The holiday season is nearing, and with in-store shopping limited this year due to COVID-19, you can expect e-commerce transactions to soar.
With more digital transactions comes more customer service interactions. We know that at least 40% of customers prefer to call a business regarding their orders, which means you’ll need to be prepared for an influx of incoming calls.
How prepared is your business to handle these calls? How many customer service reps are on-hand to handle complaints or mishaps? If your business phone service is an afterthought, you could run the risk of hurting your customer experience.
In this article, I’ll discuss three ways VoIP, short for Voice Over Internet Protocol, can improve your customer service over the phone this holiday season.
1. More calls directed to the right teams
When a customer calls your business, the last thing they want is to be stuck on hold or bounced around to the wrong departments. This is a surefire way to upset a customer.
With a VoIP phone system, more customers will be directed to the right teams in a more timely manner. One of the most popular, user-friendly ways is through something called an auto-attendant.
This feature route calls to specific departments when a customer interacts with their dial pad. For example, if you’ve ever heard “press 1 for sales, press 2 for support,” and so on, you’ve used an auto-attendant. Below is what an auto-attendant may look like on the backend of a call center:
Auto attendants serve a dual purpose. First, they exist for customers to be routed quickly and efficiently. Second, they exist to reduce the workload for your customer service teams. With an auto-attendant, your reps can focus more of their time resolving customer issues rather than routing calls.
2. Inbound caller information ahead of time
Another way VoIP can equip your customer service team for success this holiday season is by providing inbound caller information ahead of time.
An advanced feature referred to as screen pop will display information like account numbers, purchase history, helpdesk tickets, customer satisfaction, and more. This is made possible by integrating VoIP with your CRM software.
A feature like screen pop comes in handy on just about any customer call, especially calls with lots of logged activity.
For example, imagine a customer calls your business regarding the status of their online order. With screen pop, you can already know what they ordered, when they ordered it, and whether or not they’ve spoken with another rep on your team – all before picking up the call. Additionally, you’ll be able to see whether their recent call experiences were negative, positive, or neutral. This is called sentiment.
Screen pop also improves the customer experience because a rep will spend less time gathering information that already exists in your CRM and more time resolving issues. In contact centers, call efficiency is everything.
3. Improved customer service with call recordings
A third way VoIP can bolster your customer service in the coming months is through its call recording feature. One of the main benefits of call recording is for understanding common customer pain points.
For example, are your reps continually running into calls with common complaints about a product? With call recording, you can loop back around and identify these patterns. A customer experience manager can then take this feedback to the team.
Another benefit of call recording is for quality assurance. If you’ve been on a call with customer service or support teams, you’ve likely heard something along the lines of “this call may be monitored for quality assurance.” Basically, that call is being recorded so managers can help their reps with their scripts. Call recording is a great way to tweak and improve how your reps interact with customers.
A holiday season like no other
Digital transactions are expected to surge this holiday season. You’ve made sure you have systems in place to fill orders and ship them quickly, but how prepared are you to handle customer service inquiries?
You should not only make sure your email and web support portals are operational, but your business phone system as well. With VoIP, you’ll be able to resolve customer inquiries faster and more efficiently, leading to customers that’ll be happy to give you return business.
