Are Phone Calls Still Important in the Business World?
Despite all of marketing’s digital advancements over the last years,call leads have never been more important than they are today. Why is it so? After so much online engagement, and talking to a genuine person who can assist us, we develop an almost special attitude toward ourselves. The focus on improving customer engagement will attract even more customers. And improving interaction with them will strengthen your relationship.
What do the statistics say?
Despite multiple forecasts that shortly more and more customer interactions will be performed without the involvement of a person, customers are still not ready to do without operators at the moment. This is evidenced by the results of surveys conducted by the research company Clutch.
Customers ask questions about existing products, and technical support, as well as for the resolution of disputes and complaints. Using the voice communication channel, customers expect to receive prompt and high-quality advice. So, the most important factors in the consultation process for them are the ability to resolve the issue at the first request, the speed of the operator’s response, and his competence.
Some ideas on how phone calls can help you in your business
1. Improving the quality of leads
No matter how the ways of communicating with customers change with the advent of SMS and digital channels, voice calling is a priority sales method for most companies. So, you can give the first touch to the voice robot, which collects consent for further communication with the operator. It should be noted that the following conversation also takes place over the phone using voice.
such a solution allows you not to inflate the staff of operators, and secondly, it saves those same operators from emotional burnout – they communicate only with interested customers.
2. Quick response
Did you have to submit a form or send an email to the company just to hear nothing back? There is no digital absence or disconnect when making a phone call. If your sales force is adequately staffed, each call is handled, and clients know they can expect a response, which increases the likelihood of a sale. Take care of the call queue system which will ensure that customers are waiting in line and are not disconnected.
3. Enhancing advertisement effectiveness
Even if potential buyers are unwilling to contact, experience has shown that adding a phone number makes internet advertising more appealing. By including a distinctive number in your marketing materials, you may improve the number of clicks at the same time and provide customers with another means to reach your organization.
4. Increasing attendance with the help of voice mailings
As a rule, less than half of the registered audience reaches offline events. The fact is that customers often just forget about the upcoming event. A standard email newsletter is only worth the employee’s time spent. Such a notification can be easily missed, and the text is unlikely to attract much attention.
If the contact base exceeds 500 people, live operators will not be able to call each guest, put down the status of the call, and not plant the vocal cords by the end of the day. a robot that knows neither fatigue nor resentment at abandoned tubes and refusals to communicate. Upon successful dialing, the robot announces the date, time, and place of the event, and also offers a discount for an invited friend. The client can “voice” his choice using the keys.
5. Branding
If you use a customized phone number that contains your company name or a word linked to your business, your phone number can be used to brand your firm. You should also provide a means for customers to contact you. With minimal advertising space, whether in the form of column inches or the number of words in a search ad, having a phone number that also serves as a brand id enhances your marketing budget.
6. Personal contact
Even your most charming salesperson will struggle to engage with customers via digital communication methods. Email and instant messaging lack intimacy and create a lot of possibilities for misinterpretation. Phone calls, as well as face-to-face interactions, are the most successful techniques to create mutual understanding and trust with clients and make them feel like you worry about your and their business.
Which client indicators are worth your attention
Another argument in favor of voice technologies arises when answering the main issue of how to determine the real need for the tools we talked about above and the mood of the clients themselves. Voice technologies help to work on errors, but how exactly? To answer this question, comprehensive data collection and analysis are required.
Data collection for analysis is classically carried out in two ways: with the help of marketing – by stimulating customers to leave feedback with bonuses, unique offers, and discounts. And technological tools and instruments are the same voice robots, speech analytics, and machine learning.
Each company chooses the indicators that will form the basis for measuring customer loyalty and happiness. three classic metrics constantly replace each other at the top of recommendations and are easy to remove in the process of communication with customers.
1. NPS
NPS is an index of consumer loyalty of customers to a company or brand, and willingness to recommend it. This indicator tells the company with what probability the product or the company itself will be recommended to relatives, colleagues, and friends. A kind of word-of-mouth check.
This indicator reflects the relationship between the company and customers, however, it will only slightly lift the veil of secrecy of customer service indicators. You are not asking a question about satisfaction with the work of operators but about the product in general. Such surveys can be conducted both with the help of a robot assistant, asking questions in advance, and with the help of a live operator, immediately clarifying the reasons for low ratings.
2. CSAT
CSAT is an indicator of the degree of customer satisfaction with the interaction with the company. Probably this is the most basic indicator of client service, especially if you need to find out how much, for example, your audience liked the new product. it is enough to simply ask to evaluate a particular product or event.
For example, “Please rate the work of the support service”, giving the client three possible answers: excellent, normal, or bad. Such questions are most effective to conduct immediately after the dialogue with the operator, but it is better to forward this routine task to the robot by setting up a simple script.
3. CES
CES is an indicator of the efforts that the client has made to solve his issue. The essence of this metric lies on the surface: the more effort your service or product requires from the customer, the less likely they are to make a repeat purchase.
Customers who rated the interaction with the product as “with considerable effort” may have negative feedback about the company as a whole. After the conversation with the client, ask him short questions: “Was it easy for you to find a solution to your issue? Are you happy with it?”. By narrowing the answer options to two (yes or no), you will save the client from confusion, and yourself from the difficulties of text recognition.
Voice communications allow you to expand business opportunities, save a significant part of the budget and increase loyalty. despite all the advantages, you should not limit yourself to one communication channel. The development of new sites will give your customers a lot of entry points.
