Common Features of Inbound Call Center Solutions
If you’re running an inbound call center, you have many options for the software solution you choose to help keep things going. That said, there are a few key features that the best call center solutions should offer. Here, we outline the most common ones to help you determine what tools you need in your ideal inbound call center software. Interactive Voice Responder (IVR): A high-quality, easily edited IVR should be the first thing you look for in an inbound call center solution. It will allow you to offer information and support 24/7, even if agents aren’t available when [...]
4 Most Common Customer Support Mistakes
For people working in an inbound call center, the customer always comes first. But no matter how much this adage is drilled into reps, there are still traps they can fall into that lead to frustrated and unhappy customers. Here, four of the most common mistakes customer support agents make that may require additional training or monitoring to improve the quality of support your call center is delivering. Not Actively Listening At the start of a customer service call, customers typically give a broad overview of their problem or the reason they are calling. While there’s a good [...]
How CallShaper Supports Sales-Focused Businesses
When we were founded in 2009, CallShaper was all about creating a cloud-based call center platform that optimized sales efficiency to increase your bottom line. Over the years, our platform has become more robust and the tools offered have expanded to support more types of businesses but our core offerings remain the same. Whether your company is focused in B2B or B2C sales, we have the tools and features that will help you rise above the competition. One of the most important parts of sales is connecting with as many potential customers as possible in the most efficient way [...]
Three Roles of Inbound Call Centers Besides Customer Service
When most people think of an inbound call center they think of customer service, or a number that a customer calls to resolve an issue they are dealing with related to a product or service the company offers. However, this is not the only role that an inbound call center can play for a business. Here, three other reasons you might need an inbound call center besides fielding customer service inquiries. Order and Claim Processing While it’s true that you can buy just about everything online these days, there are still exceptions to this rule. And in those [...]
How COVID-19 Has Impacted Call Center Agents
When the COVID-19 pandemic began over two years ago, no one really knew the extent to which it was going to impact the economy. Now that we’ve had time to see the impacts and begin to parse them, we have a better picture of what has changed and which of those changes are going to hold going forward—especially in the call center industry, where perhaps the largest effect has been on the call center agents themselves. At the start of the pandemic, almost all agents began working from home. This presented a massive challenge, even for those that [...]
3 Ways to Measure Your Call Center’s Success
There are numerous ways to determine how well the agents in your inbound call center are performing. Depending on the nature of your business, you may be able to measure how they are doing simply by looking at sales numbers. But if not, there are other metrics to consider that will illustrate whether or not you are meeting the needs of your customers. Here are three and what they can tell you about the performance of your call center. First Call Resolution First Call Resolution essentially means whether or not a caller is able to resolve their issue [...]
The Importance of Offering the Right Touch-points
When you’re setting up and structuring an inbound call center, it’s no longer enough to plug in the phones and wait for the customer calls to come in. These days, customers expect to have options when it comes to getting in touch with a company, such as the ability to reach out via email, online chat or social media in addition to over the phone. And while you may be quick to assume that the more touchpoints you offer the better, that’s not always the case. Instead of simply offering more touchpoints for customers, you should be focused on offering [...]
4 Surprising Factors That Could be Ruining Your Customer Experience
When you’re running an inbound call center, customer experience is the most important thing. By the time a customer makes the effort to place a call to your company they are either already a customer or have decided to become a customer, so you don’t want anything that happens over the course of the call to dissuade them or make them question their decision. That said, there are some factors apart from the actual conversation that happens between the agent and customer that could be detracting from or even ruining your customer’s experience. Here are four and how to [...]
Top Services Provided by Inbound Call Centers
Agents working at an inbound call center are in a unique position. No matter how well trained they are, they never know exactly what they will be dealing with until they answer the phone. After all, these agents and the issues they are handling are completely governed by the customer—who in most cases will also set the tone and tempo of the interaction, so agents need to be adaptable and flexible. That said, there are a few primary services that are typically provided by inbound call centers. Here’s a look at what some of those are and some of [...]
3 Tools Mortgage Companies Need in Call Center Software
With interest rates on the rise and fewer homes on the market, it is an incredibly tense moment for mortgage companies. A smaller pool of homebuyers means a more competitive market and requires more work on the part of lenders to stand out from the rest of the pack—homebuyers have lots of options and you want them to choose you. Today, a large portion of the mortgage-selling process takes place over the phone, and how that experience goes for the customer plays a big role in whether or not they decide to go with you for their loan. Here are [...]
Why CallShaper Is Best for Inbound Call Centers
While there are plenty of businesses that use call centers for reaching out to customers and potential customers directly, many are also fielding calls. Whether callers are looking for help with customer service, sales, appointment scheduling, product troubleshooting or something else, a dialer that helps your agents answer and address incoming calls efficiently and successfully is critical. Here are some of the ways CallShaper can help support your inbound call center. Easy-to-Edit IVR A perfectly calibrated interactive voice responder (IVR) is crucial to helping callers solve their problems quickly. With CallShaper, you have numerous options for how to [...]
Why Efficiency, Not Speed, Should Be Your Call Center’s Goal
If you want to build a successful outbound call center, your first thought may be that you need to prioritize speed. Making as many calls as quickly as possible and driving up the volume of possible connections is what will net you the most sales. However, this is not always the case. Instead of speed and maximizing volume, you should be focused on optimizing your efficiency. Here’s why. By definition, efficiency is a state in which you are achieving maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense. If you are going for speed, you may be putting in a [...]
How CallShaper Transforms to Fit Your Business
At one point or another, you’ve likely gotten the following advice (or some version of it): To succeed, you must do one thing really, really well. Being the best at one thing is much better than being mediocre at many things. And to an extent, this is very good advice. It encourages honing your skills and becoming an expert in your particular specific field, after which you may be able to use those skills to more easily (and more successfully) branch out from there. The evolution of CallShaper’s dialing software has followed such a trajectory since its founding in [...]
Is It Time to Add a Call Center to Your Growing Business?
Congratulations! The business you’ve started is growing rapidly. Perhaps you’ve hired more people or increased your advertising efforts. All in all, business is booming, and you’re starting to wonder if it may be time to add a call center to your business. Here are the questions you need to ask that will tell you whether or not you need a call center to continue growing and expanding. Are you struggling to keep up with customer inquiries? If you’re getting a backlog of calls and emails from existing customers about your products or a plethora of potential customers [...]
3 Ways to Increase Your Cold Calling Connection Rate
Cold calling is still a significant part of sales, especially in B2B markets. But if your reps are not well-trained and prepared, you may see the results of these efforts lagging. Here are three ways to increase your connection rates from cold calling. Review Your Calls When you’re just starting out with a new product or new sales strategy it may take some time for your team to get their legs under them. But as soon as you can, reviewing how calls go and their results can be incredibly helpful towards improving the outcomes. You will learn how your [...]