In an inbound call centre, customers expect a timely response. They expect to be taken care of. And, if they’re not, they’ll readily turn to social media to shout about the substandard service they received.
But it’s not enough to handle inbound calls appropriately. The same attention needs to be paid to the outbound calls your contact centre makes. An automated dialler isn’t just for huge outbound campaigns – it can help you deliver the best service, even in smaller volumes.
Read on to discover four ways an outbound dialler can make your inbound or blended contact centre more cost effective and efficient.
1. Schedule call backs and guarantee they happen
Scheduling and performing call backs is admin intensive. With manual notes, it’s easy to planned call backs to get lost. Even if you’re using reminders from a customer relationship management (CRM) application, agents still need to free themselves up and call back at the right time.
A hosted dialler can automate every aspect of the call back procedure:
- When an inbound call ends, the agent dispositions it as requiring a call back
- A calendar pops to the agent, where an appropriate date and time can be selected quickly and easily
- The dialler automatically makes the call at the correct time and passes it to an agent once it is connected
As a result, you can be sure every call back takes place as promised, while minimising the admin burden on your team.
2. Save time with click to dial
Your agents’ time needs to be spent where it brings value to the business – on calls, not admin. In many cases, it’s seemingly innocuous little tasks that end up wasting considerable amounts of time.
For every outbound call, an agent needs to find the number, enter it, and wait for the call to connect. Factoring in time for mistakes and dialling the wrong number, this is a surprisingly time-consuming process.
Click to dial makes it easy to call a number without the need for manual input. Instead, agents simply click the number from the CRM, ERP, or a web site.
In fact, Hostcomm’s hosted dialler includes an application programming interface (API), allowing you to integrate click to dial functionality with any application your agents use.
3. Automate web form call backs for your customers
Website call back features have become increasingly popular for contact centres, giving customers an alternative way to get in touch. Since these web forms sidestep the process of waiting in a queue, they give customers more flexibility.
But if the requested call backs are pulled from a server or email account manually, customers can be left waiting prolonged periods of time before they hear from an agent.
A hosted dialler can automate and control the process. For example, using the Hostcomm API, calls can instantly be added to the outbound dialler calling list, where a priority can be set to determine how soon the call needs to happen.
As a result, you can react faster to customer demands and demonstrate a proactive, responsive attitude.
4. Assess your performance with outbound surveys
There are several ways that a hosted dialler helps inbound contact centres deliver the very best service. But it doesn’t stop there. A dialler can also help you assess the quality of service you are delivering, and find new ways to improve your performance.
A telephone survey is an effective way of collecting customer feedback. With a hosted dialler, you have two options for conducting these surveys:
- Use an automated survey (with Interactive Voice Response, or IVR), without the need for any agent input
- Use agents to carry out the surveys, but take advantage of a dialler’s ability to maximise outbound productivity and eliminate downtime between calls
All the data you obtain can be saved to the same database, regardless of which method you use. And when it comes time to make sense of the results, you’ll find them in the same reports as your inbound calls.