Opening up communications

Making it easy for customers

People want fast and efficient connections to the information they need, they do not want to have to repeat requests nor do they want to be put on hold, when they call you. As the public face of your company the IVR (Interactive Voice Response), system is often the first point of contact with customers. It is a critical tool influencing customers’ perceptions of your business and how you value their trade - done right and it pays dividends but done wrong it can lose you business.

Interactive voice response

A properly designed IVR system eliminates frustrations while collecting the necessary information to direct calls to the right contact centre agent first time. Keeping options short, simple and relevant, reducing waiting times, including a speech recognition system, providing a ‘virtual personal assistant’ or offering default options to live agents - all create a positive impression.

It makes a difference if agents answer the phone with a personal greeting and know something about the enquiry - and that depends on the accuracy of your IVR system and how tightly integrated the contact centre is with your applications and customer database. It also depends on how accurately calls are linked to keypad choices and routed appropriately.

Joined up communications

Linking networks and databases allows information to be shared between agents so, if a call has to be passed on, the relevant facts go with it. With access to a centralised customer database agents can instantly view the details of an individual’s transaction history, their billing information and therefore the value of that person to your company and react accordingly.

Convergence translates into integrated communications. Customers can contact you via web, email, phone or post and all their information is coordinated and held in one place. You can create links to specific centre agents or individual experts directly from websites or from email requests. Audit trails make it easy to track service history contributing to customer satisfaction levels.

Giving customers choices

Creating separate contact numbers for different businesses or products avoids delays and automatically routes calls to appropriate agents. Offering free or local numbers cuts costs for your customers which not only increases goodwill but the volume of enquiries and therefore potential sales leads. Non-geographic numbers make it possible to manage inbound calls more effectively.

Solutions for opening up communications

• Customer Contact Solutions: Solutions include routing management, reporting, on-disk billing and inbound call analysis, self service, interactive services, fully integrated hosting solutions and telemarketing numbers.
• Converged solutions: IP technologies have set business buzzing with opportunities to transform customer and employee communications, including IP Multimedia and IP PBX.

We can also help with your other needs; to find out more, please contact us.