Streamline Customer Interactions: Call Routing Tips

For business owners, the customer phone call is often the most important communication that can happen. We all know that first impressions are hard to shake and it’s no different on a phone call. If your call routing is poor, you will lose customers before they have a chance to experience all of the great things you have to offer.

The quality of your call routing, or how effectively you can get the customer to the right person, is vital to your success. It can be a difficult thing to get right, but with some creativity and a little upfront planning, it can be mastered. Here are five tips for streamlining your customer interactions by improving the quality of your call routing.

1. Seamless Integration with CRM:

Next, you need a plan in place for integrating your phone system with CRM. Integrating CRM with business phone will allow you and your team to be able to quickly find customer records and easily read from a CRM’s existing fields. Being able to quickly access the necessary information about your callers is vital in order to handle them better.

Additionally, from a phone call, you will be better able to get insight into what other marketing channels are most effective for that caller. For example, if you make a call and before even asking for the one thing they did not buy from you, you ask about their vacation plans after getting their number from your Facebook ad or website, then they are more likely to buy from you because of the perceived customized experience they just received. 

Being able to easily find out about the callers’ demographics and knowing what they were interested in, helps you to decide the best type of marketing that would be best suited for them. For example, if your targeted audience is looking for mobile phone deals, then you should not be sending email marketing deals on other products as well. You would want to know exactly what they were searching for so that you know what you can offer them.

There are many different CRM programs available in order to handle your business’s phone needs. Integrates with your existing CRM system. It is a cloud-based call-tracking service that measures the performance of your incoming phone calls. It allows you to track, through your website, the marketing efforts that generate the most revenue. This includes direct phone calls, email campaigns, web pages, and more.

2. Keep Your Business Name Simple:

It is imperative that your business keeps its name simple. Callers may have difficulty pronouncing the name of your business. This makes it difficult for callers to remember the name, and they are more likely to hang up if they can’t hear the person they are dialing. If your business has a complicated name, or if there is a lot of repetition in your name, people will likely find it difficult to remember it. Likewise, when you add a lot of letters and numbers to your company’s name, callers will most likely not even try contacting you.

The most important thing about your number is that it is easy to pronounce and short. Anything else can easily be added later on as a second thought after the first two steps have been achieved.

3. Keep Your Number Short:

The first step in improving your customer’s phone experience is having a short, easy-to-remember number so that most people will actually remember it. Gone are the days when a telephone number had only five digits drawing no attention to itself and making it inviting for anyone to dial it. Most numbers have six or seven digits nowadays and it is no wonder why people struggle to remember them. On the flip side, shorter numbers also take less time for callers to type than longer ones. This means you have to keep your number short and concise.

To get the attention of your callers, make your number a catchy one. It should be easy to pronounce, but at the same time look professional and well-thought-out.

4. Use Voice Broadcasting:

A great way to get more people to buy from you is through voice broadcasting. This gives you the ability to speak with many prospective customers at one time while making it easy for them to stay in touch with you. You can send voice messages out on a regular basis about new products and services available or upcoming sales and events in order to keep them interested in your business and coming back time after time again.

5. Put up “Call to Action” on Your Webpages:

Another way to get more sales is by encouraging callers to make their phone purchases from you on your website. You can do this by implementing a “call-to-action” area, which is a section that will encourage people to make their phone purchases from you. This is a great way for your callers to see exactly what you have available for them and it is also a big help in getting new people to come through the front door of your business by word of mouth or social media.

By implementing all these tips, you will be able to improve the quality of your customer’s business phone interactions.

Here are some call-routing tips:

1. Keyword-Driven Call Routing:

●     Keyword-Driven Routing: Select keyword-driven routing where callers are automatically routed to the customer’s preferred agent.

●     Call Queue: Define a list of preferred agents and alternate agents in case of an unsatisfactory delivery from the initial agent.

●     Call Recording: Record call details and provide feedback for improved agent performance.

●     Voicemail-to-Email: Automatically forward voicemails to email for easier customer resolution and faster response times.

●     Auto Attendant: Automatically greet and route calls based on their preferences, such as via auto-attendant or voice prompts followed by an agent’s name or number, etc.

●     Call Routing Based on CRM: Assign call routing to specific customer records. All phone calls from a particular customer are forwarded to an existing agent or a different agent assigned to that contact record.

●     Click-to-Call: Enable a “click-to-call” feature within your CRM, allowing agents to initiate calls directly from customer records.

2. Business Phone Features:

●        DND Responds: Support customers with Do Not Disturb (DND) features. It will allow for self-service workflows that work around busy times and specific business requirements.

●        Call Recording: Record call details and provide feedback for improved agent performance.

●        Voicemail-to-Email: Automatically forward voicemails to email for easier customer resolution and faster response times.

●        Function keys: The most common function keys used by call center agents for voicemail and others. Use the V/M (voice mail) button or F6 to change these settings. These and other keys can be used to manage calls more efficiently.

●        Conference call: Conference calling is an effective way to manage calls more efficiently. Using the customer service software or a third-party provider, connect integrates with most phone providers and includes many business phone features such as unified messaging, voicemail-to-email, and greetings for agents’ extensions.

3. Integrate CRM with Business Phone:

Integrate your CRM with your business phone system.

●        Live Agent: Use Live Agent to access customer information, call records, and workflows.

●     Relay Call: Create a channel for business contacts to call your agents directly for rapid resolution or escalation of issues.

●        Call Routing: Assign call routing to specific customer records. All phone calls from a particular customer are forwarded to an existing agent or a different agent assigned to that contact record.

●        Message Center: Make sure your voicemail message center is available for employees.

●        Voicemail-to-Email: Forward messages to CRM for follow-up based on the caller’s email address, status, and contact information.

●        Business Phone Monitoring: Use business phone monitoring to receive real-time call activity data from the business phone system.

●        Searchable Call Histories: Create a searchable call history database to easily retrieve calls and agents in the future.

4. Select the Right Small Business Phone Service Provider:

Find a small business phone service provider that can offer you ample benefits and features

●        Integration: Select a provider with robust integration capabilities that work across multiple popular CRM systems,

●        Platform: Utilize cloud-based VoIP platforms to lower capital expenses and infrastructure maintenance costs.

●        Call Recording: Record call details and provide feedback for improved agent performance. It will improve call quality through the use of tools like automated IVR systems for scheduling calls with customers in a timely manner.

5. Security and Compliance:

●     Select a provider with compliance-minded, third-party security requirements.

●        Encrypt and protect your business phone service with integrated options like Unified Communications as a Service(UCaaS).

●     Deregister calls with helpdesk tools that allow the blocking of unwanted callers.

●     Reduce costs by using fewer agents per agent account. Utilizing self-service solutions for tasks like billing and having one agent handle all tasks for multiple customers.

Conclusion:

So, you have now learned how to automate your business phone system and other systems. Use the above strategies in order to automate all activities so that it becomes a happy place for everyone. Utilize business phone features and keep your customers engaged.

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