7 out of 10 customers who take their business to a competing company can directly attribute this action to receiving poor customer service on the phone from the original company… don’t let this happen to your business!
After receiving several recent customer inquires at Teltek and attending a web seminar on Avaya call centers for small businesses, I decided to write a blog about it. Below you will find 1) a better understanding of how call centers can improve customer service in your business, 2) how call accounting differs from call center and 3) the fundamentals of what is required to make a call center effective. A future blog will take a deeper look in to Avaya’s Customer Call Reporter (CCR), a cost effective call center for the small business.
What Defines The Need For A Call Center?
Any business or organization that wants to improve customer service by gaining access to real time reports from their telephone system on inbound calls (i.e. at this moment in time, how many people are on hold, how long they have been there, how many calls have been abandoned, etc.).
Call Center Vs Call Accounting:
- Call Centers Offer:
- Real-time reporting on inbound calls.
- Historical reporting (some report on both inbound and outbound calls, some just inbound calls).
- Call recording with archiving.
- Prompts to notify callers of their hold time or position in line for their call to be answered.
- Reports are focused on: average wait time, abandoned calls and average number of calls for each agent on inbound calls.
Call Accounting Offers:
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- Historical reporting (usually up to about 10 minuets after it happens).
- Reports are focused on: In and Outbound calls, i.e. how many calls did each sales rep make, what phone number is receiving more inbound calls, how many in/outbound calls did the company make this month vs. last month, etc.
- Enables organizations to use different Direct Inward Dial Numbers (DIDs) for each marketing initiative to track effectiveness of campaign. This will show which marketing piece/campaign is more effective based on inbound call volume.
Who Should Consider A Call Center?
- Businesses/Organizations with high call volumes.
- A business/organization that depends heavily on customer service and inbound calls (service companies, nonprofits, businesses that offer tech support, etc.).
- Business that uses hunt groups or call queues today.
- Anyone who wants to get a better handle on their calls to know how to allocate staff.
Fundamentals of a Call Center:
- Requires one to utilize their voicemail system and automated prompts to direct callers to their agents; having live operator answer the call and direct it to an agent will not provide accurate reports.
- Each concurrent caller in a call center queue will require 1 voicemail port. Also, each caller leaving a message or employees checking a message will require 1 port. When planning on deploying a call center, be sure to size the voicemail system properly.
To learn more about how a call center can improve your business, contact a Teltek representative today. Remember to check back to learn more about Avaya’s CCR, Call Center for small businesses.
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Tags: Avaya Call Centers, Call Center, Call Center Vs Call Accounting, Call Centers, Call Queues, Call Recording, Call Reporting, Custom Call Reports, Customer Call Reporter, DC, Definition of a Call Center, Do I Need A Call Center, Fundamentals of a Call Center, MD, PA, Phone System, telephone system, Teltek, VA