When most consumers think “call center,” they generally think of very large organizations such as their mortgage companies, banks and utilities. After all, those are the companies that most obviously use sophisticated call center equipment and solutions.
But it’s important to remember that every company can potentially have a call center, even the smallest company. And thanks to changing technology and new innovations, even these small companies can employ techniques that were formerly available to only the largest companies with the deepest pockets.
There is evidence that smaller companies need to be paying attention to their customers and their support technologies more closely. These days, too many customer calls go to voice mail because there are no resources to pick up the calls. Studies have shown that a large number of calls that go to voice mail are never listened to – not for many days, anyway. Even more worrying, something like 80 percent of customers don’t even bother leaving messages in voice mail, because they assume they will never be listened to. For any small business, these statistics should be very worrying.
Small companies can greatly benefit from advanced customer support software that can help ensure that calls are picked up by live agents in as short a time as possible, or that customers who do leave messages and numbers are being automatically scheduled for a callback.
Forbes recently profiled LiveAnswer, a technology platform that allows smaller companies to tap into the services of idle agents at larger companies, selling the extra manpower to small business owners that are unwilling to commit to a traditional call center model themselves. According to LiveAnswer’s founder, Adam Boalt, small companies using the platform are better positioned to capture every single call and increasing sales as a result. It also benefits larger organizations, which may see their call center agents spending as much as 35 percent of their time idle and waiting for calls.
There are other steps companies can take with customer support software to ensure that customers aren’t running into voice mail or long queues. Cloud-based solutions can easily route customers on hold to remote workers or even home-based agents who work on an “overflow” basis. All these remote workers need is a headset and a high-speed Internet connection. Improved self-service solutions, either based in the company’s interactive voice response (IVR) or on the Web site, can also help smaller companies help their customers. “Virtual agents,” or bots designed to answer complex customer questions in a conversational manner, can also help.
What’s important is that a customer never be left at a dead-end. IVR systems that dump a customer for making wrong choices, FAQ pages that are incomplete or poorly prepared, busy signals or “We appreciate your business; please leave a message” are not the right way to communicate to customers that they are valued. For a small company, these practices can be the kiss of death.
Edited by Alisen Downey