1. It's All About Quality Data
While organizations are under more pressure than ever to shave expenses there is no substitute for high quality data for your call center agents to call on. If you want to increase your ROI and shorten your cash flow cycle then don't skimp on your leads. In fact, today you may find the best solution is to generate your own warm leads to call on via social media instead of acquiring stale, overworked lists.
2. Listen To Your Call Center Agents
In order to succeed in business today you must be more demanding of your call center and your toll free services than ever before. Not only do you need to make sure that you have the best trained call center staff, you need to capitalize on every lead, be positioned to provide an elite level of customer service and minimize your expenses.
Call centers are a critical part of doing business in many industries and are core to the success of entire operations. How your toll free numbers are managed plays a big part in the success of your enterprise. So are yours being handled correctly?
Whether you are using toll free numbers acquired through your call center or you are forwarding existing numbers, there is a lot more to good management than just how pretty is the voice that answers. Don’t worry, you do not have to be a tech genius who knows exactly how every cable and call is connected between your customers, your call center, and your main office. However, you should be aware of what makes for superior management for your toll free numbers and what can jeopardize it. The main difference is that since the FCC has enabled TFN portability and Independent Resporgs have been established, businesses now have an alternative to the old phone-carrier affiliated RespOrgs that have for so long notoriously been riddled with conflicts of interest and substandard service. In contrast, Independent RespOrgs provide truly independent management and are not only free to be able to act in your best interests, but also provide the power of multi-carrier arrangements for the smoothest and best quality toll free service.
When analyzing the management of your toll free numbers for your call center, you must also look at the coverage they provide you and how they are set up to handle issues that may arise. Does your call center provide 24/7 service for your customers and prospects? What if there are technical issues or a natural disaster wherever your call center is located? Do they have a plan in place, such as your numbers being forwarded to a back up call center?
Those companies harnessing the power of Independent RespOrgs will have the latest and best routing capabilities for their toll free numbers at their fingertips. These capabilities include time-of-day routing - for sending your toll free calls to an alternate location at different times of the day where they can be serviced - as well as disaster routing. Emergency and disaster routing options can be set in place so that as soon as an issue arises, your calls are routed to an alternate destination so you do not have to suffer loss of production and business.
Image Credit: © Mikhail Lukyanov | Dreamstime.com
No longer is it good enough just to get a return on your direct marketing. To survive in this economy, you must maximize marketing ROI. That means not only ensuring advertising effectiveness in terms of response rates, but also in terms of closing ratios and how you handle those customers once they make the effort to contact you.
Vanity numbers are far more than just another business phone line. Numerous possibilities exist for how vanity numbers can help you to close deals in a tangible way. First, compared to using regular business phone lines and local numbers, vanity numbers have been proven dramatically to increase advertising effectiveness and response rates. With a well chosen toll free number or batch of numbers, you can expect to see a significantly higher response rate to your marketing. Clearly, every campaign is different and may make different vanity numbers desirable; however, on average most businesses see at least a 14% rise in customers contacting them as a result of using vanity numbers.
Even if you are able to drive a large volume of calls into your call center, that volume does not always convert into a lot of sales. The result equates to throwing your money down the drain or even worse, mailing a check to your competitors, because that is where your lost customers are going. The main reasons why customers fall out of your business cycle are either 1) your marketing was not on target and well tested or 2) your prospects do not have the confidence in your company they need to make the commitment. Using toll free and vanity numbers, however, can create huge improvements in your closing ratios.
Business continuity is a factor many small, medium, and even large businesses often greatly overlook to their detriment. Many entrepreneurs and managers are so wrapped up in just getting a product or venture off the ground in hopes they can make it through the first crucial years that they give little thought to protecting all their revenue and hard work. Sure some have business insurance, but when was the last time you had an insurance policy that really made up for your losses? A business is not like a car or a home. You may be able to replace your office, but what about all the downtime during an emergency? Any period of time when a company is out of action, especially its phone lines, it means not only wasted advertising dollars, but lost revenues, and even worse, the loss of hard earned market share. Fortunately, toll free numbers can ensure you business continuity in almost any man-made or natural disaster situation.
