Summary
For most companies, phone support is a critical – if not the most important – aspect of customer service. The greater the size of your business, so will volume of calls flowing in and out be. This is where the call centre comes in. Though its purpose - to ensure that incoming calls reach their destination and are processed as quickly as possible - is simple in theory, optimally managing a call centre is not. Managers need to be able to verify that all employees taking customer service calls are performing at their best, and that newcomers improve over time. Training techniques must be effective but adaptable, according to changing staff needs. And flexibility is an essential aspect of any thriving call centre in today’s increasingly mobile and competitive world. We here at RingOver have outlined some of our features that will have your call centre performing at its peak, guaranteeing that your clients and customer service representatives alike get the most they can out of it.
1. Highly performing collaborators:
There is simply no possible way to run a successful call centre without customer service reps that are processing calls correctly, in a timely manner, and with a positive attitude. This means not only building teams of quality employees but providing them the right training and tools. The tools we’ve created here at RingOver will help you ensure that once you’ve recruited the best people you can, they’ll be able to work at their best. One such indispensable tool is our call recording feature, which will boost your quality assurance, help your new recruits identify the elements of an ideal exchange with a client, and keep you compliant with liability regulations. We also offer a double-listening and “whisper” function, which allows supervisors to listen in on reps’ conversations and provide them tips and advice without the caller being any wiser, or directly intervene if necessary.
2. Personalisation:
Giving your call centre a personal touch will reassure clients, cement their loyalty and make them more likely to recommend your brand in the future. Your greetings and hold music must also reflect who you are as a company and give callers the most positive image possible. On the client side, your phone system can be structured to allow requests, orders and issues to be handled in a more individualised manner – routing client calls to the same representative who has helped them in the past, for example. Speaking with someone familiar will make clients feel cared about, not like they’re just another case file number. And we can’t emphasise enough the utility of automatic file retrieval for clients already in the system, which ensures that the rep taking the call knows exactly who is calling and what their history is with the company.
3. Superior inter-service communication:
Our ultra-collaborative tools are adapted to save time and ensure that all of your departments will be on the same page at all times. For example, tags for categorising calls (ex: resolved, call back, IT issue, requires credit/refund) results in faster call resolution rates, as an agent handling a call won’t have to put the client on hold to run and ask everyone who’s ever touched their file in the past for more details. We’ve also made it possible sync incoming calls with your CRM and other internal tools so that each time a client on file calls your phone system, their complete information will automatically appear on the screen of the person taking the call, no matter what department they work in. This prevents the client from having to re-explain who they are and what their situation is to the IT specialist, salesperson or manager they’ve just been transferred to.
4. Advanced statistics:
The ability to extract and analyse your call centre KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) is imperative to your growth as a company. If you don’t know which reps are lagging behind in the number of calls they handle on a daily basis or how long the average caller queues for, how will you ever be able to tell where your weaknesses are and fine-tune your customer service accordingly? Or properly be able to award your highest achievers? Or know what your clients are happy about and what changes they’d like to see? Our advanced statistics tools let supervisors know exactly where their phone support stands at all times: total incoming and outgoing calls over a given period, average communication time on a group or individual basis, first-call resolution rate, customer satisfaction, and much more.
5. Exceptional flexibility:
By which we mean tools that are easy to use from anywhere. Why shouldn’t your call centre be just as fluid as every other aspect of your business? As a manager, you should be able to listen in on your customer service reps, check in with the ones who might be struggling, have a glance at your statistics, check voicemail or modify call distribution in just a click from your phone or laptop – whether you’re on the train, on the way to the office, at home, or five time zones away. And any of your reps on the clock should be able to take, make, return, transfer, and forward phone system calls from wherever they are too. Today’s world is vast, competitive, and above all, mobile. If your brand is going to succeed, you’ll need to reflect these values and concepts – as will your customer service “first responders.” Once potential clients have heard about you through your website, word-of-mouth, sales outreach efforts or another means, they’ll likely be calling you. How they are first received by phone, how long they have to wait to speak with a human being and what kind of experience they have once they do will create their overall impression of your product or service. And this impression is what will largely determine not only if they become a loyal client for years to come, but if they bring more to you. With RingOver, you’ll always have what it takes to keep your phone system is in fighting shape and ensure that customer service representatives taking the calls have the right tools and training – and never let a single one of those valuable calls fall by the wayside again.
