It doesn’t have to…
With the continuation of hybrid working since the pandemic seemingly a permanent fixture for many businesses, are we also faced with increased ‘call-waiting’ times as a result?
How, with a remote-workforce, can businesses manage key workers to ensure customers aren’t kept waiting while your work-at-home agents are getting their laptop ready to take a call?
There are some key tools available to help service-led operations to manage this issue, now that your Customer Service, Support and Call-centre teams aren’t in the room with you.
Here are a few of the more well-used tools we’ve found being used by businesses to deliver a better customer experience (while in many cases saving £s and resource) …
1. Web Chat – a quick search on the web will tell you that companies using web-chat as a tool increase both Sales and customer-retention from a service-view. Some companies use chat as merely a support tool, taking some of the load away from their 1st-line teams.
Other companies use as a sales-aid, ‘helping’ potential customers to the right pages and information in order to decide to buy.
A web-chat tool that integrates with your phone-system enables your CS operatives to take a true view on delivering a great customer-experience (agents can see both web-chat and the caller on-hold). An integrated chat/ phone tool offers management a holistic reporting view of both agents, as well as valuable insights into their customers needs.
2. Messaging on Hold – a great way to keep callers to your business informed as to what to expect as they ‘journey’ through your phone system, or wait on hold to have their call answered. Most phone systems enable a level of personalisation so that you can upload your own greetings and messaging. And if you want something more professional there are many providers to choose from that offer bespoke messaging on hold services with professional recordings.
3. Queue Call-back – a lot of phone systems, particularly ‘cloud-based’ operators offer a queue ‘call-back’ feature. This enables callers to your business to press a number on their keypad to request a (Scheduled) call-back to avoid having to wait in the queue. Some systems enable callers to request a specific time and/or day for a call-back. No-one likes waiting – help your customers love you by calling them back! Businesses using ‘call-back’ features report a very different experience for their agents as they aren’t dealing with a ‘frustrated-caller’ that has been waiting for 15 minutes to talk to them /someone.
4. Social Channels – a good ‘social-strategy’ can deliver a huge-saving in the number of calls your business takes. Companies that are proactive at publishing company news, product updates, version fix’s and announcements, etc, via their company Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc save time and resource staffing customer-service call-centres. Younger buyers prefer to get information via apps versus having to talk to an agent. Many companies are actively educating their customers towards using Social channels for customer-support etc by offering a ‘better experience’ (quicker response time etc), and with a view to reducing reliance on live-agents to answer calls.
Done well, a good social strategy enables a business to cross-over between customer-support operations, and customer-sales, with numerous benefits around marketing to both existing and new customers Vs. a call centre operation (tagging, likes, reposts etc).
Being able to view your Social interactions as a company in your phone system offers holistic reporting across all channels, and therefore a different-level of insight when understanding your customers demands.
Get in touch for a chat or a quick Demo – We love to talk!
hello@hybridcomms.io – or give us a call
Call the Hybrid Team today on 03300564565 , or email us at hello@hybridcomms.io
