Can VoIP Improve Your Brand’s Public Image?
Source: VoIP_News
Providing exceptional customer service is a crucial aspect of customer experience and brand public image. The average annual cost of poor customer service is around $41 billion per year in the U.S., which is attributed to lost revenue and customer relationships. Despite the increased prevalence of email and chat as customer service tools, phones still handle around 68 percent of “contact center communications.”
A high-quality business phone system is a necessity for providing the caliber of customer service that your clients expect. When your customers call, they want fast access to customer service representatives and high-quality voice communications quality. Voice over IP (VoIP) telephony, with certain add-on features, can be a tool for improving your company’s public image through superior customer service availability. With faster and more effective call routing and customization for interactive voice recognition (IVR) systems, you can make it as easy as possible for your customers to access resolutions.
1. Interactive Voice Recognition
VoIP IVR can offer an exceptional customer experience by allowing your clients self-service access to routine activities, such as checking balance, or convenient contact with your customer service team. As Business News Daily highlights, the best IVR systems are just as effective as a phone receptionist or dedicated operator in terms of the accuracy of basic service and call routing.
IVR can improve customer satisfaction among your customer base by minimizing the number of calls that are mis-routed and result in a need for additional transfers. With smart menu design, organizations can ensure customers don’t experience frustration or feel they’re speaking with a robot. In addition, IVR can offer the potential for improved internal efficiency by ensuring your customer service representatives can focus on providing resolution to customer queries instead of routing call internally.
2. Seamless Call Routing
It’s become increasingly common for employees to work from home due to the prevalence of mobile technology. In many other cases, employees may work from the road, a hotel or a plane during business travel. VoIP offers mobile call routing to ensure your customers who aren’t physically located near their desk phone are able to keep up with business voice communications.
VoIP vendors increasingly offer automatic mobile forwarding or allow employees to self-select the option to have their desk and mobile phones ring simultaneously. This can reduce the rate of calls that land in a voicemail inbox and of customers in need of immediate resolution who are forced to call back to receive assistance.
3. Automatic Call Distribution
VoIP automatic call distribution systems work to seamlessly route calls to available customer service agents. Depending on your organization’s customer service structure and your customer’s needs, many VoIP call distribution systems allow for extensive customization in call routing. Per GetVoIP, common methods of call distribution can include:
• Circular distribution, or even distribution of calls among all available agents
• Skill-based routing, where calls are directed to agents with the appropriate training
• Most idle routing, where calls are directed to agents who have been available the longest
Your organization may also choose to give a higher volume of calls to more experienced customer service agents or make other customization. During periods of high demand for customer service, other employees who do not work in customer service roles can also be temporarily added to your distribution list from a VoIP management portal.
Conclusion
While customers are continuing to adopt the Internet, email and mobile technology, business phone systems are still one of the most common and popular tools for customer service. A high-quality, reliable phone system is a necessity to maintaining a positive public image and preventing customer defection. With VoIP add-on features and customization, your business can take steps to further improve customer satisfaction when they call your organization.
To learn more about VoIP and how it can benefit your organization, contact MCC today at 901.725.9271!
