Month: January 2021

The business world is moving towards self-service more and more every day and interactive
voice response (IVR) is an essential tool for it. IVR uses technologies such as touch-tone or
speech recognition to identify and route callers to the most skilled agents. That way, IVR
delivers greater efficiency on both sides. As it’s been on the market for a while now, it has
demonstrated numerous benefits which made it a vital tool for contact center customer
experience. We bring you five key benefits of the IVR and explain why you should consider
to implement it in your business.

Advanced features provide richer experiences

IVR systems have numerous rich features that improve the self-service experience. Probably
one of the most effective features is allowing customers to tap their way through visual
menus and reach agency very quickly. IVR technology provides customers with a possibility
to get into an agent queue and it supports text-to-speech in multiple languages on inbound
and outbound sides. With IVR, customers can truly have a much more fulfilled experience as
they enjoy more features that are suited to fit their needs.

Time-saving

There is probably nothing more frustrating than wasting your time listening to long menu
options. Luckily, with IVR, customers can easily skip the options they don’t need and,
therefore, save time. Consequently, the number of dropped calls also decreases as
customers can choose to be called back when their wait time is longer than they’ve
expected. Not to mention that the feature of being routed to an agent with adequate skills
helps customers get the information they need without having to go from one agent to
another.

Improving mobile customer experience

In today’s world, we all own a smartphone. Its usage is constantly growing as people prefer
mobile experience over desktop when searching the Internet or even doing business. As a
result of that, many companies now offer mobile-optimized customer service to increase the
satisfaction of their customers. For those customers who are always on the go, IVR is an
ideal technology as it allows them to reach out for support even when in-store. That’s why
IVR plays a key part in improving sales results. After all, customers will more likely purchase
if their questions are answered efficiently.
Enhancing agent’s performance
As IVR technology is truly efficient, it enhances the service experience for both customer’s
and agent’s sides. Each time a customer is routed to the most skilled agent for his inquiry,
the level of productivity increases. That helps agents to resolve cases more quickly and
provide their customers with the assistance they need at the moment. Also, when agents are
matched to the roles that fit their skills, they will be more confident and their results will be
much better than before.

Reducing costs

Of course, we can’t talk about the benefits of IVR technology without mentioning one of the
most important ones – cost effectiveness. Call centers will reduce cost when they implement
this system as customers will make fewer calls, so the agents will not have to spend so
much time on the expensive voice channel. Also, when compared to traditional IVR, visual
IVR cost less to deploy which provides customers automatically with the information they
need and eliminates the need for additional agent training.
Great customer experience happens when both sides have the tool that enables them to do
and give their best. At Telesero, we know how beneficial is an IVR system for companies so
we offer it as part of our services as well.

One of the worst scenarios a call center can face is the burnout of its agents. To prevent it
from happening as much as possible, you will need to understand what it is and how it
manifests. Burnout is a psychological syndrome that comes from chronic emotional, mental
or physical stress inside the call center. There are many of the symptoms of call center agent
burnout, but here are some of the most common ones:

● exhaustion
● forgetting things and having troubles concentrating
● apathy and disengagement
● interpersonal effectiveness decrease
● a negative and cynical attitude
● drop in productivity

To prevent these situations from happening, call center management should have a deeper
understanding of burnouts and an effective strategy for handling it. By reducing the number
of call center agent burnouts, you will have a much healthier work environment which leads
to better productivity and profitability. Moreover, reducing burnouts in your company will help
in cross-selling and up-selling your other products as well. So, what can you do to avoid a
call center agent burnout? We bring you some of the most efficient ways to ensure you
agents are satisfied and motivated while working.

Finding the right people

Finding the right people is essential if you wish to reduce burnouts. Hiring people who might
not be the best fit for this job can lead to frustration and too much stress for both sides. A
company should hire agents who manage to deliver results easily even if there are
insufficient resources at the time. Such agents will not only provide you with the results you
need but also be satisfied and motivated to do their job. Also, communication skills are a
must in this field as agents are having intense voice-to-voice interaction with your customers.
Think of hiring as your first step in building the right team of people and preventing burnouts
from happening.

Improving the call quality

Sometimes, managers will be focused more on cost per call and even penalize their agents
for not completing the customer call soon enough which leads to high level of stress and
frustration in your agents. Burnout almost always happens in situations where agents feel as
if they failed to deliver the service to their customers properly. When they feel they are
unable to scale up their operational efficiency is where the burnout symptoms will become
visible. That’s why managers should ensure their agents have enough time to solve an issue
the customer is facing in the first call and not be focused on how much time it will take. This
will reduce the number of repeat calls and increase customer satisfaction.

Empower teamwork

Encouraging effective collaboration within your teams is vital when talking about reducing
the number of call center agent burnouts. To do it right, you can implement some of the
efficient tools such as call conferencing, call barging/whispering/transferring to ensure
teamwork. Having the ability to work together to solve a certain problem really brings out
team spirit in agents. They start to feel like they are part of the community and they are
being heard and seen. After all, the first reason why people are feeling frustrated over
something is because of the lack of connection to something or someone. If your agents
work in teams, it will improve their morale and soon you will notice the improvement in their
performance and productivity.

Conclusion

To really avoid burnouts, you will need to be focused on your agents. Letting them know they
are appreciated will encourage them to talk to you if they are facing some issues at work.
Investing in your agents is a long-term process but it’s extremely beneficial for the company.
Nobody denies the fact that being a call center agent is stressful but how your agents and
you as their manager deal with it is what will determine the outcome of it.

Telemarketing is still one of the most effective strategies when growing your business.
Building a quality telemarketing strategy that is focused on bringing value to your existing
and potential clients is the only way to create opportunities for growth. So, how can you
boost sales with telemarketing? In this article, we bring you top tips for effective
telemarketing which will bring you the results you need.

Planning

Before you even start with telemarketing, you should know what your objective is. It can be
anything from collecting e-mail addresses to gathering specific information, but you should
be aware of it before you start working on your telemarketing strategy. Some information will
be given to you easily from the first point of contact, but for others, you will need to have a
more convincing way of interacting.

Script

When you determine what the objective of your telemarketing strategy is, you should start
crafting your script. The script should be formed so it fits your objective. For instance, if your
objective is to get specific e-mail addresses, your script should be built around that
information. Think of it as your guide that helps you conduct the first part of the call. You
don’t have to follow it from word to word, but include important elements of it so you achieve
your objective easier. If you think that some words sound unnatural to you, find the ones that
have the same meaning but will come more naturally to you. Your customers will feel if you
don’t feel comfortable with what you are saying and you will lose their trust.

Bringing your personality

Mastering the given script actually means to start sounding natural instead of like a machine.
Your customers want to talk to a real person. That also implies they don’t want to talk to
somebody who is strictly focused on selling. Of course, you have your goals to meet but
shortcuts will not get you anywhere. Instead, talk to them as if you would be talking to them if
they entered your store. Take interest in what they need, ask them if they have some
concerns and let them feel their opinion truly matters to you. How you talk to them will have
a huge impact on the outcome of that phone call. Try to speak clearly so your customers
don’t get irritated if they don’t understand why you’re calling them. And always be honest
with them. Sugarcoating will only lead to frustration which will hurt your business in the end.

Personalize your calls

As you start adding your own touch to the conversations, you should find a way to
personalize it for each of your customers. After all, different people ask different questions as
they have different needs. You can’t expect to follow the script with each conversation. After
the introduction part, the conversation will get real. You will need to truly understand the
person you are talking to in order to achieve your goals. Don’t hesitate from asking questions
if you don’t know why they are asking a certain question or if you want to get more
information. Showing you’re interested in them is when the effective telemarketing starts.

Conclusion

As it is with everything, practice makes perfect. It takes time to get comfortable with
telemarketing and each script you get. Being persistent is what will get the job done. Just
because somebody said ‘no’ to you, doesn’t mean that the next person will do the same. In
the end, don’t take it personally. If somebody is not interested, that only means that it’s not
the right product for that person but, luckily, you have so many others to contact next.