As the range of available communication options expands, many businesses are returning to more familiar, mobile communication methods similar to SMS or ‘text’ messaging. Business text messaging is one way that companies can adapt to suit their customers’ busy schedules and preferences, and can be part of an overall telecommunications service, whether relying on traditional or internet-based phone solutions. Texting is a quick and easy way to communicate and solve a problem as agents can often respond to customer texts faster than they can to live calls. Text messages have a higher opening rate than any other mode of communication. If your customers are opening the message, at least 90% of them are reading it. Thus, text messaging can make it easier for you to reach out to customers. It may seem like any new way of doing business is restricted to large businesses with sizeable budgets, but small businesses and text messaging are a great fit. SMS is an affordable, efficient and convenient way to contact clients and can be used to improve your customer service, no matter how many or few people work for your company. There’s no complicated interface when dealing with mobile-to-mobile messaging. Just a message and a recipient. Many businesses may worry that this practice is intrusive or unprofessional, though it is rarely viewed that way. The biggest issue businesses have with using text messaging for customer service is that texts are perceived as personal. This concern may be justified when text messages are used for mass marketing. However, business text messaging for customer service is personal due to the one-on-one nature of the conversations between customers and...
Ask any businessperson what they view as the most important factor when choosing new technology or telecoms solutions and more often than not, they’ll say reliability. After all, having the latest technology at your disposal would be totally useless to any company if it does not actually function when required. Solutions that fail to provide reliability will, rather than improving your business, end up incurring additional costs through unplanned downtime, missed leads, and dissatisfied customers. When it comes to choosing a phone system, reliability becomes all the more important. That’s one reason why increasing numbers of businesses are turning to VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) solutions. No longer a new service – and fast becoming the business standard – VoIP now provides a mature and stable option for commercial telecommunications. The plethora of additional features available on a VoIP system meanwhile, such as automatic call forwarding and voicemail to email, mean it can actually be considerably more reliable than a traditional landline, should a problem with the connection occur. Of course, as VoIP relies on the internet, the stability of the system is tied to the dependability of your broadband connection. However, given the tremendous reliability of modern internet connections, this shouldn’t be a concern and it will be boosted further by ensuring the internal communications infrastructure of your business is fully up to date. It is worth, therefore, carrying out a full audit of the physical lines and cables within your business premises to ensure they are of the requisite standard to fully realise the benefits of a new telephony system. That said, even the most advanced solutions can require downtime to enable...
As consumers and businesses, we are producing and sharing more data than ever before, from personal details to information such as when and how we interact with each other. For businesses, collecting this data is so simple it can accumulate automatically without any concerted effort on the part of the company itself. How that information is used by the organisation is more complex however, and requires a strategic vision and plan that, if implemented effectively, can significantly improve operational efficiencies. When it comes to our business telephone systems, we can now find out precisely how our customers interact with us and how we respond to them. You’ll often have been told your conversation with a call centre or customer service line is being recorded for training purposes. Such recordings are commonplace and provide an important function for the business by revealing, for example, where some employees may require additional coaching or how customers respond when engaging with staff. Analysing the number of calls received meanwhile can help to identify any spikes in activity, either high or low, and determine whether these are recurring. This information can enable managers to amend staffing levels, ensuring adequate call handlers are available during peak times and fewer when they are not needed. The result is that clients or potential customers are less likely to experience long call waiting times and therefore enjoy a positive service experience. Call spikes may unearth deeper issues other than staff timetabling however so it is worth not just analysing the time period of the peak but considering the nature of the calls as well. For example, queries spiking...
We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it.Ok
