Transactional or Promotional SMS: What Does Your Business Need?

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SMS Service

June 7, 2019

4 mins read eye

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According to a report released by Dynmark International, the open rate for SMS or text messages has already exceeded by 98%. Further, 90% of the text messages are read within 3 seconds from delivery. The high and fast open rate has made SMS a key component of omnichannel customer communication. A large percentage of customers these days interact with businesses and brands by sending text messages. Likewise, most businesses use text messages as a robust communication tool to deliver customer service and run marketing campaigns.

The text messages sent by a business or brand can be divided into two broad categories – transactional SMS and promotional SMS. A business sends transactional text messages to customers to provide relevant information required to use its products or services more efficiently. The Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) defines transactional SMS as a text message which does not contain any promotional content.

On the other hand, a business sends promotional text messages to promote a product or brand by informing both customers and prospects about offers, discounts and promotions. TRAI has not defined promotional SMS clearly. But it regards all non-transactional or service text messages as promotional text messages. Hence, before availing the benefits of bulk SMS services, businesses need to identify the major differences between transactional SMS and promotional SMS

Major Differences between Transactional SMS and Promotional SMS

TRAI Guidelines TRAI has imposed several guidelines to control bulk SMS services in India. For instance, it prohibits businesses and marketers from sending promotional SMS to telephone numbers which are on the Do Not Disturb (DND) list. But it allows businesses to send transactional SMS to customers who are on the DND list. Hence, it becomes essential for businesses to abstain themselves from sending promotional text messages to customers falling in the DND criteria. However, TRAI keeps updating the regulations and restrictions related to bulk SMS services at regular intervals. The businesses must comply with the latest TRAI regulations while sending each type of text messages.
Purpose

As noted earlier, a business has to send transactional and promotional SMS for different purposes. The transactional text messages act as a tool to convey important product or service information to existing customers. For instance, a bank can send transactional SMS to deliver important information like bank account balance, current bank transaction, and OTP for financial transaction.

On the other hand, the businesses use promotional tools as a powerful tool to advertise or promote their products or services. They send these text messages to customers to convey offers, discounts or promotions. They further send the promotional SMS to customers and prospects regardless of their consent.

Delivery Time

Transactional SMS can be sent on a specific action taken by the customers like requesting OTP or placing order. Hence, a business can send transaction text messages 24 hours a day. But no business can send promotional messages to customers and prospects before 9 AM and after 9 PM.

Sender ID

The bulk SMS service providers send transactional messages and promotional messages using different and independent SMS gateways. But the businesses need to select the sender ID according to the type of text messages. A business can send transactional text messages using an alphabetic sender ID consisting of six characters. But it has to use a numeric sender ID for sending promotional text messages.

Charges and Taxes

TRAI imposes service taxes on promotional SMS. But it does not impose any service taxes on transactional SMS. Also, TRAI prescribed a termination charge of 5 paise on both transactional and promotional SMS. The service and termination charges make promotional and transactional text messages more expensive than normal text messages. Hence, a business has to incur additional expenses to send both transactional and promotional SMS.

The bulk SMS services provided by leading cloud telephony service providers help businesses to send both transactional and promotional text messages without violating various TRAI guidelines. In addition to helping businesses to run multiple SMS campaigns simultaneously, the providers also boost the campaigns by providing sophisticated facilities like automatic DND checking, marketing campaign scheduling, automatic SMS retries, and business system integration.

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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 Number Masking ?

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Contact Center

June 4, 2019

4 mins read eye

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India is home to more than 3000 new businesses, third biggest base on the planet, with 800+ new companies being propelled annually. With the rapid increase in the number of start-ups and other companies, the major concern for these companies remains customer privacy.

We share our phone numbers every day with various apps and websites for several reasons, such as cab booking, ordering food, online shopping, etc. But individuals hesitate to provide their telephone number, which is reasonable.

Consequently, most of the companies have adopted the agenda to keep their customers’ private information secure as a part of their safety measures. So, to handle such sensitive business scenarios, a solution like a number masking was introduced. This article will guide you through the perks and needs of Call masking solution.

Understanding Number Masking

Number masking or call masking is a suitable way for organizations to protect their clients’ identity and avoid abuse of sensitive data by anonymizing the client’s telephone number. This arrangement acts as a secure platform to communicate between two parties without disclosing either party’s contact number.

Number masking involves a masked number in the process of communication. A masked number is a temporary number which is mapped against a real number at the time of call request. Masked numbers are helpful for any industry that requires customers to share their telephone numbers.

Number masking works with a virtual number and provides security to the client and the business, guaranteeing safety at both the ends. Whenever a customer calls any business, the server automatically masks the client number with a virtual number at the backend. For instance, when a client is requesting to book a taxi, the driver will see the masked virtual number and not the client’s telephone number. Also, the driver’s phone number is disguised at the client’s end.

Call masking allows various parties to connect with each other without revealing their phone numbers. It hides the contact information of both the customer and the agent and creates a communication channel between them.

If telephone numbers are revealed and used inappropriately, one could face hefty repercussions, which can lead to substantial monetary losses. The business might get cut out of the deal which might damage the brand reputation. This is where number masking comes into the picture.

Phone number masking work flow

Perks of Number Masking

1. Secure Customer Base

Number masking allows you to protect the phone number of both the parties so that only the authorized personnel can access your customer base. This is useful in situations where third parties, including cab drivers and delivery persons, exploit the clients’ contact number. They also forward the customer related information to marketing agencies which use the customer’s number for advertising and selling their products.

2. Control Over Your Communication

Call masking solution helps your business to keep an eye on the calls taking place between your customer and agents. With the call recording feature, you can always track the calls happening at both the ends. These call recordings are an efficient tool for resolving customer complaints.

Suppose you provide a cab booking service and your customer books a cab. If you directly provide the customer’s number to the driver, you won’t be able to track what conversation happened between the customer and your agent. This might lead to the use of foul language and inappropriate behaviour from both the ends. Here, number masking eliminates this stress for you as the calls are placed through the cloud service provider’s server and can be monitored.

3. User Privacy

User privacy is the crucial measure taken by any business to secure customers’ information, and number masking operates it very effectively. Customers usually do not prefer sharing their phone numbers because of frauds, prank calls or spam. With number masking, customer’s permanent phone number is never exposed during any call or transaction, not even to your agents. This inculcates a sense of trust and reliability in the customer towards you.

4. Cost-effective

Using virtual number for number masking saves your capital and resources in real time. Since you need not purchase a local number for different business locations; number masking comes out to be very cost-effective. Not only it saves your cost but also provides you with an option to expand geographically with minimum charges.

5. Call monitoring

All the calls can be monitored, which get routed to your customers via the cloud service provider’s server. The call monitoring dashboard provides detailed information about the incoming and outgoing calls along with the active calls. It also provides insights about the time and duration of all the calls facilitated by your agent.

Above information clearly shows the perks of deploying phone number masking solution for your business.

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Six Ways to Combat Fraudulent Activities with SMS Verification

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SMS Service

May 14, 2019

6 mins read eye

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It is no news that online messaging platforms have hijacked the traditional texting service without warning. With the facility of fast internet connection and instant messaging apps in the pockets, almost everyone is using some online messaging platform to communicate. And while we thought SMS is nearing its end, good news in the form of “SMS verification” surfaced in the market. It transformed the basic purpose of SMS, by making it a transactional platform.

A major reason for using SMS as a verification platform was because SMS had a high open rate of 98 per cent which is 60% higher than email.

This noticeable difference in the user preference led a growing number of businesses to adopt SMS as their verification tool ranging from big tech giants namely Google, Facebook to ride-hailing & food delivery app namely Uber and Zomato. Almost every industry and app have now started using SMS verification platform at multiple stages of their user’s journey. Below are six such business cases where SMS verification has strengthened the security of apps and has helped the business to combat online fraud effortlessly.

1. User Registrations

Growing businesses are flooded with registration requests. But to ensure that no unauthenticated or fake users intrude into the system, they need to verify the identity. Traditional password-based authentication proved to be weak and insecure in the past. Any fake user with multiple email IDs could easily create multiple user registrations to spam the system.

Here, asking users to register with their phone number helps in filtering many potential spams during the initial phase, i.e., registration process. Validating the user by sending a One Time Password on the provided number provides maximum security in the registration process. It prevents frauds explicitly in two ways with sms verifcation: –

It detects if the number used at the time of registration is already associated with the company or not, to prevent any spamming.
And, whether the existence of the phone number is real or fake by validating with the received OTP

Servetel portal signup

2. Password Reset

To make the passwords highly secure, many platforms prompt users to create complex, lengthy and unique passwords. While this SMS verification method makes the password hard to crack, it also becomes hard to memorise, which leads to a lot of password reset requests.

In such cases, sending an OTP code on the associated phone number prevents a lot of fraud and identity theft. Also, makes the password reset process a lot easier for genuine users. Every time users want to reset a password, a simple text message with OTP codes can help them to do the same quickly. And the limited time validity of the OTP codes adds on to the security of this process.

3. Two-step Verification

65% of people use the same passwords everywhere, and 90% of passwords are crackable within 6 hours. Thus, stealing passwords and hacking into account is not hard for hackers.A password manager can significantly reduce the risk by storing complex passwords securely and preventing unauthorized access. Moreover, sharing passwords with peers or family members or using the same password over multiple platforms is a general practice followed by the users. This makes it easy for the cybercriminals to hack into user accounts.

secure password

Two-step sms verification adds a layer of security while logging into the account. After the user enters their password, they’re asked to enter the OTP code received in the textbox. These OTPs are instantly generated and are valid only for a few seconds which reduces the probability of an unauthenticated login to the minimum. Google has been promoting the two-factor authentication rigorously to prevent user accounts from any fraud.

Two Step Verification google — Image Source: Google

4. Reactivate Users

When a registered user logs into their account after a long period of inactivity, suspecting the legitimacy of the activity is imperative. Many times, the request can be genuine, but there is a high probability that an attacker is trying to activate a passive user login to break into the system.

To handle such cases, sending an SMS to the phone number used at the time of registration works as the best solution. This immediately verifies the nature of the activity and helps the business to tackle it promptly.

5. Order Verification

Fake orders and frauds are a prime concern for any e-commerce platform. This platform has provided a convenient method for people to shop online, but at the same time, it is important to handle the lapses this convenience entails. And the criticality multiplies with the increase in the number of high-value orders.

Using SMS verification on high-value orders prevents many fraudulent purchases. Sending a simple order verification OTP to users at the checkout page makes the process more authenticated. The order gets successfully placed once the user validates the OTP. This kind of verification keeps a check on the rising number of e-commerce fraud without complicating the purchase process for the users.

6. Transaction Authentication

Financial transactions are critical and are thus most vulnerable to online fraud. Earlier, ATM pins were used to ensure the safety of the transactions. They were considered secretive and private and thus guaranteed more security. But with expanding online fraud, breaking into your ATM pin during the online payment process became a cakewalk for the hackers.

To battle such critical and sensitive frauds, the introduction of OTP verification proved to be a significant step. It reaffirms the transaction authenticity before the final payment. Also, it hardens the process of breaking into an online transaction as the validity of OTPs is for a brief time, which leaves hacker with less time and incomplete information to break into the system.

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Do’s and Don’ts of Interactive Voice Response

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Uncategorized

April 16, 2019

5 mins read eye

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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.

The trend depicts enterprises from various industries have been employing IVR solutions to automate and expedite customer service delivery. Unlike conventional telephony systems, IVR Interactive Voice Response technology enables customers to collect information and resolve problems by choosing from two distinct options – interacting with a live agent and using self-service options.

Many customers these days leverage self-service option to avail the required information or assistance without interacting with live agents. But a number of studies suggest that the design and performance of IVR solutions impact call abandonment rate negatively. The callers abandon the Interactive Voice Response system due to a number of reasons – ambiguous menus, poorly tuned recorded instructions and lengthy wait time.

Businesses can easily reduce call abandonment rate by improving the design and operation of the IVR solution. Cloud-hosted IVR solutions are easier to configure, customise, and extend than traditional IVR systems. You can easily reduce call abandonment rate by customising and monitoring the performance of hosted IVR solutions. However, while designing the IVR, it is also important for you to consider a list of do’s & don’ts mentioned below.

7 Do’s of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Configuration and Customization

1. Do Make IVR Menus Complement Customer Needs

Many customers abandon calls when the IVR solution does not provide them with the right self-service options. While configuring the IVR, you need to keep the menus simple and unambiguous to enable customers to avail relevant information or assistance without any hassle and delay. You also need to ensure that the IVR menu reflects the needs and interests of callers. For instance, when callers want to pay their bill, the IVR must allow them to make bill payments without following a list of steps.

2. Do Include Option to Talk to a Live Agent

While accessing information or availing assistance, customers these days prefer self-service options in comparison to live interactions. However, in many cases, customers prefer talking to a live agent instead of using self-service options. Here, you need to ensure that the IVR solution allows callers to talk to a live agent directly and quickly. IVR solution should also allow callers to bypass self-service options and talk to an agent directly.

3. Do Focus on IVR Navigability

While configuring an IVR solution, you need to keep the welcome greeting short. It reduces call abandonment rate by playing the menu prompts quickly. However, you also need to make it easier for callers to avail relevant information by keeping the IVR solution easy to navigate. You should not add multiple levels in the IVR menu as this can add confusion and cause IVR abandonment.

4. Do Send Callers to the Voicemail Directly and Quickly

You can leverage cloud-hosted IVR solutions to deliver customer service round the clock. But you cannot handle customers calling after business hours without deploying dedicated live agents. The IVR solution must transfer the incoming calls made by customers outside of business hours to the voicemail directly and quickly when there are no live agents available to handle the call.

5. Do Keep IVR Levels to a Minimum

Multi-level IVR solutions help callers to avail more relevant information by selecting self-service options in multiple levels. But you need to ensure that the IVR menu levels remain short and simple. Restrict the menu levels to three to prevent callers from listening to pre-recorded instruction. Minimisation of IVR levels helps the business to prevent call abandonment rate.

6. Do Deploy Voice over Professionals

Built-in text-to-speech solutions provided by cloud-hosted IVR systems help business to create and customise messages quickly. But you must review and edit the recordings to ensure the voice is clear and audible. Robotic voice often makes the menu options and prompts appear less human. Hence, you should provide professional voice over artists to record engaging IVR recordings.

7. Do Integrate with Existing Business Solutions

Businesses can also integrate the cloud-hosted IVR solutions seamlessly with existing enterprise applications such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and Google Sheets. This integration will make it easier for business to enhance business productivity and personalise the customer experience.

5 Don’ts of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) Configuration and Customization

1. Don’t Increase Number of Options

Often callers abandon the call if the IVR solution provides them with too many options. The additional options make callers confused and delay customer service delivery. While configuring the IVR solution, you need to ensure that the list of self-service options remains short and unambiguous.

2. Don’t Make the Customer Submit the Same Information Repeatedly

IVR solutions need specific information to deliver personalised customer service. But the callers often abandon the call when the IVR asks them to repeat the same information again and again. You need to ensure that the IVR collects customer information once and reuse the same information throughout the customer journey.

3. Don’t Change Menu Options Frequently

Many businesses keep tweaking the IVR menu options to improve customer experience. But frequent changes in IVR menu options often leave the callers confused and annoyed. After implementing the IVR solution, ensure that the menu structure does not alter frequently.

4. Don’t Forget to Include Call Back Options

A large percentage of callers abandon Interactive Voice Response IVR systems due to the long wait time. You can prevent customers from waiting by providing IVR call back options. This enables the customers to receive a call back from the business simply by leaving their telephone numbers.

5. Don’t Forget to Assess the Speech Recognition Solutions

New age IVR solutions support both text-to-speech and speech recognition technology. Business leverage speech recognition to allow callers to choose self-service options by giving voice commands. But before implementing speech recognition solutions, you need to ensure that the IVR solution recognises and responds to each voice command accurately.

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10 Ways to Promote Your Business Toll-free Number

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Toll Free Numbers

April 2, 2019

5 mins read eye

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A toll-free number is not only a strong medium of communication but is also useful in attracting and converting leads which gives a notable boost to sales and ROI. Also, it works wonders for enterprises which regularly deal with customers. If toll-free numbers are marketed on the right platform, targeting the right target audience, it can lead to a massive surge in profits as well as in the number of customers.

This blog discusses top 10 such ways to promote and market your toll-free numbers in the right manner at the right place.

1. Social Media Promotion

Indisputably, social media is one of the best ways to promote and market your toll-free number. Going by the statistics, Facebook already crossed the 1 billion count in January 2019 and currently sits at 2.27 billion active users per month. YouTube and WhatsApp are trailing with 1.9 and 1.5 billion respectively.

This expansion in the user base has presented a big opportunity for the businesses to market their services in a more filtered way. Moreover, customers today prefer to visit social media channels of the business to research about the brand. Thus, if your enterprise owns a fully functioning toll-free number, you must ensure to market the number over all your media platforms.

social media statistics

2. Marketing Campaigns

Promoting your toll-free numbers on PPC marketing campaign banner and ads can maximize the turn out of the customers instantly. Mentioning the number in the banner can be very effective and beneficial for an enterprise. Businesses can also take advantage of ‘click-to-call’ actions by directly linking the numbers with call extensions.

According to Google, the majority of the search users connect with the business directly through ‘click-to-call’ action. They find it extremely convenient and easy as compared to other methods of communication. Also, you can add google tracking code in the click to call links to analyze the reach and leads of the campaign.

Moreover, businesses can create a large and visible print of their toll-free number for added promotion during physical marketing campaigns. The data collected in this way allows businesses to inspect and scrutinize the effectiveness of such marketing campaigns as well as the whole association of the customer with the organization.

marketing campaign stats

3. Email Campaigns

Email campaigns can be very advantageous for promotional activities as they are an integral part of digital marketing. With this method of promotion, enterprises can develop long-lasting relationships with potential clients. Promoting and highlighting your toll-free number on email campaigns can get you in touch with plenty of customers within a flash. Once you get started with your email campaign, the customers will be in direct contact with your business without having to go through formalities such as filling a form with personal details and so on.

4. Website Promotion

Mentioning your toll-free number on the website is the perfect place to promote your number. Different businesses in various parts of the world claim that toll-free inbound calls are the best lead source they have at the moment. Furthermore, large-scale promotion of your toll-free number on your business website can work wonders because of the remarkable user visibility of the world wide web.

5. TV Commercials

It is very true that not every enterprise has a sufficient amount of funds for advertising its new phone number on television. But for those businesses who are in a position to promote their toll-free number on such a platform, this strategy can generate a great deal of telephone traffic since millions of people watch television. Additionally, you can efficiently deal with the increased number of inbound calls with IVR features.

6. Direct Mail Promotion

For a larger audience reach, businesses should promote their toll-free numbers through a variety of mediums such as postcards, letters, office envelopes, and so on. If your toll-free number is included in the official letterhead, it will pave the way for prospective customers and other stakeholders to reach out to your company.

7. Billboards

It is very uncommon for anyone to ignore billboard ads. It is necessary to make sure that your new phone number is printed large enough on the billboard to be visible from a distance. Moreover, you should opt for a catchy number to make sure that callers find it convenient to read and remember your toll-free number when they see it on a billboard.

8. Business Cards

Business cards have been around for quite some time now, and they are one of the most efficacious ways of promoting your new phone number. Once you own a toll-free number, it is imperative that you get business cards for yourself as well as for the employees of your company. Lastly, business cards are a quintessential example of formal promotion.

9. Radio Commercials

Radio commercials are undoubtedly an effective way to promote your toll-free number. Moreover, if you have an existing radio commercial, you must ensure to promote your phone number on it. Re-iterating your phone number on a radio ad increases the number recall drastically. Moreover, radio ads are an economical option for small businesses as well.

10. Flyers and Brochures

When you opt for a toll-free number, new flyers and brochures are a must-have in order to make sure that effective promotion takes place. Those brochures can generate more leads since a business toll-free phone number is usually easier to remember than a traditional local number. Also makes sure the number is easily visible on the flyer to capture the reader’s attention.With tools like DesignWiz, you can create professional flyers that highlight your toll-free number and drive more engagement.

Final Words

Switching from a traditional phone number to a toll-free number can help businesses reach out to larger audiences and get more potential customers as a result. By effectively promoting your toll-free business number, you can boost lead and increase conversion. Lastly, a toll-free number is a remarkable tool for a promotion that can help a business attain greater heights.

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Follow these Tips to Create Highly Engaging IVR Surveys

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Contact Center

March 19, 2019

6 mins read eye

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IVR surveys are designed to receive feedback on the working of an organisation. Potential audience for these surveys is majorly the existing customers using the product.

Although, IVR surveys are a consistent and proven way to understand customers expectation, but if not appropriately managed these can render biased and unmeaningful data. Here are a few tips which can help you build highly engaging IVR surveys ensuring you gather accurate data from the right target audience.

1. Define and Identify the Goal

“Why” is the most important question one should ask when designing an IVR survey.

The reason for the survey should be crystal clear. Two main questions which should be clear while designing an IVR survey are:

Why is this IVR survey being conducted?
Where does the survey stand in the organisation’s vision?

The former is important. After all, it defines the fundamental requirement behind the survey. But, without the latter, the survey has little meaning. You should never forgo your organization’s motto when designing the roadmap of survey. Every survey organised should act as a catalyst towards achieving and following the vision.

Identifying the goal is the primary objective of a survey. Determining who is it aimed at and why is important in planning and designing the survey. It’s only after the goal has been identified that the designing of the survey can begin. Defining and identifying the goal go hand in hand. Therefore, immense care should be taken during this initial stage.

2. Designing Questions Is an Art

For any successful IVR survey, the questions are the heart and soul. Designing such questions is an art. However, certain standards must be followed when designing IVR survey questions. The objective of an IVR survey is to gather accurate data. The tone of the question can coax the type of answer provided by the responder. Under such circumstances, a survey bears little meaning and relevance.

Thus, questions should be objective in nature to ensure that the answers received comes without biasedness.

3. Order Questions Logically

Another important factor in designing an IVR questionnaire is to order questions logically. When ordered in the right manner, it sets the right tone of the survey. Well-designed questionnaire is self-sufficient to walk through the objectives. The first few questions should be general screening questions, preferably, questions prompting one-word “yes/no” answers. These may then be followed by descriptive or open-ended questions, giving detailed insights about the person’s opinions. Lastly, the survey should end with demographic questions; these are integrated with CRM to capture response in the database.

4. The “Keep It Simple Stupid” strategy

Great scientist Nicholas Tesla once said, “The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply, and be quite insane.” This seemingly simple quotation has deep implications. It implies that a thought process should bear clarity. It’s easy to lose the motto when one dwells into the depth of scenarios. This is perhaps the reason behind the US Navy’s “KISS” (keep it simple stupid) strategy.

When creating an IVR survey, one should ensure clarity above all else. Customers are comfortable answering questions that have a clear, precise objective. Haphazardly quoted deep questions make people lose interest. This results in dropped-off surveys.

5. Proper Scaling of Options

Answers to an IVR survey are often scale-based. For instance, let’s consider the question: On a scale of 1 to 7, how much do you like our service. Such questions often end up getting a different response based on a customer’s perception of merit.

Two customers with the same likeliness can deliver varying answers, as two people might weigh numbers differently. To avoid such scenarios, a proper scale must be developed. Since answers in an IVR survey are given by passing a digit, thus the need to have a robust scale of alternatives is imperative.

6. Less Is More

When considering a dataset in the survey, it is crucial that the volume of dataset be optimised. In a large dataset, the possibility of randomness increases. For instance, when the rating of a service should be given from 1 to 7, the average rating provided by large dataset will near around 4&5. This is due to the reason that most people prefer to avoid giving extreme ratings. Thus, 1 & 7 are an unlike option. And the average rating is delivered between 2 to 6.

There are two steps to solve this issue.

Limit the scope of the alternatives. With a lesser selection option, the customers end up giving more significant replies.
Wisely choose the target audience. If the audience is relevant, then they will understand the value of providing feedback. They’ll know the service they are reviewing, and the feedback they are providing will be channelised towards the improvement of the product used by them. In such cases, the customer gives an exact and appropriate answer in the survey making the survey more relevant and meaningful.

7. Remove Ambiguity

It is important that ambiguity is removed from an IVR survey. There are two main reasons for it. Firstly, a customer may misinterpret a question. Due to this, the customer’s answer may not be what question was intended for. This results in an insignificant answer that misleads the survey. Secondly, a customer may get confused. This results in customer dropping out of the survey. Either of these cases spoils the whole point behind the survey. Therefore, it is vital to have no ambiguity in your survey.

8. Avoid Industry Jargon

Industry jargons refer to technical terms that are alternatively used by the industry people of any industry. These words may not be understood by the general audience. When conducting an IVR survey, it is important that such terminologies be avoided. These terms may cause frustration and loss of interest among customers.

9. Pre-Testing the Survey

When conducting an IVR survey, it must be a general practice to pre-test the survey over a sample audience. This allows figuring discrepancies if any. It also helps to get a brief idea about the variability of the answers and ambiguity, if any exists. With this, all discrepancies can be tackled before performing the actual IVR survey.

10. Share Findings and Identify Actions

The best way to generate customers is to make them feel valued. A customer takes a survey to add value to the services they receive. Therefore, it is a practice of entitling faith among customers. When a survey is completed, an organisation must share the findings they uncovered during the survey. This makes customers feel valued for their time.

When the actions to be taken are disclosed, the participants feel they have made an impact. This encourages them to participate in upcoming surveys, hence generate loyalty.

Take Away

Indeed, IVR surveys are a certified way to accumulate data. But the quality of data is largely dependent upon the way these IVR surveys are organized. To get the most out of the resources used in conducting IVR surveys, it is important that immense care be taken when conducting surveys.

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Missed Call Service: A Boon for the Banking Industry in 2021

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Uncategorized

March 14, 2019

4 mins read eye

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Do you remember how a passbook used to be the only way to check one’s bank balance a decade ago? Standing in long queues to get one’s passbook updated was an exhausting but recurring activity.

Now, you have better ways to keep a tab on your account balance that does not involve cumbersome processes. In fact, you can do a lot more within seconds, like changing your ATM pin, updating your mobile number, and so forth. From cheque book requests to account statements, you can get all the information at zero cost.

Banks even encourage account holders to use these new features:

“If you want to know more about your latest transaction, give a missed call at 98XYZ”

“To get a mini statement of your account, call 891XYZ”

Banking is one industry that is making the most of missed call services. However, have you ever wondered how these services work?

How Banks Utilize Missed Call Services

Over the past few years, banks have constantly rolled out missed call numbers for their customer’s convenience. Private and public banks alike have been including this tool to upgrade their customer service.

Here are a few ways the missed call service proves to be beneficial for banks:

1. Ease of Access

With the hustle-bustle of modern lifestyle, many people do not have time to engage in long conversations. Therefore, they look for more convenient methods for the same.

A missed call service lets them instantly access their bank details or request other actions. This increases transparency, allowing the user to track account updates in real-time. Furthermore, people can avail this service to request information on different schemes and offers.

2. Greater Penetration

Tier-3 cities and rural India still have limited access to the Internet. Missed call services are an accessible method of communication, irrespective of geography.

Let’s say someone wants to seek information about loans. They can simply leave a missed call to receive the desired information. In this way, they do not have to spend hours surfing the Internet, an agent can call them back to assist them.

3. Verification and Activation

OTPs are generally used to verify customer identity. However, a missed call alert is a better alternative since it works with both landlines and international numbers, unlike SMSs.

For example, upon receiving a new ATM card, cardholders can be asked to give a missed call from their registered number to verify their identity. Users can similarly change their ATM pins.

4. Enhanced Employee Productivity

Banks that were worried about employee productivity have now found a silver lining in missed call service. Front desk employees are free from mundane tasks like checking a savings account balance or the last five transactions of different users.

They can now simply ask the customer to give a missed call from their registered number and access their statements.

5. Quick Response

Forgot your PIN? Don’t panic. You can generate a new one within minutes.

The most beneficial feature of the missed call service is its instant response. It enables customers to instantly request for a new PIN number in case they forget or lose their existing PIN. By giving a missed call from their registered phone number, customers can generate OTPs and get the needful done.

What’s More?

The missed call service has proven to be a game-changer in the banking sector, and it’s certainly here to stay. It replaces the tedious process of standing in queues for balance enquiry or authenticating the cardholder’s identity.

Truly, missed call services have eased these mundane processes like never before. In fact, some banks even allow users to transfer money simply by authenticating their identity via a missed call. Additionally, loan seekers can get bank statements easily by sending a request through a missed call.

If the person has multiple accounts within the same bank, just one missed call can update them about the balance of all their accounts.

To Wrap it Up

Missed call services are one of the most convenient modes of communication for banks and their customers. With minimal infrastructure requirements, this service can access a wider set of customers, ranging from urban as well as rural areas.

From public to private banks, everyone is using missed call services to save time and cost. All that is required is the account holder’s mobile number linked to the account in the bank and voila! All is made easier.

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Interactive Voice Response: 8 Ways It Benefits Every Call Centre

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Call Center

March 11, 2019

6 mins read eye

Table of content

Ever wonder how an enterprise manages a haystack of calls, while only employing a handful of operators?

This is done via automation, and one of the perks of automation is interactive systems. An interactive system facilitates interaction between humans and computers. The first interactive systems were a Graphical User Interface (GUI) that one uses every day in the form of Windows and Android operating systems.

With time, these interactive voice systems have evolved. One such evolution has been in the form of Interactive Voice Response (IVR). It is a voice-based interactive system that allows a human to interact with the system by passing input at each step. IVR system has become a preferred choice for customer service departments due to the ease of communication it provides. These systems automate a lot of manual day-to-day tasks and thus are widely used by call centres nowadays.

Below let’s understand how interactive voice response (IVR) has been boosting the call center’s overall performance with its automation.

1. Increased Customer Satisfaction

With IVR, a person interacts directly with the system, basic queries get resolved without human intervention. The ability of interactive voice response to handle multiple clients along with the ease of operation ensures that a call centre enjoys a happy clientele.

Personalised Message

Although the messages are transmitted with the help of machines, it does not imply that the messages cannot be changed or personalised as per our needs. Every message can be personalized based on customer’s or businesses’ preference. This means business can provide a familiar touch to their customers by customising the messages.

High Call Volumes

One of the biggest advantages of using IVR lies in the numbers. With IVR multitude of calls can be answered and routed simultaneously to the appropriate department.

Without IVR, it is difficult to route calls to the right department. Many-a-times customers aren’t even aware of the departments which can handle their queries. Hence, they end up calling the wrong department, leading to confusion. This causes an incorrect redirection by an operator, following which there is a chance that a customer might loop in wrong departments before reaching the appropriate department. With Interactive voice response, the call segregation happens in the following manner.

Auto Call Distribution (ACD)

In this process, no workforce is invested upon routing. Also, in all inbound calls, the first respondent is IVR, i.e., all basic queries are handled by the IVR. Only cases that require complex reasoning are handled by agents.

Auto Call Distribution (ACD)

ACD is an intelligent system that forwards calls to the most appropriate agent. It is the backbone of call centres, as it identifies callers and based on their demands routes the call to the required department. ACD can identify a frequent or priority callers based on their number and can move their calls up the queue.

2. Enhanced Performance

With an organised menu structure, Interactive voice response on its own can sort most customer queries which increase the overall performance of the call centre. Thus, a call centre can now employ most of its workforce towards queries that need special attention, and which cannot be performed without an agent’s assistance. Hence, IVR can exponentially improve the performance of the call centre. As a result, it reduces the burden of the agents in the following way:

Reduced Financial Burden

Implementation of IVR requires a lot fewer agents which cuts down the business expenses by a substantial margin.

Reduced Operator Burden

An IVR is programmed in a manner that serves both the client and the agent. When an agent receives enquiries of their expertise, they can work way more efficiently. To most businesses, this is a major step toward empowering agents.

3. Decreased Avg. Handling Time

Average handling time is the average of the total in-call time of every agent. This is the total time spent on a call, from the moment the call was answered to when the call gets disconnected.

IVR greatly reduces the average handling time of the call centre. Most of the times a customer does not need to talk with a representative. Also, since ACD technology diverts the call to the best-suited operator, the time required to resolve the issue is minimized.

4. Decreased Call Abandon Rate

Abandon rate is the percentage of incoming calls that are abandoned by the call centre before connecting with an agent. In the call centre, the maximum number of calls answered simultaneously is the same as the number of active agents.

For instance, if a company has 100 lines but employs 20 operators, only 20 simultaneous calls can be answered. However, with IVR in play, every call is answered irrespective of the queue size.

5. Increased Process Efficiency

By routing calls to the right departments, and by resolving most queries at the interface itself, a call centre saves much of its time and money. This lets the agents be involved in high-quality customer service tasks.

6. Pre-recorded Messages

With IVR a company can use pre-recorded messages. These are especially handy when a company needs to advertise or introduce new offers. For instance, in an upcoming festive season, a company can record a bunch of messages and play the desired voice messages at the most suitable moment.

7. Call Routing

A much important aspect of a call centre is the constant efforts to improve their agent’s performance. For this, a call centre needs to keep track of all the calls and analyse them thoroughly. With IVR System, every call gets recorded automatically. Most IVR providers don’t implement any additional fees for call recording. This ensures a smooth and hassle-free improvement in services.

8. Outbound IVR

Although inbound IVR is quite helpful when considering the abundance of incoming calls, outbound IVR is extremely beneficial for outgoing calls. With outbound IVR, a call centre can send basic reports, collect survey responses, and provide alerts and reminders. Also, by integrating CRM with outbound IVR, a call centre gets to reduce the dependency on agents and still manage to deliver personalised messages to each customer. Outbound IVR is not that largely discussed, however, its role in the betterment of customer service is immense.

Take Away

By now it is established that a call centre benefits immensely from interactive voice response. Where inbound IVR is extremely important for handling all inbound queries and suitable routing of calls, outbound IVR simplifies the tasks of outsourced call centres. In today’s day and age, an IVR is not just important but has rather become a necessity for call-centres.

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Toll-Free Solution: An Asset for Healthcare Industry

Acefone Editor

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Toll Free Numbers

February 25, 2019

4 mins read eye

Table of content

When visiting a hospital or a clinic, one is bound to think over the long line of people waiting to book an appointment. In today’s time, one can book their flights, get their food, buy clothes and get more done, merely by placing a call, but to fulfil the basic amenity of visiting a doctor one still struggles through long queues in the hospitals.

In this blog, we’ll be looking at the various problems faced by the healthcare industry and how toll-free number have proven to be the best solution for them.

Eliminate Manual Administrative Tasks

The biggest issue in the healthcare industry is with administration. Long queues for appointment is where the lack of organized administration is observed most. And the first step in healthcare journey is booking an appointment. This is where maximum frustration is faced, the rest of the journey becomes a drag.

To avoid such tussle, a hospital needs to acquire toll-free number service. With toll-free solution, a hospital can book multiple appointments simultaneously on the same number. Patients will not have to be physically present inside the hospital premises to book an appointment. The same can happen with a mere phone call.

Also, most vendors provide Interactive Voice Response (IVR) services along with the toll-free solution. With IVR the requirement for administrative personnel is greatly reduced. IVR itself can handle most calls, book appointments automatically, check the availability of a doctor, provide immediate ambulance assistance among other things.

This saves time for both patients and hospitals. Patients no longer have to wait in queues or languish between operators to get to the right department.

Higher Client Engagement

A person can handle only one client at a time. Without toll-free services, client engagement is quite low. Hence lack of automation and its effects are observed among the ruckus of long queues and suffering patients.

Also, the reliance on manpower for administrative tasks leads to a substantial expenditure of time and money where it is not required. Not only appointments but IVR can handle most queries by itself. This begs the question that when state of the art equipment can be used to treat patients, then why should manpower be invested in everyday repetitive tasks.

Patient Management

Though administrative tasks can be easily handled with IVR, patient management can be easily handled when your system is integrated with Customer Relationship Management (CRM). This makes it easy for hospitals to maintain a patient’s history. Upon a call from a patient, their previous medical conditions can be easily identified.

In case of emergencies, this is vital, as a patient’s history can be identified as soon as the call is received. This empowers the doctor at the scene of an emergency to administer drugs, without worrying about reactions. This, at times, helps in critical life and death situations.

With CRM in place, a hospital can send customer reminders, deliver reports, provide updates on existing reports, and schedule appointments when needed. To top it all off, this can be done without any human indulgence. This saves time and money, further, the manpower can be utilized in the more critical areas.

The integration of toll-free number with outbound IVR can send an emergency alert and provide fast assistance by helping in terms of the contacting nearest ambulance, sending advance notification to a hospital to arrange a doctor.

Emergence of Medical Tourism

With India’s medical tourism aiming to share 20% of the world’s market capital by 2020, toll-free solution is inevitable. India is having a cut-throat competition in medical tourism. Every company want to provide a hassle-free service to its clients.

Clients, on the other hand, are looking for fast medical support. Toll-free number incorporation with IVR allows a company to receive and manage multiple calls simultaneously. No manpower is wasted upon this, and hassle-free personalized IVR is appealing to the client.

Takeaway

In doing so, toll-free numbers are going to be the most integral part of such systems. Toll-free numbers in themselves will help increase the extent of medical tourism in India. When integrated with IVR they will help eliminate administrative burden. When integrated with CRM they will provide for patient management. When integrated with apps they will form the basis of life-saving phenomenon.

Now, that the facts are established, it is clear that “asset” is only an understatement. As healthcare industry advances, toll-free solution will be the requirement for it.

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Brand Your Business with Toll Free Number

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Toll Free Numbers

February 20, 2019

4 mins read eye

Table of content

With any business, branding is a major factor for success. Because brand name sells itself. The thing common with all brands, irrespective of industry, is observed from the quality of customer service they deliver. And the first point of customer service is delivered from the point a customer contacts your business.

One thing every big brand has in common is providing their customers with the facility to contact them without having to worry about the hefty call charges which come along with them. Big brands want to reach out to customers in the smoothest way possible. And thus, having their own business toll-free number is one important aspect they never want to miss out.

What is Toll Free Number

A number which is chargeable to the destination rather than the origin of the call is a toll-free number, i.e., instead of the caller, the expense of the call is paid by the owner of the toll-free number. In India, these numbers begin with 1800.

Let’s understand how these toll-free numbers are good for business who are looking to brand and promote these numbers.

National Presence

Toll free number allows a business to establish a national presence. These numbers allow a business to have one number across the country. The area code of incoming calls helps route the call to the right branch. Having the same number provides authenticity and reliability in the eyes of customers.

Portability

A big advantage of the toll-free number is that it is portable. Once a business buys a toll-free number, it becomes the owner of that toll free number. Just like cell-phone numbers, a toll-free number can be ported to a different carrier. Once purchased a toll-free number becomes a part of the business assets.

Flexible Routing to Remote Locations

At times, businesses require call routing to remote locations. This is easily done with toll-free numbers. A business can route calls made at their toll-free number to any remote landline or mobile number. Most vendors provide routing service free of cost.

Your Number Is Your Marketing Tool

Yes, it’s true. A toll-free number can be more than just a number for your business. With vanity numbers in play, one can use toll-free as a marketing tool of their business. This can be done in multiple ways. Netflix used a toll-free number to share clues for the upcoming season of stranger things. Mercedes used 1-800-FOR-MERCEDES.

Similarly, a pizza company may use 1-800-FOR-PIZZA. This can be dialed as 1-800-367-73992. Also, vanity numbers can be like mobile numbers, for instance, 99999PIZZA; this can be dialed as 9999973992.

Improved Customer Satisfaction

Toll-free numbers provide improved customer satisfaction. When customers don’t have to pay for queries regarding the business, they feel valued. This adds loyalty in customer relations, increasing customer retention rates.

Integration with CRM and IVR

Toll-free, when integrated with CRM, can identify the calling customer, determine what services they have opted for, their history with the business. Also, toll-free with CRM allows a business to provide multiple services without employing human resources. A business can provide client reminders on due dates of payments, requirement-based service updates, and an addition of new services.

Another advantage of integrating CRM with toll-free is subscriber-based marketing. A business can market exactly what their subscribers have subscribed for. This ensures that clients don’t get junked by unwanted alerts.

Reduced Expenditure

The biggest advantage for businesses looking to become brands lies in how they can save from using toll-free numbers. After all, feasibility is the heart and soul of any service. Toll-free numbers greatly reduce the requirement of agents in the business. Incorporated with Interactive Voice Response, toll-free numbers are quite capable of handling all inbound calls. Since IVR can solve most queries by itself, a business gets to employ its manpower only when an operator indulgence becomes a must. Because of this, a business gets to save on its human resources expenditure.

Easy Setup and Maintenance

The time required to set up a toll-free number is usually in hours. Once set up, a toll-free number is quite easy to maintain. With an uptime of more than 99.9%, a toll-free number hardly ever face issues. Especially cloud-based toll-free numbers. Since these are managed at data centers, every care is taken to ensure continuous operation.

Takeaway

All of this can be handled just by implementing toll-free numbers. Geo-locations can be identified by the first few digits of the incoming caller number. Toll-free number integrated with CRM can help identify the type of crowd. Thus, the toll-free number can determine the peak time to employ the best personnel. Simply put toll-free number are a must for every business aiming to become an established brand.

Get your business a toll-free number by Acefone today.

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