We have officially reached a turning point in customer experience and the way that companies are interacting with their customers. In today’s digital age and the rapid digital transformation sweeping through every major business across the world, we are seeing that successful customer interactions are what sets companies ahead of their competition.
It has become inevitable. If a company approaches ambitious service level goals, backed by proper communication strategies and technologies, said company is destined to lap their competitors in the customer experience race.
One such technology that most have heard about, many have implemented and all are seeing the rapid benefits it has on their overall customer experience is, VoIP.
Yes, the infamous VoIP. From small businesses, to enterprises across the globe, major IT decision makers are selecting VoIP solutions and crediting their business phone service as the reason they’ve been able to improve customer acquisition, satisfaction and retention.
It’s widely known that VoIP touts unparalleled benefits including flexibility, mobility, improved collaboration and productivity as well as unlimited scalability. Yes, VoIP seems to touch every major business phone service benefit a company could dream of.
But, what most don’t realize is that the benefits of VoIP phone solutions aren’t just aimed at the businesses and their employees.
The benefits from VoIP solutions transcend to your customers, through more efficient, proactive and flexible customer service interactions.
So if you’re considering a transition from your traditional phone system to a VoIP solution, it’s important to understand that your transition means unparalleled value for your business as a whole, your employees and your customers.
Let’s take a look at a few ways that VoIP improves every customer interaction.
Never miss an important call
When you leverage a VoIP solution, you can ensure that no calls go unanswered. Because VoIP acts as your best, most efficient and most intelligent employee, every inbound call automatically gets routed to the best agent to service the customer’s needs.
And, if that agent is not available? No problem. The call automatically goes to the very next person, best suited to handle the caller’s requests.
Thus making VoIP the solution that drastically improves First Call Resolution and increase overall customer satisfaction.
Another exciting aspect of VoIP solutions is the ability to keep employees connected to your customers, regardless of their location or device. With mobile applications, tied directly to the user’s business phone number, employees can make and receive business calls directly from their personal cell phone (without showing their personal phone number). Pretty cool, right?
So if you’re at the beach, at home, on the train or in the car, you’ll still be connected to your most valuable clients, when they need you the most. You’re always available, even on-the-go.
But, what if you don’t want to be “available”. That’s okay, too. We all need to turn-off and strive for that perfect work-life balance.
Well, VoIP solutions make call forwarding simple. When you want to make sure your customer’s needs are still met but need someone else in your company to do the heavy lifting while you’re in a meeting or at lunch, you can proactively forward all your important calls to another employee of choice.
That way, no callers ever have to go to your voicemail, unless you want them to. You can always ensure that your customers are met with a LIVE person when they call in.
It really is a win-win solution. Even small businesses can make themselves look like big enterprises with these VoIP features and really transform the way they interact with their customers.
Have smarter customer interactions
Now, this is actually one of the coolest benefits of VoIP solutions. Have you ever been on the phone with a customer, maybe a customer that has been around for nearly a decade, and have to ask a million questions just to get a better understanding of who they are and what their history is with your business?
Most likely. In fact, that’s been a pretty consistent norm over the years. But, fear not… VoIP has changed that game and took it to a whole new level.
With advanced application integration, VoIP solutions seamlessly integrate with your CRM so that when a call from a customer comes in, you receive an immediate pop-up on your computer showing you EXACTLY who is on the phone. All you have to do is take a quick glance at their CRM record and get all of the information you need on the customer to have an intelligent conversation.
With VoIP, you never have to be unequipped to have a spontaneous conversation with a customer. You’ll always have the information you need to proactively handle a customer’s needs.
So, whenever a customer calls in, you’ll impress them by knowing everything about them, before they even get a chance to tell you who they are. Also, what’s most important here is that you’ll effortlessly be improving Key Performance Indicators like First Response Time, Average Response Time and Support Costs vs. Revenue, just by having more intelligent customer interactions.
Service customers any time of day
Did you know, VoIP Solutions enable you to meet customer demands and provide 24/7/365 customer service? It’s true. Even while you’re entire staff sleeps, you can still service customers.
A favorite feature of VoIP is the Auto-Attendant/Virtual Receptionist. Not only is it an easy way to make a small business seem much larger and more professional, but it’s a great way to keep customers in-the-know.
At any time of day, VoIP solutions can communicate important information to your customers, even outside of business hours.
They say, your Auto-Attendant is your hardest working employee. Well, in a lot of ways it is true. It’s certainly your most efficient! Not to mention, most of the time, it cements the very first impression your customer receives of your company as it’s the one to answer every call.
To start, prospects and clients will immediately be met with reliability. While some customers will absolutely need to speak with an agent to get their needs met, an Auto-Attendant can be programmed to get customers the information they need 24 hours per day, 7 days a week without needing an employee to respond to the call.
Ultimately, the Auto-Attendant ensures that customer inquiries are properly addressed and handled, when the customer demands it. As a result, your company is improving overall customer satisfaction, with little to no effort.
Whether it’s pre-recorded greetings, important alerts, reminders, or efficient call routing, your Auto-Attendant has you covered, no matter what time of day.
Oh, and for extra specialized customer interactions, VoIP solutions allow for added marketing with recorded promotions every time your customer calls in. Your loyal customers will be grateful to always be up-to-date on what’s new and you’ll indirectly sell more! And yes, driving this home one more time – while. you. sleep!
