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Effective Inbound Call Strategy: The Ultimate Guide for 2022
Learn more about establishing the most effective inbound call strategy in 2022 from our comprehensive guide.
Alex Husar
Reading time: 6 minutes
As old-fashioned as it may seem, inbound calls remain a significant part of any customer-oriented business operation. That’s why it’s critical to approach the matter of an inbound calls strategy with due diligence.
Inbound calls are a crucial component of contact centers. At the same time, many companies take advantage of inbound calls as a sales tool. Most businesses put a phone number on their websites so that clients can call with inquiries or concerns. These companies either have on-site call centers or customer support teams that receive calls remotely.
When the call starts, a company representative attempts to fix the problem or answer the caller’s inquiries during the initial conversation. If that isn’t possible, the representative can contact the client again by phone or email. This way, the agent can lay down the parameters for future communication and keep working on the matter until it’s settled.
In this article, you’ll find the instructions on establishing an effective inbound call strategy according to your business type, goals, and resources.
There are several points to consider while drawing up an inbound call strategy:
- An estimated number of calls per day;
- Most common reasons for calls;
- Availability of other communication channels;
- The convenience of the interface on your website
- Equipment and tools available to the company’s representatives;
- Goals you want to achieve through inbound calls.
Contents
Analyze your inbound call metrics
Analyze how many calls your company receives every day and how much time, on average, it takes to process one call.
Apart from that, you need to know how many calls are required to solve one issue and how long the customers have to stay on hold before asking their questions. These statistics will help you understand whether your customer support team has enough members to provide the best customer experience.
Try to establish a link between changes to your website/platform or other events and an increase or decrease in the number of calls. It will allow you to anticipate and control the changes in the workload in the future. Make sure you’ve processed all the previous mistakes, and they won’t occur again.
Think about how your call center will develop as the company grows. Create a strategy for dealing with more calls as you get more clients. Additionally, it would help if you plan the strategy for handling emergencies that can potentially impact the company. It is worth considering these elements in advance to assist your call center in managing potential difficulties and maintaining stability over time.
Have you done everything to reduce call volumes?
Improved website navigation can significantly reduce the number of inquiries. It’s particularly relevant for online stores, where the proper UX/UI design and e-commerce site search solutions can provide a better customer experience and settle many questions and concerns.
For instance, adding an in-store availability checker to a website or app allows you to cut off a certain amount of inbound calls. However, poor synchronization of the data on the website with physical stock can, on the contrary, stimulate calls of irritated customers. To provide an excellent customer experience, make sure the website shows accurate information on the availability of the goods.
Don’t hesitate to exploit the alternative channels for processing inquiries. You may offer help through social media or live chat and provide an opportunity to send a voice message. Remember that every phone call normally costs a business between $9 and $15.
Make sure your customer support team uses phone calls to communicate with the most valuable customers by adapting your communication channels to the various customer lifecycle stages. To do well out of the calls and make every voice interaction lucrative for you, consider in what cases phoning would be most beneficial for the clients and profitable for you. Perhaps, you’ll be able to reduce the call flow to just a couple a day.
Provide the proper equipment
Based on the caller’s interests or requirements, think about employing a cloud-hosted communications solution to direct the calls to the appropriate parties. Don’t underestimate modern solutions while deciding on the equipment for your call center.
After making conclusions from the metrics analyzed, the next step is to ensure a qualified person is available to answer the phone on your side.
Don’t allow the phone to go to voicemail or an administrative assistant; you need to get the correct person to respond straight away.
Cloud-hosted communications solutions
Reps’ performances may suffer from switching between several apps and coping with clumsy hardware.
The productivity of contact centers, however, changes significantly with current technologies. Cloud-based VoIP solutions equip workers with cutting-edge features like skills-based routing, call monitoring, call forwarding, and autodialers to deliver the best possible service.
On-call systems
You’ll also need to spend money on the equipment your team will use. This includes headsets, PCs, laptops, and keyboards. Additionally, helpful software includes help desk applications that offer varied assistance functionalities.
Calling tools, for instance, may assist your staff in tracking and recording conversations, and a CRM can retrieve valuable client data to aid reps in enhancing the customer experience. While they may appear costly initially, incorporating them into your call center over time may allow it to grow alongside your business.
Call center software with a built-in CRM
Call center operators need access to correct caller data to communicate with callers, resolve customer concerns, or up- and cross-sell. Among the tools for providing operators with specific caller information are phone number validators and contact center software with a built-in CRM and Enhanced Caller ID (i.e., name, phone number, picture, company, and position).
If the caller has previously been in touch with the business, the agent will also have real-time access to their call history, recordings, and more. With comprehensive caller data readily available in real-time, agents will always be aware of who is calling. They may modify their approach following the caller’s needs to improve the customer experience.
Virtual agents and Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
When representatives are unavailable after hours or during high inbound traffic periods, a virtual agent is the best option for resolving frequent problems and automating regular operations. This frees up agents so they can concentrate on more complicated issues.
A phone system feature known as Interactive Voice Response (IVR) enables consumers or staff members to communicate with a computer system using voice or touch-tone dialing. Without going through a human operator and taking up their and your rep’s time, an automated telephone system may engage in primary exchanges with clients via interactive voice response.
The call center’s ability to assist consumers at any time will be facilitated by the use of virtual agents and IVR, which will also increase call center productivity.
Real-time metrics
Inbound call centers need real-time metrics to operate effectively. For agents to make better choices, a real-time agent dashboard will collect information on service level, average wait time (AWT), average handle time (AHT), and more.
Additionally, managers should have access to this data to make quick, strategic choices to enhance call center effectiveness and customer satisfaction.
Base the strategy on your goals
If your company uses unbound calls for conversions rather than customer problem solving, you’d better focus on the specifically tailored conversion rate improvement techniques.
It’s vital to establish the lead distribution rules. They ensure that the representative will have enough knowledge and experience to answer the leads’ queries. You can also introduce an appointment scheduling page on your website or utilize chatbots for scheduling calls.
Call-only ads activation allows users to call you directly from the advertisement by clicking on it. When creating a captivating calls-only ad, remember to write an effective advertisement. Emphasize the benefits for clients, their needs, your company’s data, customer satisfaction levels, or your distinctive value proposition.
Unfortunately, many businesses struggle to generate regular lead calls. There are several effective lead-generation hacks you can use to improve the situation.
Make the phone number on your website more vivid
Make sure the visitors don’t have to make too many clicks to get your phone number. The best option is to put it at the top of the main page.
Integrate a click-to-call widget
A digital consumer touchpoint can incorporate click-to-call technology, which is usually in the form of a widget.
A website visitor can easily connect with a rep via a phone call to clear any doubts they may have.
Improve the CTAs
It’s always hard to predict which call-to-action (CTA) will work the best. Don’t be skeptical about launching A/B testing to see which CTA resonates more with your audience.
During the experimental phase, you may play with the wording and design of a CTA button.
Conclusion
Regardless of your business type and size, it’s crucial to have an effective inbound call strategy if you want to stay among the leaders of the competition.
Modern equipment and other technical solutions allow you to build an inbound call strategy that will benefit your enterprise and clients. Use the advice above to embrace and strengthen it.
If you’re looking for an inbound call software, why not give Novocall a try today?
Alex Husar
Alex Husar, CTO at Onilab. Alex is an expert in full-stack development who shares his expertise and in-depth knowledge of modern technologies and Computer Software Engineering.
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