State Regulations and Maintaining Compliance
There are numerous extensive and constantly changing regulations and restrictions on the call center and telemarketing industries. These regulations come from bodies like the federal government, watchdog organizations, and state governments. State regulations, in particular, can be difficult to maintain compliance with because they can vary from state to state. However, one smart first step you can take is to have an idea of the types of regulations and restrictions states might have in place. One of the most important areas to be aware of when it comes to state regulations is the restrictions around days, times and holidays [...]
How The Blacklist Alliance Serves Call Center Clients
Any company that uses a call center as part of their business model inadvertently opens themselves up to predatory litigation under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA, with every call or text sent. Unfortunately, there are people whose primary goal is to run scams and schemes that will allow them to sue call center clients under the TCPA, which can earn them profits while financially crippling companies. And not only does this exist, but business is booming: Since 2010, TCPA lawsuits against call centers using automated dialing systems have increased a whopping 1,273%. But clients who use CallShaper’s cloud-based [...]
How To Ensure High-Quality Calls Every Time
Call center managers have a difficult job. They want to ensure that each agent on their team is performing up to quality standards, following the script correctly and maximizing every opportunity to make a sale or appease a customer. But there may be too many agents to monitor directly or supervisors and agents may even be in separate locations. That’s why CallShaper, the originator of a cutting-edge, web-based call center platform, incorporates features that help supervisors guarantee high-quality calls every time. Some of those features: Chat Features: Through the supervisor interface, managers have the option to start an instant message [...]
Explaining the Interactive Voice Responder for Inbound Call Centers
An important segment of call center business is inbound calls. Inbound call centers are vital for companies that run advertisements or promotions prompting potential customers to call for additional information or to receive a limited-time deal, as well as companies that maintain on-call customer service departments to respond to queries, complaints and requests. In both instances, a system must be in place that can efficiently direct incoming calls to the agent who can best assist them. With CallShaper, that system is the Interactive Voice Responder (IVR), which can be easily customized to the company’s exact needs and specifications. CallShaper’s unique [...]
Using Scorecards to Maintain Call Quality
A successful call center business must be able to ensure efficient, quality calls every single time a customer is on the phone. But this can be difficult to measure and maintain for large campaigns, especially when agents may not all be in one place. The solution: Features that allow managers and supervisors to immediately evaluate calls in both a qualitative and quantitative manner, such as the scorecards available with CallShaper. Scorecards give managers the opportunity to recognize errors being made by individual agents or patterns of mistakes occurring across an entire team. They provide managers a grounded basis for specific [...]
How Integration Options Can Improve Your Business
For any business, adopting new software or operating systems can be a scary experience. What if there’s a steep learning curve? What if the program doesn’t have the features you thought it had? What if it disrupts your productivity and workflow? One of the features that has earned CallShaper its sterling reputation, is the ease with which it integrates into existing programs and processes, to ensure that you don’t miss a beat when making the transition. What are these integration options? APIs that Integrate with Your CRM: CallShaper’s software is flexible. It offers many different integration options, including APIs (application [...]
How to Stay Sharp While Working from Home
As thousands of people have learned over the last few months, working from home is a vastly different experience from working in an office. There are new distractions, new routines and new schedules that can disrupt productivity, limit efficiency and sap brainpower. Here are four tips to help you stay on top of your game while working from home: Request A Demo
Three Ways to Use Old Commute Time
One perk of working from home: You suddenly have one, two, or even more hours suddenly free that would previously have been dedicated to your commute. There are many ways you could use this time: You could sleep in a little later or spend extra time with family, both of which would be perfectly acceptable and enjoyable uses. But your commute time has always been a very personal and individual time, so why not use it for something personal? Perhaps even something new? Here are three ways you could use your old commute time. 1. Learn a New Skill Have [...]
Explaining the 3% Abandonment Rate Rule and Why It’s Important
The goal of any company that utilizes a sales-focused call center is to establish direct, person-to-person connections with potential customers. For this reason, and especially when using an automated dialer, it is critical that there are no missed opportunities to establish these connections. One of the ways that CallShaper’s software is ensuring that none of these opportunities are missed is by employing the 3% abandonment rate rule. The 3% abandonment rate rule says that in a 30-day period, only 3% of outbound calls can be abandoned. CallShaper’s cutting edge dialing software is constantly at work sorting phone numbers and dialing, [...]
Breaking Down the Four Types of Dialers
For companies that rely on outbound call centers, maximizing the number of calls placed and the quality of those calls is crucial to the success of the campaign. Having different dialing options available can help agents dramatically increase the number of live connections they make on a daily basis, which can make or break a campaign. What are some of these dialing methods? Manual: Manual dialing is used when a company wants the call center agents to physically dial phone numbers. This method also helps campaigns comply with TCPA guidelines for dialing wireless numbers for which express written consent has [...]
How to Make Lead Management Easy and Painless
Leads are the lifeblood of any telemarketing campaign—without them, the campaign stalls and the client suffers. And almost as crucial as possession of quality leads is an efficient system through which to organize, process and rate them. Here are some of the lead management strategies that can help call center clients easily and effectively manage leads: Bulk File Uploading: Depending on the size of a campaign, manually inputting leads into a dialer can be a literally never-ending task. What’s more, uploading files that are not in the proper format and need to be adjusted can cost agents valuable time. Importing [...]
Coronavirus in the Office: FAQs Answered
If your team or some members of your team are still working from the office, we rounded up some of the most frequently asked questions pertaining to COVID-19 and office workers. Read on to find out how to maximize your safety in the workplace. How is COVID-19 spread? COVID-19 is spread from person to person through respiratory droplets when an infected person coughs or sneezes. These droplets either land directly in the noses or mouths of people nearby, or may be inhaled from the air by people who are within about six feet of the infected person. This [...]
Call Center Return to Office Checklist
As state governments begin to talk about businesses returning to work, you need to start planning on what changes will have to take place in your workplace to ensure the safety of your employees in their work environment. Plan to supply your employees with masks and gloves. Plan to allow the recommended six feet between employees or look at increasing barriers or partitions between employees. Plan for intense nightly cleaning and intermittent cleaning of common areas throughout the day. Set things up so there is not shared equipment, or if there is sharing required, make sure equipment is cleaned thoroughly [...]
Cloud-Based Dialer Checklist
If you are moving from a premise-based system to a cloud-based system, you may not know all of the features to look for. Premise based systems tend to be more antiquated and less flexible. Cloud based systems open a whole new world of features. Make sure you know what to ask for when you are evaluating a new dialing system. Online scripting Is there online scripting? Is that included in the price or does it cost extra? Can it do complex branching with built in logic? Does it allow for the reps to do data capture? Can the data capture [...]
How to Choose the Right Call Center Software for Your Growing Business
Congratulations! You’ve started a business and determined that you need to utilize a call center. Perhaps you’re going to use lead lists to conduct outbound sales calls, use print, TV, or radio advertisements to drive inbound calls, or set up an inbound call center to field customer service calls. Regardless, there are two key factors to consider when selecting the right software for your growing business. Ease of Use Especially if this is your first experience utilizing a call center, it is critical that the software you choose has an intuitive, easy-to-use interface. Your start-up likely doesn’t have a large [...]