Have you ever considered how important a role a business phone system plays in creating a good relationships with customers? Much has been written recently advocating treating a business to business relationship in the same way that you would treat a personal one. The thinking behind this is fairly simple; we’re increasingly happy to do business with people who strike up a rapport and those who leave a good impression on us. We’re proud to have been a finalist in the National Business Awards in 2013 in the Customer Focus & Service category and one of the reasons why we were a finalist was due to how we use our business phone system.
How does a business phone system help?
Telephone Systems have subtly come a long way in the last few years. Admittedly, the box that sits on your desk hasn’t changed other than in design, but the features that now sit behind it could make a big difference to how you do business. Let’s take a look at a couple of examples:
Who is calling me?
You’ve probably heard of number display, and if you’re particularly well organised you may even have your customer’s numbers saved on your system so that the company name appears when they ring in, but there’s more that can be done. Our Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) takes information gathering to new levels, with Google integration showing you far greater details about who is calling you, such as their Google+ profile and a map of their location.
What did we discuss last time?
Once you know who’s calling, let’s take it a stage further; CTI allows you to tie a phone number to a customer record in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. This means that when a customer calls, you will immediately see their records, allowing you to see what was discussed on their last call and who had that conversation.
Who do they need to speak to and are they available?
People want to deal with people, so whilst on-hold marketing can psychologically reduce the length of time it feels they are waiting, the ideal is to transfer directly to another person. CTI makes this a reality using the “presence” feature. You have full visibility of your colleagues and peers, so you can find out if they are available for the call and transfer the caller. Alternatively, if they are busy on a call, you can message them to make them aware of who is calling and what they would like you to do.