center calendar September 11, 2019 clock 5 mins read eye Reads: 438

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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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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 to Safeguard Your Business Transactions Using OTP Service?

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category IVR Service calendar September 6, 2019 clock 5 mins read eye Reads: 602

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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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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.

Things You Need to Know Before You Switch to Cloud Telephony

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category Cloud Telephony calendar September 4, 2019 clock 9 mins read eye Reads: 486

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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

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

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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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.

Points to Keep in Mind Before Choosing Your Business Phone Number

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category Contact Center calendar August 28, 2019 clock 6 mins read eye Reads: 492

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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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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.

Top Call Center Metrics to Measure Your Customer Satisfaction

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category Contact Center calendar August 19, 2019 clock 7 mins read eye Reads: 20976

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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.

Check out this blog: Call USA from UK

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 emergencies and more, are included in the absenteeism calculation.

Unplanned agent absence is expensive for the business as it demands last-minute backup arrangements. And it also hampers the agents’ productivity who fill 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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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.

What is Toll free Number : A Comprehensive Guide

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category Contact Center calendar August 2, 2019 clock 11 mins read eye Reads: 1692

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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 memorize. 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 dialed 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 organizations 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. 
  • Organization needs to be registered in at least two countries in order to purchase a UIFN.  
  1. 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 organization using International Toll free number or a US phone number gains loyalty amongst the customers. Also, it encourages organizations 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.  

  1. 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. 

Toll free number follows these steps of working:  

  1. Customer calls at the company’s toll free number.  
  1. Call gets landed at cloud service provider’s server like Acefone.  
  1. 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.  
  1. 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? 

Benefits of Toll free Numbers 

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.  

  1. 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.  

  1. 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. 

  1. 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.  

  1. 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.  

  1. 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 analyze which number works best for your business.  

  1. 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.  

  1. 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 numbers have 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. 

FAQ 

1. What can I do if toll free number is not working? 

If a toll-free number isn’t working, try the following troubleshooting steps: 

  • Check the Dialing Format – Ensure you are dialing the correct country code, exit code (if calling internationally), and the toll-free number in the right sequence. 
  • Verify Network Restrictions – Some toll-free numbers may only be accessible within specific regions or networks. If calling from abroad, the number may not be reachable. 
  • Use a Different Network or Device – Try calling from another phone or network provider, as some carriers may block toll-free calls. 
  • Confirm Business Operating Hours – Some toll-free numbers are only available during specific hours or days. 
  • Contact the Service Provider – If the issue persists, reach out to your telecom provider to check for restrictions or alternative dialing methods. 
  • Visit the Business’s Website – Look for alternative contact options such as email, chat support, or other phone numbers. 

2. How do I call a toll free number from outside India? 

To reach an Indian 1800 toll-free number from outside India, you can follow these steps: 

  • Dial your country’s exit code (e.g., ‘00’ for France). 
  • Enter India’s country code, ‘91’. 
  • Input the Indian 1800 toll-free number of the business or organization you wish to contact. 
  • Press the call button. 

3. Can you call 1800 numbers on WhatsApp? 

No, you cannot call 1800 toll-free numbers directly on WhatsApp because WhatsApp only supports calls between individual user accounts and does not support dialing toll-free or landline numbers. 

4. How many toll-free numbers can I have? 

There is no fixed limit of toll-free numbers businesses can have. You can obtain multiple numbers based on your needs and regulatory guidelines set by your telecom provider and country’s telecom authority. 

5. Can toll-free phone numbers receive text messages? 

Yes, some toll-free numbers can receive text messages (SMS), but it depends on whether the number is SMS-enabled by your service provider. 

6. How can I add a toll-free number on my website? 

You can typically add a toll-free number to your website using the backend HTML or a website builder like WordPress. If you have a contact center software like Acefone that supports integrations, you may also have the option to include a click-to-call button for seamless dialing. 

7. Who Can Call from a Toll-Free Number? 

A toll-free number is primarily used for receiving calls, allowing customers to reach businesses without incurring charges. However, in some cases, businesses, government agencies, and call centers can also make outgoing calls from a toll-free number, depending on their telecom provider’s policies.  

While toll-free numbers are mainly designed for inbound communication, certain service plans allow outbound calling, especially for customer support, follow-ups, or helpline services. You must ensure compliance with telecom regulations to avoid restrictions or call blocking. 

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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.

Beginner’s Guide to IVR

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category Contact Center calendar July 19, 2019 clock 10 mins read eye Reads: 795

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Irrespective of your organizations size and the industry, Interactive Voice Response (IVR) caters to every type of business perfectly. Besides providing a communication platform, it has proved to be a great customer engagement tool that has bridged the gap between customers and businesses.

This guide aims to take you through What, why, and How of Interactive Voice Response and helps you understand the relevance of IVR in your organization’s growth trajectory.

1. What is IVR?

IVR is a telephony system that interacts with callers through numeric or voice inputs. It answers all the incoming calls, presents a list of menu options and prompts the callers to respond by choosing one of the presented options. Based on the received response, these calls are redirected to different departments.

2. How Does It Work?

The working of an IVR is a no brainer. It is simple as calling on any phone number. The only difference is in the engagement it provides.

When a customer calls on your IVR-linked business phone number, the call gets answered by automated voice response – programmed at the backend. After greeting callers with a welcome message, IVR presents a menu to guide the customers further in the process.

For instance, after welcoming callers, IVR presents the below menu options.

Press 1 for Billing Related Queries

Press 2 for Product Enquiries

Press 3 for Sales Related Enquiries

Press 4 to Directly Connect with an Agent

To proceed, if callers respond “1”, the call is redirected to the billing department. These calls are routed using the most optimized call routing algorithm so that the callers do not have to wait in long queues during the interaction.

3. What is Single-level and Multi-level IVR?

Single Level IVR

As the name suggests, single-level IVR has only one layer of menu options. These options are generally broad and directly connects you to a live agent.

Often, single-level IVR is used by small businesses who have a limited number of departments and thus want to provide a direct route to connect with their agents. Due to the broad filters, this type of IVR is simple to program and customize but has a low-quality filtration.

Single and Multi Level IVR

Multi-Level IVR

On the other hand, multi-level IVR follows a nested structure which can extend up to “n” number of levels. Frequently used by large businesses, multi-level IVR filters and distributes callers according to their queries before connecting them with a live agent.

In comparison to single-level IVR, multi-level follows a precise approach of filtering callers.

For instance, in the above example, customers with billing-related queries are filtered at the first IVR level.

On the next level, callers are further filtered on more precise conditions such as retrieving monthly bill and changing billing plans. And the remaining callers with more complex queries are provided with an option to connect with a company representative.

Apart from screening, Interactive Voice Response also offers a high level of customization flexibility which lets you tailor the call flow, build multiple levels, change with the voice recordings, and create self-service options.

4. Why You Need an Interactive Voice Response (IVR)?

If quality customer service and experience is your brand’s top priority, then IVR is what your business needs.

You cannot expect to deliver a high-quality customer experience if your customers have to spend hours trying to make a single call. Worse, if the customers are unable to contact you in the first two calling attempts, chances are they’re never calling you back.

To handle such critical business scenarios, IVR comes into the picture. The working of Interactive Voice Response is not merely restricted to answering calls. It also ensures that your calls are handled intelligently where every caller is acknowledged and provided the best possible solution in minimal time.

Below is a list of such 7 benefits that IVR solution offers to your business.

(a) Multiplies Your Call Handling Capacity

The most notable advantage of implementing Interactive Voice Response is that it expands your capability of handling customer calls. With a manual receptionist, if you could answer only one call at a time, then IVR extends the limit to 4-5. Also, since a virtual receptionist answers the call, there are negligible chances of calls getting missed or unanswered.

(b) Represents Your Business as an Established Brand

Interactive Voice Response cater perfectly caters to every type and size of business. If you’re a startup with a limited budget and workforce, you can still portray yourself as an established brand using IVR.

Professionalism reflected through Interactive Voice Response makes your brand look renowned, having a large customer base, along with a wide variety of departments. Also, welcoming callers with a customized and professional greeting gives your business an edge and creates an instant and lasting brand recall.

(c) Makes Calling Process Error-free

In comparison to a human receptionist, Interactive Voice Response makes the whole process less prone to errors. Chances of any lapses are minimum with IVR, as the whole process of answering and routing calls is automated.

Unlike human receptionist, a sudden surge in the call volume doesn’t affect the calling process. Also, as the call flow is programmed and managed at the backend, the accuracy of the whole process while transferring the call is less prone to errors.

(d) Saves Time and Money

Deploying IVR cuts down your business cost drastically. You do not need to hire and pay a dedicated professional human receptionist to answer every call manually.

Instead, with IVR, you can provide quick and timely resolutions to save yours as well as the customer’s time. Eliminating the need for a human receptionist, it expands your call handling capacity drastically and ensures that you do not miss out on any potential customers.

And with cloud-hosted IVR, the setup process is quick and budget-friendly. You don’t have to invest time and money in purchasing or configuring complex telephony setup anymore.

To get going, simply search for a trusted cloud IVR provider like Acefone who can handle all the setup for you and channelize your energy and time into deciding the call flows and attending customers.

(e) Provides Customer Satisfaction

Self-service options provided in the Interactive Voice Response reduces the call hold time significantly. Callers are no more dependent on the agents to provide resolution. They can instead avail the self-service options presented in the IVR to get the answers.

This not only quickly resolves your queries but minimizes the total call duration, especially the call hold time. As a result, boosts the quality of your customer experience and satisfaction.

(f) Access Call Data for Analysis

To remain relevant in the business arena, you need to add value to your mundane processes constantly. Call data analytics does the same for the business. It provides business with key insights into their contact center and helps them understand the gaps of the processes.

Numbers such as received calls, call duration, abandoned calls, and more, can be used to understand the call-flows, agent performance, and customer trends. Also, you can access and scope the call recordings for quick and better understanding.

(g) Provides 24*7 Customer Service

Through Interactive Voice Response, you can easily provide round-the-clock customer service. You need not invest a large portion of your budget in hiring a large workforce and required infrastructure.

Using IVR’s self-service options, your customers can get answers to their basic queries at any time. Also, you can transfer the call received at off-business hours to your personal number through the call forwarding feature. This ensures you are available when required without being physically present at the office.

5. Things to Remember While Designing Your Business IVR

How to design an IVR

Once you have understood the relevance of Interactive Voice Response in your business, the next important step is to create one. An IVR can only yield you good results if its design and operation are optimized. Simply, creating menus and forwarding the calls to the departments might not help.

Below are a few of the recommended IVR practices following which can accelerate your customer satisfaction rate drastically.

(a) Keep Only 3-4 Menu Options

A common mistake committed during IVR designing is providing more than 4 menu options.

People won’t remember all the options at once. They can hang up the call if they’re overwhelmed with the list of options.

Keeping a limited set of options is important as the more options you give, the more you confuse the callers. So, keep only 3-4 menu options in your IVR, which are broadly categorized by your business requirement. For example, categorize them according to departments, products, or services.

(b) Announce the Message Before Option

It is always a good practice to announce the related message before the keypress option. Announcing the action before the description reduces the recall of the option. As customers have a short attention span and IVR has a list of options to present, the probability of remembering the action after the message gets diminished drastically.

For instance, if IVR options follow the below structure, high chances are that at the end of the last message, i.e., product department, you might not remember the key to be pressed if you wanted to connect with the billing department.

Press 1 to connect with the Sales department.

Press 2 to connect with the Billing department.

Press 3 to connect with the Product department.

Whereas in the below example, as the action (Press 3) is mentioned at the end, there’s an instant recall of the key to be pressed.

To connect with the Sales department, Press 1

To connect with the Billing department, Press 2

To connect with the Product department, Press 3

(c) Don’t Hide the ‘To Connect with the Agent.’ Option

As stated in the first point, you should keep IVR options limited to 3-4 broad options, but while doing so, you have to cut down on many possible options that callers might search for. Thus, providing a “connect with a live agent” option is necessary for the issues that are not mentioned on the IVR menu.

First, it gives a direct route to connect with the company agent if self-service options don’t help. Second, a startling 98% of customers try to skip the IVR that means not all customers are comfortable using self-service options; these types of customers can skip the long IVR route and can connect with the agent directly.

But a major mistake done while designing IVR is the hidden placement of this option. Nothing aggravates a customer more than having to struggle to find this option. Hiding this option can jeopardize your brand’s image and customer’s faith in your organization.

(d) Don’t Promote Your Brand in Every Message

Businesses often promote their brand on every opportunity they get. But the same is not appreciable when it comes to IVR. Customers approaching your businesses are already in a rush to get their queries resolved and burdening them with your promotional messages only multiplies their furiousness.

So, while designing your IVR, keep self-promotion minimal. Play a promotional audio message when you welcome callers but avoid doing the same if the customers are on-hold. Be mindful of your customer’s journey and play audio recordings in the IVR accordingly.

(e) Minimize Waiting Time to Seconds

The most annoying experience of IVR is call queues. Customers dread when asked to put their calls on hold during the call transfer process.

According to a study surveying 2500 customers, 60 per cent of customers are unhappy if the call hold durations exceed a minute. While 32 per cent answered– keeping on hold should be totally eliminated.

Thus, while designing an IVR, you should ensure your call hold time is less than a minute. To achieve this, make sure you streamline the below points in your IVR.

  • Ensure you are equipped with sufficient staff to handle call overloads
  • Design well-researched and optimized call routing structures
  • Transfer calls to the right department and agent

Summing It Up

Today, customers want to be more self-sufficient, and businesses want to provide high-quality customer service. Offering the best of both, Interactive Voice Response has proved to be a self-help platform where customers can find answers to their queries without compromising on the quality of the resolution.

However, implementing IVR and delivering optimized customer experience can get tricky at time. But if you’re following updated IVR testing and designing mechanisms, the quality of delivered customer service will steadily gain momentum.

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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.

5 Ways to Get Customers to Pick Your Calls

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category Operations calendar June 17, 2019 clock 4 mins read eye Reads: 653

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As the famous saying goes,

Conversations lead to Conversions

This saying holds true for all the businesses aiming to attract and convert leads.

In fact, as per a survey, there is a strong connection between the number of conversations that agents have each day to their performance. An average sales rep has around six conversations a day, although top representatives have a lot more than that.

But with internet access being readily available, channels like WhatsApp are being used by people to drive conversations. These channels have reduced the provision of calling, as there is always an option to drop a text and start the conversation.

And with the rise in the number of spam calls received every day, customers have become cautious about picking calls from the unknown number.

But, to overcome these challenges and drive more conversations over the call, you need to ensure that a maximum number of customers are answering your calls. However, the response rate of these calls is entirely dependent upon how you approach them. Following the below strategies can prove to be beneficial in improving your call pick up rate.

If you have a Voice broadcasting solution for your business, you must have encountered with bummers of customers not picking calls. To overcome all these challenges faced while call pickup, here are a few basic tips that will boost up your probability of call being received by your customers: –

1. Make Calls to Target Customer Base

The foremost thing you need to keep in mind while making calls is your customer base. It’s essential to understand that your products and services have an intended audience, and thus you should prioritize them.

You need to understand the needs of customers and target them accordingly. Having a proper idea about target customers makes it easy for you to make calls to the customers who are looking for your products or services. Hence, it increases the probability of your call being picked up.

2. Call at the Appropriate Time

We get it, you need to capture a maximum number of leads, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of harming your brand image. As a standard guideline, it is ideal to abstain from calling before 8 AM and after 8 PM. Studies demonstrate that the most suitable time to call your customers is from 11 AM to 12 PM, and 4 PM to 5 PM.

During the 11-12 window, customers have checked in at work, start with their tasks and are slowing down for lunch.

Also, they are wrapping up for the day between 4-5 PM. The customers are clearly not going to take up a task that requires extreme concentration during this window, which makes it the best time to call.

3. Dial From the Local Area Code

Most people don’t want to answer calls from unknown numbers or the numbers that do not belong to their local area codes. People are more probably to answer your call when they see a local number in their caller ID.

According to a Survey, people are four times more likely to answer calls from numbers with Local caller ID. Just 7 per cent responded that they’re probably going to answer a call from an unknown caller with a toll-free code, but that number jumps to 27.5 per cent when that caller is utilizing a local caller ID.

4. Use MultiChannel Contact Strategy

Enhancing call pickup rates is not only about calling at the appropriate time or having a target customer base; it also follows a multi-channel contact approach. There are a few people who will never accept calls from the organizations they don’t identify.

One should try to fit in the customer’s shoes and establish a marketing strategy accordingly. Observe customer behavior and try to contact them on social media sites or other platforms.

You can drop an email to your potential customer and inquire about the right time to call. You can also use social media channels to connect with customers. After this, a call should be placed, and subsequently, send a follow-up email to collect the feedback.

5. Ensure Your Credibility

The basic thing you can do to improve your call pickup rates is to ensure that you have authenticated ID over True Caller app. People are highly likely to receive your call when it is not marked as spam or blocked by users on such apps. This gives credibility to your brand and to the users, which, as a result, improves your call pickup rates.

Outbound sales is always a challenging job, but with the correct methodology, it’s a challenge worth pursuing. By utilizing the above strategies, you can support yourself and create enough opportunities and income that you need to flourish.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

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Give us a call on

or
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Write an email to

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author_36
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.