5 Cloud Telephony Features to Skyrocket Customer Callbacks
5 min
One of the most frustrating things to experience as a customer reaching out to a business is being placed on hold, finally getting to speak to someone who can’t help you, then passed around to different people that can’t solve your issue. 92% of consumers, when surveyed, say they have been frustrated when trying to contact a business over the phone. Whether it be for sales or customer service or support, having a voice communication service to manage valuable existing or prospective customers can maintain or build their satisfaction with your business.
If you have decided to integrate your business telephony with Salesforce, here we’ll share 5 key features that can help your customer callbacks flourish.
1. Smart Routing: Salesforce-powered Call Routing
Customers aren’t always perfect in their ability to interact with an automated system which can lead to a high transfer rate for a call center. Smart routing is a feature that combines the benefits of an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system with Salesforce data to route callers to the best agent available for them. Smart routing detects a caller's incoming number, matches it with existing Salesforce data, such as Account, Contact, Case, Lead, or Opportunity owners, all without any caller input. This removes the obstacle of customer or agent error and leaves the routing up to a series of rules and priorities.
For instance, a customer may call into a technical support line and the representative may leave their case open for further research into the issue. A rule can be set up for Smart Routing this customer directly to that case owner if they are available the next time they call in to avoid the unnecessary hassle of being placed into a general queue and catching another representative up to speed on the case. Rules can also be set up with a priority list in mind. If a customer has multiple cases or opportunities open, the smart routing can prioritize the most recently modified case’s or opportunity’s owner. Setting up this priority rule is as simple as moving the rule up or down in order of entry into the system.
This feature can save countless hours of agent productivity time, Average Handle Time (AHT), one of the most critical key performance indicators for call centers, call transfers and customer frustration. Having the guarantee that your caller gets routed to the most effective available agent at the point of contact ensures that they will be provided the most efficient assistance possible.
2. Voicemail drop
In marketing and sales, time is one of your most important assets and must be managed properly to maximize the amount spent on calls with prospects. A majority of business calls, especially for solicitation, go to voicemail.
A simple way to boost agent performance can be to pre-record a specific message to deliver to a customer’s voicemail to allow the agent more time to focus on live connections. Voicemail dropping is simple, efficient and effective. It eliminates the time spent listening to dial tones, voicemail greetings, and individually recording voice messages. This can add up to dozens or hundreds of hours per year, depending on how often your agents spend leaving voicemails. It is also better for connecting with prospects and customers. Consumers who are inclined to ignore phone calls are far less likely to delete a voicemail message without at least listening to it first.
Messages can also be logged and reports can be generated to understand more indicators in sales performance or callback rates. Your company can use this data to gain insight into what messages work best, and which messages can be looked further into. With this feature, message template analytics can be compared to figure out their effectiveness and callback rates. This activity can also be logged, checked and referenced in your Salesforce CRM to improve workflow productivity.
3. One-on-One SMS
According to consumer surveys, Americans pick up less than half of the calls they receive. Whether it’s following up with a customer, confirming an appointment, or reaching out to prospects, one-on-one SMS messaging can help in saving time and resources. Consumers are far more likely to respond to a text message than a direct call or email, and the response time is far quicker than a call back. Texting also reduces costs of support calls by conveying information in a referenceable format.
Texting also contributes to customer satisfaction due to their message being able to be dealt with asynchronously. They can send or receive a text message, and respond to it at their discretion. This avoids the frustrating factor of being placed on hold, or having to explain a situation to multiple agents or representatives.
Scheduling automated texts to be sent at key moments during a business hour can be very beneficial to sales conversions. You can cater to your client’s needs by delivering a personalized text message for each individual client according to their time zone. Text message templates can be used to compare varying campaign analytics so that you know what messages are successfully engaging prospects and what can be improved.
4. Local Presence Dialing
In the mere seconds that a phone rings, a decision must be made whether or not to pick it up. This is a very subtle decision, but a choice nonetheless. One of the factors that can contribute to an answered call versus an ignored call is if the incoming caller number reflects the same area code as the receiver. People generally tend to ignore phone calls from area codes that they do not recognize, less so for out-of-state numbers, and more so for toll free numbers.
Local presence dialing allows a sales rep to match their outgoing phone number to the area code of a prospect. For instance, a sales call from New York to a prospect in Chicago can be assigned an Illinois phone number. The prospect will be much more likely to answer, and can even call back the number to get routed directly to the agent who made the call.
Local Presence Dialing works because of perspective. A number with a recognizable area code might just be a friend who changed their number. It could be a personal doctor’s office, a local auto mechanic, or an otherwise important call. It might seem deceptive, to mask one’s area code, but for the purposes of cold calling or getting in contact with a customer that might be screening your calls, it can be the one step to getting a foot in the door with your prospect.
One thing to understand about Local Presence dialing is that it is similar to number spoofing. Number spoofing is making a call from a number that one does not own, that already exists and belongs to another person or business. Number spoofing is illegal and shows up on most smartphones as ‘Scam Likely’ or ‘Telemarketer’ warnings. This form of Local Presence is far more likely to have your call ignored than answered.
In Salesforce, Sales Dialer users can enable the Local Presence feature from the Setup Page. After selecting ‘Enable’ on the Local Presence menu, a default number to return calls should be entered so that any callbacks on the local presence number will route back to your business, even if the initial caller number is no longer available. It should be noted that Local Presence within Salesforce is only intended for use by users located within the United States to dial only US numbers.
5. CRM Integration
Your CRM platform consists of the collection of hardware and software that help to manage your business’s customer data. This data includes customer demographics, interactions between emails, calls and text campaigns, purchase histories, and touchpoints from various systems, software and applications. Using this data thoughtfully can benefit both the company and the customer’s experience. In order to use this data, companies must be able to organize, categorize and analyze this data to gather insight, and act upon it.
CRM integration connects each of your company’s applications with your CRM platform so that data can be shared between them. The purpose of CRM integration is to holistically align your customer data with your business software so that you can formulate an accurate picture of your business’s relation with your customer engagement. With data able to be shared freely between systems, intercommunication between departments can be more complete and strategies can be formulated more accurately. Marketing data can be made available to sales representatives, and sales information, in turn, can be made accessible to customer service.
Customers will experience a rich and whole interaction with the company, instead of individual departments. With this, your company can free up resources being spent on data integration and communication in order to better develop their products and processes. Time can be spent managing other projects, or leading campaigns to serve their customers. Developing APIs to manage applications and hardware from many different providers is the best way to handle CRM integration and will lead to increased productivity from your departments and satisfaction from your customers.
Integrate Business Telephony with PhoneIQ
If your business relies on telephony systems, the best thing you can do is integrate your telephony system with a CRM. PhoneIQ offers a diverse suite of features that make operating an inbound or outbound call center far more efficient, easy, and effective! To learn more about our product, consider signing up for a free trial today.
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