Using VoIP Reports as Part of the Future Foundations of your Business’ Growth

Yukti Verma

Author

VoIP Phone Service

February 21, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

VoIP phone system have many benefits to their business users, from collaborative tools to amazing features that elevate your business. Arguably the most important benefit is the detailed reports, and their ability to build the future foundations of your business.

Detailed reports can be pulled at any time from your phone system, and can inform major business decisions. Business owners want their big decisions to be based on facts rather than assumptions, so having this information at your fingertips is the ideal way to do so.

Whether your stakeholders want updates, or you just want to check and see how your team is performing—VoIP reports provide the ideal solution in minutes.

This article will look at what VoIP reports can tell you about your business, and how you can use them to create future plans for your business.

Real-time reports

With VoIP reports, you can get insights into your business’ calls at any given moment. This means that you can log in on different days and times and access data in real time.

By having the ability to access real-time data, you can get a more accurate and detailed view of how your business is operating on any given day.

If you notice one day or time is busier than the rest, then you can plan this for your future developments. You could rota more staff to be on the phones during your busy times, and less in quieter times so your staff can be as productive as possible.

By using these insights, you can save valuable time and money by ensuring you only have the staff you need working at any given time. Plus, you can deliver better service for customers by ensuring your staffing levels are correct for their needs.

Real-time reporting is a fantastic way to ensure that your business is running smoothly. Real-time reports give you the chance to make changes to your staff levels and act on feedback happening right now – rather than waiting until it is too late or risking missing a trend.

Track all calls and monitor trends

On the cloud based phone system portal, you can track all calls coming into and out of your business. The powerful reporting tools enable you to easily identify and monitor developing trends and make changes to your future business plans based on real data insights.

By tracking incoming calls, you can tell a lot about your customers. You can see their locations, and decide whether you might want to add a local number in popular areas to make it easier for customers to contact you, or increase marketing spending in that particular area.

You can also see exactly how long customers have had to wait in queues, and get an average waiting time too. This means that you can identify if customers are waiting too long to get through to you, and can allocate staff accordingly.

Business owners can also tell how many calls have been missed. If you are seeing a lot more missed calls it may be that staff need a bit more training on managing their time effectively, or they need extra help in the form of temporary remote workers connecting to your VoIP system to get them through the busy times.

Finally, you can monitor outgoing calls too. You can see everything from the number of calls made, to the phone numbers and time spent on these outgoing calls.

By monitoring these calls and having accurate data you can see how much time each agent is spending on outreach for your business. This gives you the opportunity to know exactly how much time you need to allocate for each agent to complete this task efficiently.

By giving staff enough time to reach out to customers, you can be sure that they are able to deliver great service. When staff deliver amazing customer service and have the time and support to do their best work, your business is sure to benefit too!

Monitor agent productivity and performance

Your staff is the backbone of your business, so ensuring they are equipped to do their job to the best of their ability is key to the smooth functioning of your business.

With VoIP reports, you can dig down into the data and filter by specific agents. This means you can see details on the calls made and received by the staff member, their call waiting time, idle time, voip call recording and much more.

By having access to this data, you can ensure that the staff member gets all the relevant training and support they need. Should you identify a weaker area for this person, you can give them some extra training to get them on track or can use call recordings to help them.

You can also ensure that high-performing staff members are given credit for their hard work, and can potentially use the data to identify staff members who could be in line for promotions.

However you use the staff data, you can improve the future prospects of your business. By having a strong workforce, your company will be strong too and able to deliver amazing service to customers—therefore growing your customer base and retaining a loyal following.

Keep track of call costs

Another key consideration for businesses is call costs. All businesses want to get the most from their contracts and don’t want to pay over the odds.

To protect your cash flow, VoIP reports can tell you exactly how much each call has cost you and you can make changes to your contract in the online portal.

If you notice you are regularly going over your allocated minutes, you can increase your allowance to ensure you are covered and not incur unnecessary costs. Similarly, if you never reach your allowance you can take your allowance down so you only pay for what you use.

You might find you are making lots of international calls, so you can add these to your plan too so you will never pay too much for your calls. VoIP is already cheaper because it only needs an internet connection, so saving even more money is an added bonus.

If you have an accurate figure on your call costs, you can use this to forecast your future spending on telephony and ensure that you can work this into your budget.

There is no guesswork when you have detailed reports at your fingertips, and you can ensure that you have the most cost-effective business phone system for your business.

See which marketing campaigns work best

With VoIP reports, you can see in seconds which marketing campaigns have generated the most calls to your business. VoIP gives you the ability to set up different phone numbers for different campaigns, so it is simple to pull the data together in your online portal.

You can use the information given by your VoIP reports to make informed decisions on where to invest more marketing spend. If you see one advertising medium is working better than another you can invest where it is most effective rather than wasting valuable funds.

This information means that your marketing team is creating highly relevant campaigns that resonate with your customers and you are only spending money in the places where your customers are responding to your marketing.

Build the future of your business with VoIP reports

VoIP reports give you easy access to all the information you need to make informed decisions about the future of your business. With information on everything from call costs to marketing impact, you can delve into what makes your customers tick.

By having this information available at any time, in a few clicks, you are able to be upfront and transparent with your stakeholders and can provide any information they might ask for.

All elements of your business are accountable for their success, and you can see exactly where the weaker points are and work on making them stronger!

This information is invaluable to businesses and is a great starting point for building the future of your business.

To find out more about VoIP reporting feature and how it can help you with your future plans, call us today on 1888-859-0450 or drop us an email at [email protected].

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Yukti Verma

Author

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

Effective Sales Onboarding: How SaaS can Help Sync your Sales and Support Team

Acefone Editor

Author

Operations

February 17, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

To generate increased profits and higher customer satisfaction, an organisation’s sales and support teams need to work in sync. Thus, it seems logical to use the latest technology available to ensure both teams can work as effectively as possible and deliver unparalleled results.

SaaS or Software as a Service is a solution that can benefit both of these teams. Not only does it ensure better collaboration between sales and support agents but it also helps them work in tandem by providing them easy access to data stored on the cloud.

It doesn’t matter what industry you are operating in, SaaS can be used almost anywhere, and is always a secure place to store your valuable customer data.

This article will explain exactly what SaaS is and how it can help you sync your sales and support team for the benefit of the wider business and customer satisfaction.

What is Software as a Service?

Put simply, SaaS is an online-based service that can host your servers and databases. The information stored online can be used on any device that is connected to the Internet. You can also control which employee gets access to your data, making for a more secure work environment.

SaaS is accessed through a subscription service, which means that you don’t need to install it on specific machines—anyone can access the application so long as you give them access.

This means that with SaaS, there is no need for expensive hardware or maintenance packages. Which in turn means, you don’t need to hire IT professionals for its maintenance as the same is also done by the service provider.

Moreover, SaaS solutions are simplified for day-to-day use and don’t require in-depth technical knowledge to operate.

Not just that, SaaS is perfect for businesses with either a completely remote workforce or a mix of remote and office-based workers. The nature of the tool makes it simple for workers all over the world to collaborate through conference calls, shared spaces, instant messaging and much more.

How can SaaS sync your sales and support teams?

There are a number of ways in which your sales and support team can work together with SaaS solutions. Even if they aren’t in the same space physically, they can still collaborate effectively and nurture amazing work relationships.

The solution offers a unified online portal that gives your team access to centralised information and features. Not having to toggle between windows or screens helps employees to deliver coordinated and personalised service to the customer and add value at every stage of the purchase process.

Here are just a few of the ways in which you can use SaaS software to create a synchronised sales and support team.

Automation tools

SaaS integrates well with a plethora of automation tools which make following customer journeys simple and ensure that nothing is missed along the way.

For example, with a VoIP phone system, you can use the online portal to set reminders to follow up with customers at certain points in their buying process.

You might want to have an initial sales call, and then follow up with your support team calling the customer to see if they have any questions. Alternatively, you could schedule a support call after a customer has made a purchase to see if they need any assistance. With SaaS all of your applications can be connected, so a call can automatically be scheduled into your CRM system and will be visible to any other member of staff.

By using automation you can ensure that each and every customer gets the same level of service. Automation also ensures that opportunities are not missed by keeping all your teams on the same page since your system reminds everyone of the tasks they need to complete.

Use analytics to spot trends

The beauty of SaaS is that it allows you access to detailed analytics about your business. With a hosted phone system, everything, from call costs to waiting times, is available to you and accessible from anywhere, anytime.

SaaS also enables analytical reports on your agents’ behaviour and performance. You can receive scheduled agent performance reports on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis directly in your email.

These reports help you identify trends and even bottlenecks. And the analytics can be used for better decision-making on everything—from marketing to sales and even customer experience.

So, for instance, you can use the statistics to see exactly where calls are coming from and whether your waiting times are acceptable to customers. Armed with this information, you can put more money into the routes that your calls are most likely to come from to increase conversions.

Or, you can use the information on popular call times to ensure that you have more support staff on hand to resolve queries during busy periods.

With SaaS, you can also send automated surveys out after a sales call to get details on customer satisfaction and identify any room for improvement. This information can be processed directly into your CRM and you can use the analytics to define training opportunities for staff or give them compliments on great service.

No matter what type of SaaS solution you are using, you can use the shared information and customer insights to easily build advanced dashboards with relevant information on all aspects of your team’s performance.

Use recordings for training purposes and security

With a VoIP phone system, businesses can use features like call recordings and monitoring to help coach new and existing staff. Whether staff is in the sales or support team, they will all benefit from training—and using real calls from actual customers is a great way to do this.

The call recording feature comes with a hosted phone system and can be accessed easily within the online portal. These calls can serve as examples of good and bad customer service, helping new staff learn and develop.

For example, your support team may listen to a sales call and notice an opportunity for the sales team to refer to customer support or vice versa. This collaboration will inevitably lead to increased profitability and productivity too.

Along with call recordings, you can also use automated transcribing software to ensure you have a record of all your sales interactions in writing. These transcriptions can be emailed automatically to the customer with a range of different SaaS applications so that both customers and staff can refer to them if needed.

An automated transcript software reduces the manual effort for your team and also reduces the chances of any errors. Agents can simply look back at the transcripts and ensure they take the relevant actions from each call.

Hold team meetings to discuss progress and increase productivity

Team meetings are a great way to encourage collaboration across your team members. They provide executives with a space to share ideas, update each other on the progress of specific leads and identify opportunities for collaboration.

Using a SaaS solution, you can hold conference calls or video calls with your team members across the world. There is no limit to the number of people you can invite to your team meeting so you can ensure that everyone is involved in the most important conversations.

Remote team meetings can be just as productive as in-person meetings. You can circulate an agenda before each meeting to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Staff can join in from anywhere in the world and can connect as long as they have a stable Internet connection. Additionally, they can access meeting recordings and catch up in case they’re not able to attend it.

By including everyone, you can go one step further to sync up your sales and support team.

Productivity can also be increased by using SaaS features to the best of their ability. The solution gives you the chance to automatically sync your contacts with any business tools or shared workspaces you may use, giving everyone access to the latest information.

Customer calls can be automatically scheduled, leads can be passed from support to sales to nurture, and customer information can be pulled up in any application. This means you can take a consistent approach across your sales and support team, and avoid looking unprofessional owing to duplicated calls.

Use SaaS to sync your sales and support team

This article has highlighted just a few of the ways in which SaaS technology can synchronise your sales and support team.

By connecting these teams and ensuring they can all access the information they need from your database, you can enhance their productivity and increase customer satisfaction.

The many features available to you, such as video conferencing or automation, help you deliver stellar customer service by increasing the consistency and reliability of your operations.

With SaaS, getting your teams on the same page won’t be difficult—their virtual connections can be just as effective as their physical meetings. Hosted phone systems, a part of the SaaS family, provide crystal clear internal as well as external communications.

To find out more about hosted phone systems and SaaS, call us today on 1888-859-0450 or drop us an email at [email protected] for more information.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Acefone Editor

Author

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 Can your Business Benefit from Call Queuing?

Saurabh Sharma

Author

Business Communications

February 14, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

As a customer, we have all waited in lines.

Whether it is for grocery shopping, check-ins at airports, or transferring money to the bank—we all queued up, sometimes for longer than expected.

The picture isn’t very different for customer support either.

Customers often experience long wait times before they’re connected to an agent, resulting in frustration and a high number of abandoned calls. As per studies, nearly 55% of customers deemed long wait times the most frustrating aspect of a bad service experience.

And nearly 58% of customers said they would switch to a new brand after one bad experience.

So, it isn’t hard to conclude the impact that long wait times have on the customer experience (CX) your brand delivers.

Fortunately, businesses can rely on the call queue feature to eliminate the issue of long hold times.

The call queue feature informs callers about their position in the queue and sets their expectations accordingly. The auto-attendant feature then assures the callers that the next available agent will connect in just a few minutes.

Let us learn more about call queuing before we head on to its benefits.

What is call queuing?

The word ‘queue’ essentially means ‘in line’.

A call queue is like a virtual line where callers wait before an agent is assigned to them. They are organised on a first-come, first-serve basis, in the order that they called your business.

While tools like call analytics help predict the influx of call volumes and minimise wait time, the call queue tool saves the day during peak seasons or hours.

The chances of a customer dropping off reduce significantly when they are assured that an agent will be with them soon. This prevents frustration call abandonment, negative social media reviews, or customers switching to a competitor.

While your agents are occupied, you can play customised greetings and melodious music to engage callers. Not just that, you can even announce important updates to communicate new offers, products or discounts.

If the customer does have to wait longer than expected, you can deploy the queue callback feature. It allows the next available support agent to call them back at a time of the customer’s choosing.

Benefits of call queuing

The call tool, offered by most modern business communication service providers, helps your business manage call flows in the following ways.

Position in queue

There are instances when agents are stuck on lengthy calls whereas during others, it hardly takes them minutes to resolve a problem.

Call queue management informs callers about average wait time based on average resolution time and the number of users in the call queue. It tells them if the queue is full and the duration left before an agent can connect with them.

Customers can also request a call back from an agent when one becomes available at a time of their convenience.

Customers tend to be more patient and less likely to hang up the phone when they know about their place in the queue and are given the option to wait or request for a callback.

Improves agent productivity

The call queue feature is a win-win for both agents and customers. When calls are distributed evenly amongst a group of agents, it reduces their workload, improves their efficiency, enhances job satisfaction, and offers speedy customer service.

Thus, a proper call queue management system helps businesses with both—the customer churn rate and employee turnover.

Without the need for constant call transfers, agents get more time to fine-tune their sales pitches and work on the part of the job they enjoy. It directly results in improved productivity, employee satisfaction, and retention rates.

Thus, a proper call queue management system helps businesses with both—the customer churn rate and employee turnover.

Decreases call abandonment rate

Call abandonment occurs when the influx of calls is very high. Organising callers into queues is a great way to reduce abandonment.

Validating customer information during these wait times reminds customers that you are interested in resolving their queries. Another way would be to use personalised music or message features to ensure that callers are engaged until they get connected to an agent.

Prevents agents from missing calls

A call queue prevents missed calls from becoming missed revenue.

Used in conjunction with the queue callback feature, it ensures that agents do not lose track of any leads, even when they are unavailable.

It offers features like music on hold, pre-recorded custom messages, and a callback from agents without losing their place in the line, making waiting on-hold a slightly more pleasant experience.

In addition, callers can be made aware of expected wait time, other self-service options for FAQs, or the ability to escape their current queue and get redirected to an alternate one.

Call queues can’t replace live interactions, but they can supplement the latter by automating common questions that take up an agent’s time. This improves agent productivity and prevents them from missing out on potential leads.

The bottom line

No customer likes to wait in line.

The call queue is a smart feature that organises inbound callers into a queue and informs them about estimated hold times.

It helps reduce call abandonment while improving first call resolution rates. Additionally, it ensures an even distribution of workload, allowing your agents to serve customers more efficiently and personally.

Essentially, call queuing saves the time of both parties involved and improves overall customer satisfaction.

If you want to add the call queue feature for your business phone systems, you can get in touch with our experts at 1888-859-0450 or drop us an email at [email protected].

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Saurabh Sharma

Author

Saurabh is a content writer at Acefone. He is a fan of standup comedy, football, and Hindu mythology. He is fond of travelling to unexplored places, meeting new people, and having newer experiences that enrich his soul. Connect with him on Linkedin

Is Your Customer Service Ready for the Voicebot Era?

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

February 10, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

We are living in an era of instant gratification. As consumers, we expect immediate resolutions to our problems, instant product deliveries, and the right support at the earliest.

Patience is clearly getting consigned to a lost virtue, and the paradigm has evolved into immediacy.

The good news is that businesses understood this trend in time and have kept pace with these changes in consumer behaviour.

From setting up contact centers, integrating technologies that simplify life for consumers to adopting newer workflows, consumer-focussed companies have been ticking the right boxes.

As we move forward, we see a plethora of technologies driving automation in the customer-facing touchpoints.

Some of these include chatbots for round-the-clock support, artificial intelligence coupled with machine learning for smoother communication and now voicebots for quicker and better customer support.

Voicebots are revolutionising the way businesses serve customers and their consumer experience (CX) delivery in general.

An almost human-like interaction using technology is the way to go, and most leading companies are already using it today in customer service.

The pertinent question to the ones lagging is—is your customer service ready for the voicebot era?

For the uninitiated, let us get to the basics first.

What is a voicebot

If you have ever used Alexa, Siri or Google voice assistants, you already have a sense of a machine understanding your voice commands and responding appropriately.

While these are classified as voice assistants and not voicebots in terms of applications, the reference will help you understand the concept better.

A voicebot is essentially software that is Artificial Intelligence (AI)-enabled and can interact with a customer through voice.

Augmented with technologies like Natural Language Processing (NLP), text-to-speech (T2S) and Machine Learning (ML), voicebots can understand voice queries, analyse, fetch and process relevant data while answering back to customers in real-time.

Programmed correctly, they can even communicate with customers to clarify queries or route them to a human agent for further support.

Trends in voicebot

The trends have been in the making for over two years now, and the adoption of voicebots in customer service is rising at an excellent scale. The reason behind this widespread implementation is the efficiency and effectiveness of voice AI.

Without going deep into details, let us quickly scan the top three trends:

Voice AI continues to evolve in refinement and is becoming increasingly human
Faster response times, superior customer satisfaction rates and reduction in operating costs is driving rapid adoption
Devices and applications based on the Internet of Things (IoT) are significantly rising. Voice AI is already at the foundation of IoT

Voicebots in customer service

The value of voicebots in customer service is crystal clear. They have a significant impact on the CX capabilities of businesses through the following:

Refining your IVR menu and call routing

Customers can get their queries resolved faster through a simpler IVR menu, either through self-service or by reaching an appropriate human agent quickly.

Improving conversation quality

Voice is always faster and more satisfying for customers, thus positively impacting CX.

What’s more—a voice chat button can be made available to customers everywhere, from websites and apps to social media.

Providing unmatched scale

A single voicebot platform can interact with multiple customers, running into thousands even. Since they manage most repetitive tasks in an automated fashion, the scale becomes unmatched.

Reducing call times

Compared to humans, machines are faster in processing repetitive tasks like booking a complaint, checking status, etc.

Along with saving time for the customers, they also reduce costs to serve.

To top it all, voicebots offer customers a human-like experience with self-service options.

Instead of making customers scan through information, the bot is able to find the matching result from the data via keywords and communicate the relevant resolution. The overarching proposition here is humanising the customer support with a significantly lower number of humans.

With the growing trends towards humanising of support and a clear mandate for the relevance of AI-based voice in customer support, it is pertinent to evaluate and action the next steps.

Things to do next

Identify your target audience, define the role of a voicebot in your organisation, and implement it to perform as intended.

Let us review these in a bit of detail:

Evaluate your customer traits

To begin with, examine if your customers are ready for voice-based automated support. Depending on their profile, the nature of queries and the cost of resolving them, you can explore if deploying automated support is the suitable choice.

Remember, it is worth implementing voicebot solutions even if a fraction of your targeted customer base is ready and their queries are repetitive.

Structure your voicebot

This is one of the most essential tasks.

Once you understand the sections of engagement to automate, the next step is to narrow down the scope of potential queries and list down common relevant questions.

In parallel, list questions that your bot should ask to narrow down the query and get to resolution quickly. Do remember, customers can get frustrated with too many questions.

The key here is to remember that voice automation is being used to solve a problem and not just to present a technologically savvy set-up to your customers.

Therefore, it is always a good idea to mimic the engagements that a live agent would do in customer interactions.

Enable the voicebot

The voicebot resolves customer queries with the help of a knowledge base and existing data. This process needs attention as well.

While all this seems like a huge task, it is not. Experts are available to facilitate quick and easy implementations.

In fact, there are milestones to be achieved in the journey that will be of immense help in keeping you on track. Let us quickly review these.

The milestones

The review of successful implementations across industries throws up some common milestones to keep track of your progress. They are:

Measurable goals

A successful journey begins with documenting realistic and measurable goals. These goals must align with your overall business goals.

For instance, they could be CX metrics, self-service metrics, or even metrics on customer awareness as part of brand strategies.

Selection of the right platform

There are a plethora of options to choose from when it comes to AI-enabled voice platforms. And all of them come with strengths and weaknesses.

Therefore, it is pertinent to research this aspect well to finalise a platform that best suits your industry, customer profile, and business priorities.

Testing

Even well-designed voicebots may flounder with annoying mistakes. Also, AI supports their evolution.

Hence, it is essential to keep testing continuously to improve customer experience. The good news is that Bot KPIs help in constant testing and improving the functionality.

Final words

Voicebots are uniquely placed to remain mainstream in customer service and beyond. Businesses can ill afford to ignore them. And the benefits to CX and business profitability are clear.

Furthermore, one can begin with simple and repetitive customer queries and get a voicebot to resolve those. The bigger steps will come over time.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

1888-859-0450

Write an email to

[email protected]

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Yukti Verma

Author

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

Chatbots and Human Agents: Which is Better for Customer Service?

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

February 7, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

The man vs machine battle has now reached its peak.

With the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) programmes, efficiency, both in terms of work and costs, has improved dramatically.

Businesses are now actively seeking services that allow automation of previously monotonous work. Amid this search, businesses are forgoing one of the most crucial parts of their operations—employees.

News headlines are abuzz with reports of companies letting go of large sections of their workforce in place of software. This has seemed to affect people from all walks of life, from middle management to the everyday blue-collared worker.

Contact and call centers are no different.

With cloud communications sweeping the industry, automation tools like diallers, routers, IVRs and virtual receptionists have seemingly substituted a lot of the manpower previously reserved for human agents.

But, is this the right approach? Are we heading to an utterly virtually-operated business model? And if so, is that the best thing?

Chatbots: The virtual humans

Among the many automation tools, the chatbot has succeeded in cementing itself in today’s digital age.

All internet users have, without a doubt, interacted with a chatbot. When browsing a website, a window usually pops up at the corner of the screen, greeting visitors and asking them whether they need any assistance.

Chatbots are conversational tools that are designed to simulate human-like conversations with customers.

They can be as simple as mere greeting agents, or programmed with high-tech Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities to not only understand and analyse texts and spoken words but also to reply to them with a human touch.

Chatbots and customer service

While chatbots offer utility in different forms, one of the most widely used purposes has been in the area of customer service. This is owing to the following benefits:

Improved response rates:

This is one of the primary advantages of chatbots.

In today’s hyper-active world, everyone requires quick answers. Your customers are no different. The quicker they obtain query resolution, the more satisfied they are with the service.

Chatbots are perfect for quick responses.

Matthew Darby found that sophisticated chatbots, with an engaging audience, can produce response rates as high as 80-90%. Compare this with your current response rates and you will identify the benefits of including chatbots in your business communication.

Cost-efficiency:

Like all automation tools, chatbots end up saving businesses significant amounts of money. According to IBM, smart, AI-enabled chatbots can save companies over 30% on costs incurred while providing customer support.

With the human workforce, organisations are limited in terms of their capabilities and scope. Agents can only serve up to a specific number of customers per day and be present with one customer at a time. Also, for businesses looking to enhance engagement can leverage an ai video generator to create dynamic, automated responses that visually explain solutions, further enriching the customer service experience.

On the other hand, chatbots can serve multiple customers at once.

Ease of use and 24×7 availability:

Bots do not need to work on a 9-5 schedule. They can deliver their services 24×7. This feature allows companies to offer customer support services round the clock.

Additionally, chatbots are easy to use.

With instant messaging applications booming in popularity, consumers have become comfortable with typing and texting. Many millennials, in fact, prefer to interact with chatbots than human agents.

Scalability:

Chatbots are nothing more than lines of codes that can be easily transferred from one location to another. This is important for businesses that decide to open online stores in different marketplaces.

Not only this, with slight alterations to the code, chatbots can learn different languages.

This capability allows businesses to enter local markets and communicate with users in a language they prefer. AI chatbots can automatically understand the language inputted and develop a response accordingly.

Consistent and free training:

One of the most time-consuming tasks a call center undertakes is the training and re-training of its employees. Not only does this incur additional costs, but consistently keeping agents up to speed with new advancements is time intensive too.

With chatbots, machine learning algorithms ensure that the software learns and grows with every interaction.

This means that the more customers your chatbot serves, the better it becomes at engaging with others. Coupled with AI, it can use stored data to make better conversations and provide personalised services to customers.

The human impact

On the face of it, chatbots seem like the logical extension for managing customer interactions. However, many businesses seem to forget that machines, especially ones designed for communication purposes, are great at doing routine and simple conversations.

Give them a complex set of instructions that they are not programmed with, and they seem to falter.

This is why humans are best at handling complex conversations, a fact businesses must not forget.

A PwC research across 12 countries found that two-thirds of consumers feel that “companies have lost the human element of customer experience”. The study further discovers that despite the acceptance of digitisation in businesses, consumers demand more interactions with humans.

So, despite the apparent benefits chatbots and other automation tools offer to customers, do they wish for a more human touch. The following benefits of human agents explain why:

Realism and empathy

Modern buyers are dubbed as ‘smart consumers’. This is not just owing to the fact that they are tech-savvy and use smartphones.

With the clutter of alternatives available for every product or service, today’s consumers do their own research and enter the market with certain expectations.

One of these expectations is understanding.

Consumers demand businesses to fulfil their needs and be empathetic to them. While chatbots can peer into historical data to provide exactly what the consumer wants, humans can assess the situation through tone and voice and deliver the required service.

For example, if a customer calls in a panic about a complete loss of data, the chatbot may ask a series of important questions to analyse the problem.

However, a human can offer emotional support and assurance that puts the user at ease.

Solve critical issues

The biggest disadvantage of chatbots is one of the advantages of human agents.

While chatbots can give speedy answers to simple and frequently asked queries, serious problems are not the same. When a chatbot cannot comprehend a set of instructions, it passes the conversation to a human agent.

This is because chatbots may not be able to identify the problem through keyword detection alone. This results in irrelevant or repetitive answers that offer no help and only seem to aggravate the customer.

Customers want human agents

There are no two ways about it. Study after study delineates that customers prefer a human over a bot.

As part of their Global Customer Service Report, CGS found that 50% of respondents in the UK prefer human agents to chatbots.

This is not just a matter of the type of query. Many customers approach companies with a very specific query in mind. When they interact with a chatbot, as many as 47% feel their answers are less detailed than they hoped.

Additionally, 41% think that chatbots simply rephrase the text stated in the FAQ section. This, along with the robotic and impersonal connections built by chatbots, is why many would prefer to interact with a human agent, even if the choice compromises speed.

Bots are in but humans won’t be out

By now, brands are beginning to realise that chatbots and humans are not interchangeable. Instead, they are strategic partners in delivering customer service.

While chatbots can help ease the monotonous workload of customer support agents, a leading cause of attrition rates in call centers, humans can swoop in when chatbots are faced with complex or technical queries.

All in all, businesses must use a blended approach of both when managing customer interactions.

If you want to get the most out of chatbots for customer service, get in touch with our experts at 1888-859-0450 or drop an email at [email protected].

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Customer Service Quotes to Get You Motivated This Year

Yukti Verma

Author

Operations

February 3, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

In a hyper-competitive market, the future of any business depends on the quality of customer service and experiences it delivers. A brand that delivers great experiences not only retains customers better, it is also likelier to benefit from positive word of mouth marketing and thus, enjoy more conversions.

As per studies, 32% of customers are willing to stop doing business with a brand they love owing to a poor experience.

This study, among many others of similar nature, just goes to show how critical it is for businesses to not only fulfil but exceed the modern-day customer’s expectations.

One of the most important ways to ensure that your customers are never left disappointed is to train and motivate your team to deliver their best.

Here, we have put together seven customer service quotes. These will help you inspire your coworkers to put their best foot forward and leave customers satisfied each and every time.

“Thank your customer for complaining and mean it. Most will never bother to complain. They’ll just walk away.” ― Marilyn Suttle

This quote is a fantastic way to look at customer grievances.

A complaint is an opportunity to strengthen your customer relationships and develop your business. They give you an insight into areas that need improvement.

Moreover, they allow you to connect with your customer on a more personal level.

Let’s face it, no business is perfect but how you deal with customer issues and concerns can be a dealbreaker in your relationship with them. Approach their problems with empathy, honesty and transparency, and they’re bound to appreciate you for your human touch.

Once you start to view complaints as opportunities, an often unpleasant part of your role can become something much better.

“I have always believed that the way you treat your employees is the way they will treat your customers, and that people flourish when they are praised.” ― Sir Richard Branson

The way you treat your team is the way they will ultimately treat your customers.

If you encourage your employees to be the best that they can be, they will be more than happy to go the extra mile and deliver great service to your customers.

Some ways you can appreciate your team members is by regularly complimenting them for a job well done, recognising their efforts via awards and rewarding them for great results.

It doesn’t end there, though. Valuing your employees extends to motivating them when they’re not able to perform to the best of their abilities. Hold one-on-one conversations, arrange training and mentoring sessions, and even consider moving them to a role that suits their skills-set.

A few ways you can help your coworkers do better is via cloud telephony features such as the intercom or the monitoring tools. When they know you’re only a few seconds away from helping, they’re likelier to be more confident in the service they deliver.

“The brand for a company is like the reputation for a person. You earn a reputation by trying to do hard things well.” — Jeff Bezos

Being the owner of a multi-billion dollar corporation, Jeff Bezos knows a thing or two about customer service.

Times are changing and the reputation of a business is more important to customers than ever before.

While your customer-facing team plays an important role in brand building, they can only perform as well as their tools allow them to. Thus, it is imperative that you equip your employees with the latest and most efficient solutions.

We cannot stress the importance of cloud communications solutions enough. Cloud telephony systems allow your coworkers to reach out to customers effectively and resolve their issues in a timely manner.

Additionally, armed with CRM integrations and detailed analytical reports, agents can deliver empathetic and consistent support.

“Good customer service costs less than bad customer service.” — Sally Gronow

Research shows that acquiring new customers costs up to seven times more than retaining existing ones.

If you ask us, with the right tools, customer retention and conversion both are easy.

Hosted phone systems have plenty of features that help you identify and convert quality leads and stay in touch with your clientele.

One such feature is the user-friendly dashboard. Your team members can easily access all the necessary information, no matter their location or what device they are using.

Your dashboard will give you a 360-degree view of your performance. You get detailed analytical reports that help you identify trends and patterns, call logs, agent performance data, and much more.

This feature benefits you in two ways. Firstly, armed with comprehensive information, you can make better business decisions and create stronger strategies. Secondly, since the dashboard is easily accessible from any location and device, it is the perfect hybrid working tool.

Your coworkers can continue to work remotely, from a location of their choice, and resolve issues proactively.

“The more advocates you have, the fewer ads you have to buy.” — Dharmesh Shah

There’s no better advert for a business than organic marketing such as word-of-mouth. Happy customers are often found to be recommending businesses to their families and peers.

This could be during one-on-one interactions, through e-commerce platform reviews, and on social media conversation threads.

Positive customer feedback encourages leads to purchase your products, helping your business grow. These newly acquired customers then go on to spread the good word further.

If you can treat customers well and turn them into advocates of your brand, you will save money on marketing activities and have a healthy pipeline of leads coming through to your sales team.

“Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the customer gets out of it.” – Peter Drucker

No matter how well put together you think your customer service or products are, if the customer isn’t getting what they need, all your effort will fall flat.

Customers need constant attention through their journey with your organisation—from the initial enquiry through to post-sale.

Only when customer needs are met can you claim to have delivered effective service.

A hosted phone system allows you to communicate important information to a wide audience in a cost-effective manner. So, you can deploy voice broadcasting or the bulk SMS service to notify your customers about offers, new product launches or a change in business hours.

Conversely, you can opt for a toll free number or local number and invite buyers to start conversations with you.

Schedule follow-up activities, receive voicemail messages in your inbox and allow them to connect with you in an instant via the one-click dial button—the list goes on.

“If you are not taking care of your customer, your competitor will.” – Bob Hooey

As we’ve stated before, personalised service, empathetic conversations and contextual interactions combine to offer a great experience at the best price.

Miss out on any one of these aspects and you risk losing your buyer to a competitor.

The cloud will allow you to provide superlative support even during periods of high call volumes such as a seasonal rush or peak hours of the day.

Features such as music or message-on-hold, call queue announcements, and scheduled callbacks help you manage large inbound volumes. Additionally, you can easily scale up or down as and when required, without breaking the bank.

Flexible scaling will reduce call abandonment rates, thus increasing your chances of conversion and sale.

Get ready to elevate your customer service

If our collection of quotes has you pepped up to improve your service offerings, then our hosted phone systems can help you turn your dedication into reality.

Hosted phone systems give agents the ability to offer quality service wherever they are, and from whatever device they use. Support teams have consistent access to comprehensive information and can offer personalised service to your clientele.

With plenty of tools to help productivity and efficient working, cloud phone systems will make it easy for your customer service team to improve their output.

To find out more, call today on 1888-859-0450 to talk to our expert team.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

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Yukti Verma

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

How Acefone’s Features Ensure Easy and Seamless Calling?

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

January 31, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

We all know the frustrations of a poor connection—the inability to comprehend voice calls that drop mid-sentence, or worse, missing a message owing to the lack of basic tools.

Whatever your communications issues have been in the past, Acefone is sure to have the solution you need.

Acefone is the UK’s leading and trusted cloud communications service provider.

This blog will walk you through the various calling features Acefone offers. These ensure easy and seamless calling at all times, no matter your location or time of the day.

Answer calls even when you’re not around

An unanswered call could be a missed opportunity for a business. That’s why Acefone has a number of features designed to make sure you never miss out on a call or an opportunity again.

If you are out and about, you can divert your calls to either a voicemail or to another device that you can use on the go.

VoIP works on a number of Internet-enabled devices, so you have complete control over which you want to use—a smartphone, laptop, desktop, tablet, etc.

With call diversion, you can divert inbound callers to your voicemail when you’re unavailable, allowing you to quickly get back to callers when you are free.

Acefone’s voicemail is not an ordinary service.

When a caller leaves you a message on your voicemail, you receive an email with an MP3 file containing the audio of the recording, along with details on the caller and how to return the call.

This means that you can listen to messages on the go and prioritise calling back people with the most important queries.

To take this one step further, you could also use an auto-attendant to manage incoming calls.

Auto-attendants can easily be added to your VoIP system and take messages for you or direct callers to the right person. They make dealing with calls easy and seamless for businesses of all sizes.

However, they are particularly useful for small businesses that want to professionally answer calls even with a small team that might be working remotely.

Manage calls as they come in

Acefone’s features allow you to organise incoming calls, giving you a greater chance of getting the caller to the right department the first time.

IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems can also be added to your hosted phone system to provide customers with a self-service option. You can feed answers to common queries that callers can access via keypad inputs.

Moreover, these systems are highly customisable. So, you can add different departments that callers can get routed to, based on their inputs.

IVR saves time for both the customer and the agent by facilitating accurate transfers and negating the need for redirections. The end result is a smooth support experience for a customer and a more efficient and professional image for your business.

It doesn’t end here though.

With real-time call monitoring and detailed analytical reports, you can see exactly the track the volume of incoming calls, identify any bottlenecks and rectify them promptly. This will help you scale up or down and design efficient routing strategies.

Another useful feature is the call queue. The call queue feature puts waiting for callers in a queue, announcing their wait time and position and even playing important announcements or custom music.

The call queue feature is a great way to enhance caller engagement and reduce call abandonment.

When calls are managed as they reach your business, you benefit immensely—from minimum wait times to eliminating agent burnout and delivering superior service.

Collaborate across the business

No matter where your staff is based or your offices are located, collaboration is simple with a hosted phone system.

Acefone has a number of exciting collaboration tools, made available to all agents connected to your phone system. Conference calling is one such feature.

The tool allows teams from all over the world to dial in and work together on a project. Communications are facilitated over an Internet connection, benefitting you with crystal clear audio when it matters most.

You can also set up call groups to connect entire teams and departments. These groups can be used internally, catering to inter-department tasks, or even externally as a general sales number.

Call groups make it easy and seamless for anyone to get in touch with different teams in your business. Even when a specific employee is on leave, the caller is sure to get through to someone else for query resolution.

They can also choose between warm or cold transfers. The former involves an agent briefing their colleague before transferring the call. During the latter, the agent redirects the caller to a colleague without any context.

This gives staff a level of autonomy to collaborate with different teams across the world, sharing tips and tricks for better performance.

Save on administrative costs and deliver better service

By integrating a CRM with your hosted VoIP system, you can save time on administrative work and deliver data-driven service to your customers.

Once your phone system is linked to your CRM, you can ensure that customer information is up-to-date and made available to all agents via the centralised system.

Having updated information at their fingertips allows them to offer superior support at all times, thereby improving the customer experience your brand delivers.

Enjoy easy and seamless calling with Acefone

Acefone’s cloud phone system allow you to choose features that suit your business needs, facilitating flawless and meaningful communications at all times.

VoIP phone systems offer flexibility to businesses, allowing them to save money without compromising on call quality. What’s more—Acefone’s transparent billing system means you’re always in the know of how much and what you’re paying for.

To find out more, contact us at 1888-859-0450 or drop us an email at [email protected] to discuss your options.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

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Dos and Don’ts of Securing your VoIP Communications

Saurabh Sharma

Author

Voice - VoIP

January 28, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is an ideal, cost-effective solution that benefits businesses of all scales and sizes.

The technology facilitates both inbound and outbound communication over the Internet.

A VoIP phone system converts analogue voice signals to digital data packets and sends them over the broadband line.

While the technology brings with it many advantages, there are a few aspects that need to be considered during deployment.

One such aspect is security, especially in the remote working era.

Many companies have now permanently allowed their employees to work from home, given the pandemic-induced social distancing regulations. Several others are on the way to adopting a hybrid or remote work model.

During this transition, organisations must diligently oversee IT management and work closely with their VoIP Phone Provider to enforce requisite security measures. And the research for the same should begin in the buying stage.

For those of you who’re thinking of transitioning to cloud communications, and even for those who already have a VoIP system, we have put together a list of dos and don’ts. So, without further ado…

Selecting your VoIP provider

Selecting your VoIP Provider

Dos

Vendor due diligence

Organisations should research well and prepare a list of questions they can ask every vendor before selecting one. They can then finalise a provider on the basis of the plans and features they offer, their uptime guarantee, etc.

Similarly, companies should review the audit reports of different service providers and schedule meetings to discuss security.

Negotiate security terms in your contract

When you have selected a VoIP provider, the next step is to purchase the service.

Businesses should include explicit security terms and agreements in writing while finalizing a contract with the vendor. Irrespective of the company’s size, always add security obligations in your vendor agreements.

Don’ts

Don’t neglect the shared Voip security model

Businesses need to understand that apart from VoIP and UCaaS, all cloud services run on a shared security model.

This means that they share a sense of responsibility in implementing secure cloud services. Thus, they should ensure a closed loop between customers and vendors.

Implementing VoIP security

Implementing VoIP Security

Dos

Use encrypted VoIP services

A modern VoIP provider should offer end-to-end encryption when deploying their service. Organisations should use services that support Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Real-Time Transport Protocol (SRTP) encryption.

Thus, often, paying a premium to enjoy a more secure VoIP phone service can be better than going for the cheapest option.

Ensure that your Voip security provider uses encrypted signalling and media at rest.

Set up private V-LANs

A private virtual LAN segments VoIP traffic, giving IT managers better and swifter control.

There are different ways to protect your VoIP traffic but setting up a private VLAN is the easiest. It acts as single access and an uplink point to connect the device to a router, server or network.

Private VLANs are a good network strategy because of their ability to prevent one workstation from talking to another. It is essential to set up your dedicated voice LAN as part of your privileged security design.

Don’ts

Don’t mix your LANs

Businesses shouldn’t mix form factors and connected devices within the same network design.

When it comes to deployment, many organisations have a mix of headsets and cloud-based interfaces. Most employees use softphones, but there will always be a mix of a desk phone and conference phones connected to your Voip security network. A seamless connection is best built with similar infrastructure.

Don’t leave your VoIP outside the firewall

Voip business phone systems must be protected by the corporate firewall . Without it, anyone on the Internet can try to attack and log in to your system.

Companies should add firewalls to cover softphones that are wirelessly connected to employees’ home networks.

However, IT teams should ensure that every home wireless router implement to Secure VoIP Firewall

. The IT staff must conduct tests across different router devices and quickly help users implement proper settings over the phone.

VoIP service management

VoIP Service Management

Dos

Change your default passwords

Like any other hardware, VoIP devices come with default login credentials.

To avoid any vulnerability, employees should change their default passwords immediately. If a third-party vendor manages your phone, ensure that they change the passwords on your behalf.

Keep track of usage

All VoIP services—from cloud phone systems and on-premise voice systems to private branch exchange (PBX)—have a chance of getting hacked.

The most common attack is an account takeover (ATO), also called telephone fraud or traffic pumping. In this, the attacker hacks the VoIP system to make phone calls that are billed to the owner.

The best way to defend against an ATO attack is to keep track of your data usage.

If you are using a hosted phone system, ask your service provider how they plan to protect your data. Are they using backend fraud monitoring and user behaviour analytics looking for hybrid usage?

Enable strong authentication

Businesses should enable two-factor authentication and invest in heavier identity management systems for competent security practices. Ensure strong identity authentication in desk phones, web applications and different parts of the service.

Don’t

Don’t have unnecessary security permissions

One way to prevent account takeover (ATO) damage is to turn off permissions and features your business doesn’t need.

For example, turn off the international dialing feature if you do business in the UK, US or Canada and don’t need to call all parts of the world.

Don’t forget about patching

It is crucial to patch and keep track of updates for any software.

It doesn’t matter whether you are using a softphone, VoIP mobile app or any other hardware, patches are key. Even if you are using home routers where your network is connected in a distributed manner, patching is critical.

By controlling the brand and model of these routers, your IT staff can automate the patching process and verify that each device complies. If you cannot do so, the next step is constant user communication and scheduled phone help to aid employees in updating their routers themselves.

You could either carry out the process yourself or your provider may do it for you.

So, be sure to ask who controls the patching and the cycle.

Conclusion

Organisations should be prepared for every contingency. Businesses that secure voice traffic are much more resilient than those that don’t do anything.

A reputed business phone service must maintain a secure calling environment, educate their users and fortify their internal networks.

Follow these simple dos and don’ts to ensure your VoIP phone system is safe from data breaches, cyberattacks and phishing. You can maintain business continuity and have a competitive edge with secure VoIP connections.

To know more, call us up at 1888-859-0450 or drop an email at [email protected].

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

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Saurabh Sharma

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Inbound-Outbound IVR: The Best Combination to Get More Customers

Acefone Editor

Author

Contact Center

January 25, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

Customer Engagement for Flawless CX

With over 214 million businesses worldwide, customers have the power to buy from anywhere, anytime. The only way you can stand out from the crowd is by offering flawless customer service.

In fact, a study by Forbes states that 84% of the people surveyed believe AI can help them gain a competitive advantage and sustain better.

All buyers can be broadly categorised into four types: prospective customers, current customers, customers who have been loyal and former customers. To design an inclusive and holistic customer service model, strengthening customer experience is necessary.

Turning prospects and current customers into loyal buyers needs time, effort and attention. Your vision can come to life with technological solutions like Interactive Voice Response (IVR).

Inbound and outbound IVR calling comes with features that let companies engage with all four kinds of buyers.

How do IVR services help?

Customers today demand instant solutions to all their concerns, and if you fail to do so, they quickly move to the next company they find on the Internet.

This is where IVR comes to your rescue.

An Interactive Voice Response system integrated with the call centre not only acts as a virtual receptionist but also offers quick solutions to all kinds of customer queries.

Put simply, IVR number helps you answer inbound calls and automate outbound calls that consist of pre-recorded messages to convey important information to consumers.

These services help businesses and buyers save time and energy.

Not to forget, they help you offer round-the-clock assistance from anywhere around the world.

Outbound and inbound IVR: definitions and benefits

Traditionally, IVR services mainly catered to inbound calling.

But with time and the evolution of technology, IVR now comes in handy for outbound calling as well. So, instead of waiting for your buyers to reach out to you, you can simply take the first step towards them.

A balanced inbound and outbound IVR service helps serve numerous purposes in the call center. Here’s how:

Inbound IVR

Inbound IVR lets callers seek solutions by navigating them through a series of options. It understands their issues through DTMF tones or voice recognition and routes them to the agents that best suit their needs.

Scenarios where inbound IVR proves to be very useful for business include:

1. Automated customer assistance

Handling multiple calls at once, especially during rush hours, can be stressful for your agents. However, Inbound IVR calling can help them attend bulk calls simultaneously.

Callers are prompted to choose the most relevant option from a list of possible solutions using their mobile devices. And based on how the call continues, it intelligently routes them to suitable agents.

Some of the concerns that IVR can handle include shipment updates, payments, track delivery, custom offers, etc.

Businesses with devoted contact center for customer support can hugely benefit from inbound and multi-level IVR systems.

2. Facilitating inbound sales

When information about offers and deals are conveyed to consumers via emails and SMSes, businesses can add their virtual numbers for the ease of customers.

The IVR system can analyze incoming caller details to determine if it passes as a pre-qualified lead. If a lead attains considerable scores on essential metrics, the call can be routed over to a relevant agent.

Benefits of inbound IVR

1. Intelligent call routing: Interactive Voice Response (IVR) facilitates extremely effective call routing within the contact center of the organization. With self-service tools for customers, agents can focus on calls that require enhanced attention and understanding.

This reduces their workload and keeps them from burning out from repetitive tasks like answering FAQs. This also helps build a better customer experience by shrinking waiting time and reducing difficulties for first-time callers.

2. Useful metrics and cost-effectiveness: Inbound IVR calling is also equipped to record incoming calls and track other metrics like call duration, wait times, first call resolutions, etc.

By evaluating these metrics, your business can focus on adding value to its customer experience model, enabling you to convert more buyers into loyal customers.

With the added advantage of automation, the burden for recruiting more agents and costs incurred by infrastructural expenditure also gets drastically reduced.

Outbound IVR

The push and pull model are the most common strategy for customer acquisition.

Push marketing is when a business makes proactive efforts for customers to buy its products. On the other hand, when customers seek a brand’s products because they make a positive difference in their lives, it is pull marketing.

Using outbound IVR service for pull marketing can help automate engagement activities via various sources like calls, email, social media etc.

Scenarios where outbound IVR proves to be very useful for business include:

1. Sending out surveys

Collecting customer feedback regularly is conducive to a business’s growth and automating calls using outbound IVR helps reduce dependence on support agents.

Outbound IVR automatically reaches out to consumers who have recently purchased from a business to collect input. Collecting feedback using IVR surveys is an effective way to keep in touch with consumer emotions and expectations.

Insights from this data can help your organisation pay more attention to what your consumers want and initiate tactful pull marketing.

2. Sending promotional updates

Using automated calls and emails to inform customers about your organization’s future plans can be a great tactic for push marketing.

These outbound IVR calls can play a pre-recorded message to the customer and prompt them to a number that they can call to interact with an inbound IVR system.

This method of marketing can help your business reach a wide base of target consumers while also being extremely fast and cost-effective.

3. Sending important reminders

Outbound IVR service can send reminders regarding pending payments, renewing subscriptions, etc. to both customers as well as prospective buyers. In addition to this, outbound calling also enables them to do complete activities like bill payments using IVR itself.

Reminders can also be sent to people who were open to communicating with the brand but did not act upon it. They can be prompted about offers and promotions, finishing their registration with a business, etc.

Apart from the ease and convenience, outbound IVR also helps enhance the techniques of pull marketing.

Benefits of outbound IVR

Since outbound IVR service can do all of the above without requiring continuous human presence, it helps companies save up on large amounts of time and money. A robust IVR system also adds value to the brand image given how many modern-day consumers expect instant gratification and a satisfying overall experience.

In a nutshell

The strength and repertoire of a business largely depend on its ability to retain loyal customers in the long run. According to Microsoft’s State of Global Service Report, 56% of global participants have withdrawn themselves from a brand after a poor customer service experience.

Investing in the right kind of IVR services and installing a careful mix of both—inbound and outbound—will go a long way in deciding your organization’s growth and progress.

The pros of IVR services are innumerable, regardless of the size and operation of a business. Even if your organization is highly scalable with plans to expand in the near future, solutions like multi-level IVR can come to your rescue.

In a fast economy where customers are bombarded with a myriad of options to choose from, using an IVR to improve efficiency and provide an enhanced customer experience can have the right impact on your business’ growth.

Get your IVR today. Contact our experts at [email protected].

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Why Businesses Should Focus on Internal Communication?

Yukti Verma

Author

Contact Center

January 24, 2022

8 mins read eye

Table of content

For any business to do well, it is important that they pay attention to their customer communications. However, even more important than external communications is internal communications.

Healthy internal communication not only keeps employees happy and connected to your business but is also an amazing way to provide an effective flow of communication between departments.

Any communication that takes place within an organisation, online or offline, is internal communication. Thus, it can be physical staff meetings or discussions over the company Intranet.

Internal comms is a way for staff to share information across the business in the correct way.

Good internal communications help new staff settle in and allow existing employees to remain engaged with the company.

Particularly during the pandemic-induced social distancing age, having a good internal communication strategy has become integral to prevent employees from feeling lonely and demotivated.

Workers across the world are able to collaborate and stay on top of company updates. If done right, your internal communications can boost employee morale too!

This article will explore a few ways that internal communication can benefit your business and why it is crucial, no matter the scale of your business.

Boosting employee engagement and productivity

Internal communications, by design, bring employees together.

By keeping your team members connected, you give them the opportunity to build great working relationships and share vital business information with each other.

Employees who share good working relationships with their co-workers are likelier to feel engaged at work, making them more productive as a result. Better working relationships lead to improved collaboration too, allowing effective outputs.

Smaller businesses have a unique opportunity to use internal communications to gain insights into employee sentiments and actively make changes based on feedback.

Larger businesses can often find employees getting lost in the workforce. By implementing an internal communications strategy, all employees will feel included and engaged with all aspects of your business.

Whatever the size of your business, you can eliminate the need for long-winded meetings by having an online space where employees can quickly exchange information.

If they can easily share and access information, they are likelier to be on the same page and spend lesser time on coordination and communication.

Promotes effective sharing of information

Internal communications not only give employees the tools they need to share information, but also encourage them to collaborate more efficiently.

A good internal communication strategy ensures that there is a simple way that team members can easily and quickly communicate with each other.

For example, there may be a significant policy update that needs to be communicated to the management and workforce. If you have a sound internal communications strategy in place, you can quickly disseminate information to all of your staff and make sure everyone is on the same page.

Advances in modern technology have made it common for employees to use instant messaging or shared online spaces to collaborate with each other. This also means that companies have to keep up and upgrade their systems from time to time.

The beauty of internal communications is that they can be tailored to suit your business’ needs. Additionally, Intranet and collaborative tools are easily available and accessible to all organisations of all sizes.

Employees with access to the right tools for internal communications can share information in real time, connect instantly with each other, schedule meetings, and overall achieve more productivity and efficiency.

Improves employee experience and retention

While sharing vital business information, you can use your internal communications strategy to improve employee experience and increase retention.

If you include social activities and employee-centric initiatives, then you can ensure that your workers know you care about their happiness and wellbeing. This sends out a positive message of inclusion and shows that, as an employer, you are encouraging harmony between employees.

Through your internal communications, you could organise activities like:

Social events (working lunches, quiz nights, etc.)
Fundraising activities
Training sessions
Free online workout classes
Employee discount offers
Virtual office parties

By sharing this information across your business, you can make sure that everyone gets a chance to be a part of these events. With the right internal communication tools, you can ensure that everyone receives the message and there is high participation.

Millennials in particular are known to move between jobs. By having a strong internal communications strategy in place, you ensure to keep employees motivated and engaged, making valuable employees stick around for the long haul.

Employees who feel connected to and included in the company culture are more likely to stay for longer, meaning you keep the best employees who are the most engaged with your ethos.

Allows control over messages

Should there be an important but sensitive update about your business, the last thing you want is employees to find out from external sources. Whatever happens in your business—good or bad—employees should be intimidated directly.

You can also include media training in your internal communications strategy to prepare your employees for any negative press. Doing so ensures that they know exactly what to say if approached for a quote and aren’t caught off guard at any point.

This principle works for both large and small businesses.

In a crisis, companies should be open and honest with employees and use the internal communications strategy to make sure that employees are giving out a consistent message to clients and customers.

Employees can then use the internal communications process to raise any questions or concerns they may have. They can provide support to each other should they need to contact clients to discuss any updates. These updates can also add to their feelings of engagement and trust within the business.

With strong internal communications, you not only run an efficient office but also stay ahead in crisis management and planning.

Create a safe place to share feedback

Your employees are your best asset, no matter what size your business is. They work at the front lines and deal with customers every day.

Therefore, their feedback on your business processes holds a lot of value.

As part of your internal communications process, you could include surveys to hear your staff’s thoughts on the issues that matter most to them. You can find out exactly what they like and dislike, and any improvements they would make to everyday operations.

Moreover, when you ask employees for feedback, you are showing them you value their opinions. However, you must remember to act on this feedback whenever possible to show you really are interested in their insights and implementing change.

You could also use collaboration tools such as video or conference calls to have meetings where staff can discuss and share ideas in an informal way.

This gives them the chance to voice their opinions in a more comfortable environment. Whether yours is a small or large business, your teams can sit down together to discuss matters in a free and open manner, thus leading to a healthy exchange of views and suggestions.

Conclusion

No matter what size your business is, implementing an internal communication strategy is a brilliant way to increase employee engagement, productivity and ensure that your business is running as efficiently as possible.

With a strong communication plan in place, employees can provide insights into your business that management may never see. These insights are vital to the success of your business and could create better experiences for both employees and customers alike!

You can use a number of different systems and software to implement your internal communications strategy, one of which is a hosted phone system.

Hosted phone systems have all the tools you need to collaborate with employees across your business—shared spaces, instant messaging, video calling and so much more. All of this is easily accessible on your Internet-enabled phones and desktops.

Whatever you choose for your internal communications, many businesses have already implemented strategies to help increase employee engagement and keep their most talented staff around for longer!

To find out more about internal communications, contact our team today at 1888-859-0450 and see how a hosted phone system can help you keep your business connected.

If you're interested in improving your business communication solution

Give us a call on

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Write an email to

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Yukti Verma

Author

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

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