Many industries right now tried to adapt interactive voice response systems in their call center process due to its several advantages.
Most of these businesses are from big corporations and Fortune 500 companies. However, small and medium businesses can also get major benefits from an IVR system.
In this article, we’ll show you why SMEs can also have an IVR phone in their inbound call center operation:
Some customers prefer to have a “self service” option for any company they want to deal with. It is because they want to do all the inquiries during their convenient time.
Others don’t want to stay on the line waiting for someone to help them with their questions. Actually, 70% of customers now expect a company to include any self service option on their system.
That is why an IVR system helps integrate this expectation from customers. They can check the status of their delivery just by putting in their order number in the automated message.
Companies like UPS and FedEx have this kind of option for their consumers. It became more popular during the pandemic when there’s a large volume of dependencies towards delivery companies.
Although every call is important for your business, you should prioritize which call you should pick up first.
What do we mean by more important calls? Well these are calls that could bring you more business.
As an example, try to prioritize the call for your sales team as customers on the other line might have an intent to purchase your service.
Moreover, you can also blacklist spam callers when you have an IVR phone system. The AI can easily filter all the calls and immediately reject prank callers.
You can see a major change in your call volume once you install interactive voice response messaging.
In a survey conducted by RingCentral, 70% said that being transferred from different agents is one of the most annoying experiences they can have in a company.
Customers consider a company to have “poor” customer service when they don’t have a systematic way to immediately route the customer to the right person.
That’s why having an AI voice prompt will help your customers find the right department for their inquiries.
They no longer need to talk to a customer service rep only to be transferred to someone capable to assist them.
On top of that, it’ll be easier to monitor any calls since you already segregated your customers’ calls per concern. Like if you want to listen to sales calls you can easily pull it up.
More or less, SMEs can get a bunch of abandoned calls if they can’t answer all customers.
It is not a good indication for any start up business as they can’t accommodate their target consumers.
So, it is actually a good idea to install an IVR to improve your capability to answer any questions.
We already discussed how an AI can answer some FAQs from customers. Moreover, this technology also allows you to provide some information for them while waiting.
For example, you can provide the estimated time before an agent can answer their call. It is a great way to set customers’ expectations when it comes to call queues.
On top of that, you can also put on some music to entertain them while waiting. They will not realize that a couple of minutes have already passed since they started calling your company.
Usually, only larger companies have an IVR installed in their call center operations.
That’s why you already have an edge against your competitors when you have an AI voice prompt. 99% of all businesses in the US compose of small and medium enterprises.
So, you need to take every advantage you can to improve your status with your customers.
If you only have a few staff in your company, you can program IVR prompts that allow callers to talk to sales, customer service, etc.
Regardless of what department the caller choses, they will be routed to the person on your team assigned to answer all of the calls.
With an IVR your customers will be impressed with your company’s professionalism.
Some customers find it annoying that they have to give their details again after your agent transfers them to another department.
Using an IVR can minimize this information giving process. In fact, it can eliminate this process altogether.
Just by checking the customer’s phone number, the AI can pull previous and current transactions with the customer.
It means you can review and predict the situation before you can get the actual call. You can be more prepared in dealing with the client’s situation.
It creates a more efficient and systematic process in customer service experience.
On top of that, this can also reduce your average handling time (AHT). This metric is one of the critical factors in order to improve your customer satisfaction rate.
Based on the reasons we mentioned above, we can confidently say that installing IVR for SMEs is actually worth it.
Investment in this kind of technology makes your business future-proof. A survey revealed that the majority of businesses in the US tend to rely on AI now more than they did 10 years ago.
On the customers side, they trust companies that can provide them top of the line and convenient customer service experience.
Most of them think that investing in the improvement of a technology can gain their trust more.
Besides, there are a lot of outsourcing companies that offer installation of IVR as a package if you outsource your inbound service.
So, no need to pay any extra amount just to get the latest software for your operations.
Two of the most frequent outsourcing destinations are India and the Philippines. Both are countries from Asia that offer almost similar services.
But you know where the catch is? It is how they execute their services.
India’s main selling point is their unlimited manpower and cheap services. Unfortunately, that is all they can offer.
Once everything is paid for your service, you’ll see the difference in the quality.
For starters, Indian call center agents are actually not suitable to handle any inbound calls due to their thick accent.
Customers may find it hard to understand them due to their inability to speak in neutral.
Meanwhile, the Philippines call center agents naturally have a neutral accent and are also one of the best English-speaking countries in Asia.
On top of that, Filipinos are more hospitable and empathic when it comes to talking with your customer. Which are some of the requirements when providing an excellent customer service experience.
Finally, pricing is also not an issue as it is almost identical with what Indian BPOs can offer.
You also don’t need unlimited manpower if you have efficient and hardworking Filipino call center agents.
When you want to outsource any function of your company, the first thing you have to remember is the quality of the service.
There are tons of BPO companies that can offer you an affordable service. But only few can guarantee a personalized service that will fit for your company.
Not every business is similar. That’s why it is important that your chosen outsourcing can analyze the needs of your organization.
This way, they can determine what kind of business model you need.
This is where InboundCallCenter Philippines is good at. We have industry experts Business Development Managers that can assist you with your outsourcing journey.
You also don’t have to worry about the cost. We will base the call center pricing on the service that you want to avail.
Here are some of the service we offer:
On top of that, we don’t have a minimum requirement for the number of agents. We believe that SMEs should have their own outsourcing team to help them grow further.
Contact us today to get a free 60-minute call center consultation.