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A robust global support strategy is necessary to expand and grow in international markets. Catering to global customers comes with the challenge of providing seamless and consistent support across different time zones, languages, and cultures. This approach helps businesses build trust, strengthen customer loyalty, and stand out in a crowded market.

But how do you start with supporting global customers?

In this article, we look at:

• Why reliable customer support is important for global businesses
• Challenges of global e-commerce
• How to offer global e-commerce customer support

Importance of Providing Reliable E-Commerce Customer Service

As with e-commerce marketing, responsive customer service is a must in the e-commerce space, where competition is fierce and customer expectations are high. It is the key to keeping your shoppers happy from start to finish.

Whether it’s replying to routine questions or guiding users through returns, good support can make all the difference. For instance, a quick response via live chat might save a sale that’s on the verge of being abandoned, and handling returns smoothly through email can turn a frustrated customer into a loyal one.

Challenges of Global E-Commerce

Handling e-commerce customer support for a global business comes with some challenges that require more than just a one-size-fits-all approach.

One of the biggest hurdles is dealing with time zone differences. If you’ve got customers in different parts of the world, providing 24/7 support can be a real balancing act. For example, if your team is based in the U.S., it’s tough to ensure timely responses to customers in Asia or Europe without some serious pre-planning.

There’s also the challenge of managing international shipping and returns—due to customs, logistics, and varying return policies. Plus, e-commerce platforms require support for a wider range of inquiries, from website navigation and technical issues to product information, order tracking, and returns.

Cultural differences are another layer of complexity. Different regions have different expectations when it comes to communication. For instance, a customer in Japan might expect a very polite and detailed explanation, while someone in Australia might appreciate a more direct and casual approach. If your support team doesn’t understand these nuances, it’s easy to miss the mark and leave customers feeling misunderstood or even alienated.

Effectively addressing these challenges requires a strategic approach to ensure customer needs are met consistently across different markets. Let’s take a look at how global businesses can offer e-commerce customer support.

How to Offer Global E-Commerce Customer Support

1. Identify Locations and Regions that Need to be Covered
2. Build Multisite, Multilingual Support Teams
3. Understand Customer Expectations
4. Choose the Right Communication Solutions
5. Localize Support Materials
6. Automate Customer Support
7. Invest in Train and Upskilling Agents
8. Collect Customer Feedback and Improve

With the challenges outlined, how can you take e-commerce customer support to the next level for your business?

Identifying key markets based on sales and customer concentration, building a multilingual support team that understands local cultures, and aligning with customer expectations are some ways to offer high-quality customer service.

Let’s take a look at how businesses can set up customer support for your global e-commerce business.

1. Identify Locations and Regions that Need to be Covered

Analyze your target markets to identify key regions based on sales volume, customer concentration, and growth potential. It’s important to consider local factors—offering support in the local language, aligning with time zones for quick responses, protecting customer data, and staying compliant and with regulations like the EU’s GDPR.

Prioritizing regions where customers are already satisfied helps maintain strong relationships, while investing in areas with growth potential ensures your business is ready to seize new opportunities.

2. Build Multisite, Multilingual Support Teams

A support team that is both multilingual and culturally aware can help businesses successfully connect with customers worldwide. This means hiring people who can speak multiple languages and address inquiries with appropriate sensitivity and understanding. For instance, a company with customers in Europe and Asia might need staff fluent in German, French, Mandarin, and Hindi. Then, you can build a multilingual IVR to connect callers to the right agent.

Further, building such a team involves finding people with strong language skills and cultural awareness, teaching them how to communicate effectively across cultures. This also ensures a workplace where everyone feels valued and respected.

3. Understand Customer Expectations

Start by understanding who your customers are, where they’re located, and what they prefer. Conducting thorough research on customer expectations can help identify key demographics and preferences.

For example, if your customers are in regions with high mobile usage, focusing on mobile-friendly options like SMS, live chat, or in-app chat can make a big difference. Utilizing customer feedback and surveys can further refine your approach. By aligning your support strategy with these insights, you can better meet your customers’ needs and enhance their overall experience.

4. Choose the Right Communication Solutions

Offer multichannel support—such as voice, video, email, live chat, and social media—to meet customers where they are. This customer experience strategy makes it easier for them to get the help they need.

Virtual phone systems provide the flexibility to manage calls and operations from anywhere, ensuring seamless communication across time zones. Consider cloud telephony solutions like local phone numbers for target regions. Local numbers use local area codes that encourage customers to call your business for support, even if your teams are not located in the region. Virtual numbers also offer cost-effective international calling through VoIP technology, reducing expenses compared to traditional phone lines.

Additionally, these numbers come packed with features like customer-friendly IVR systems, call forwarding, and advanced routing to streamline call management.

You can even integrate your cloud phone system with channels and applications like video, CRMs, email, chat, and more. Consolidating communication channels can help reduce manual tasks and double work while increasing efficiency and productivity.

Check out our integrations and features to see how you can expand communications with us!

5. Localize Support Materials

Provide assistance in customers’ preferred languages by adapting content to fit cultural nuances. This means translating website content, product descriptions, and FAQs, and crafting region-specific marketing materials and campaigns that resonate locally.

Multilingual customer service and self-service options too can make the support process smoother and more effective. With these measures, businesses can create a comfortable and familiar space for customers.

6. Automate Customer Support

AI-Powered Customer Support such as chatbots and virtual assistants can instantly assist customers no matter where they are or what time it is. They’re great for handling routine questions and freeing up your team for more complex issues.

AI in VoIP, especially, has been a game changer for modern business communication. VoIP systems can leverage AI subsets like machine learning, natural language processing, and sentiment analysis to analyze customer interactions, purchase history customer sentiment, and offer personalized recommendations and support.

Additionally, you can automate customer communications by using customer support integrations to connect your applications and tools. This will streamline your agent’s workflows while gaining access to other functionality and features to increase productivity.

7. Invest in Train and Upskilling Agents

Customers from different cultures have varying expectations, communication styles, and preferences. Agents trained in cross-cultural communication can effectively understand and respond to these differences. Emphasize active listening, empathy, and patience—as part of your quality assurance strategy—which are vital for understanding and resolving issues effectively.

Additionally, make sure agents are skilled in using the support tools and platforms, so they can address customer inquiries efficiently. This approach helps create a consistent and positive brand experience across all markets.

8. Collect Customer Feedback and Improve

By paying close attention to what customers are saying—whether it’s through surveys, reviews, or social media—businesses can get a clear picture of their experiences. Customer feedback helps spot trends and common pain points. With this information, businesses can tweak operations to better assist customers.

For example, after gathering feedback through surveys and reviews, a business might discover that customers frequently mention long wait times for assistance. By recognizing this trend, the company could decide to implement a live chat feature or expand support hours to address the issue.

How Can GCF Help?

Global e-commerce businesses need robust customer support to stay ahead of the curve. Business calling features like those offered by Global Call Forwarding, including virtual phone numbers, call routing, and other communication tools, can significantly help in establishing a good support system.

These features enable businesses to manage calls efficiently across different regions and time zones, ensure quick and seamless customer support, and maintain consistent service quality.

Ready to upgrade your business phone system? Talk to our experts or book a demo today!

Sales teams often deal with inefficiencies, lack of streamlined processes, and an overwhelming number of tools available, each promising to revolutionize their sales strategy.

This sheer number of options available can make it difficult to choose the right sales tools for your business. Without a clear understanding of the best tools available and how to leverage them effectively, teams can find themselves bogged down by administrative tasks, misaligned communications, and missed sales opportunities.

In this guide, we’ll go over the different types of sales tools you should consider and what to look for, highlighting 25 best sales tools across different industries. We’ll look at:

• Sales Tools for Lead Management
• Sales Tools for Voice Communication
• Sales Tools for Email Management
• Sales Tools for Chat and Messaging
• Sales Tools for Intelligence and Analytics

By understanding how to integrate these sales tools into your B2B sales processes, you can enhance efficiency, streamline operations, and drive more successful sales outcomes.

Importance of Finding the Right Sales Tools

Successful sales are almost always a primary source of revenue for any business. Hence, it’s important to ensure your inbound sales teams are equipped with the right tools and resources to help them close those big deals efficiently.

If not optimized, your inbound and outbound sales processes can have inefficiencies like missed follow-ups, delayed responses, and wasted time on data entry. These issues can create a drag on your team’s performance, hindering their ability to close deals and ultimately, grow the business.

Sales tools are designed to combat these challenges and drive business growth. For instance, sales intelligence tools can analyze vast amounts of customer data, revealing trends and identifying high-value leads. Imagine the advantage a salesperson gains by knowing a prospect’s previous purchases or browsing history before a call. These insights facilitate targeted communication and personalized selling strategies.

Benefits of Using Sales Tools

So, why do you need to pay attention to what tools your sales teams are using? This will help you identify gaps and inefficiencies that you can fix when you upgrade. And this is especially true if your teams are currently using outdated, legacy technology and methodologies.

When you use the right sales tools, you can experience a variety of benefits that let your business:

• Identify High-Value Leads Faster: AI and automation analyzes data to predict promising leads before the competition.
• Streamline Sales Process: Automated workflows ensure no steps are missed, keeping deals on track.
• Boost Sales Rep Productivity: Automate repetitive tasks, freeing reps for high-value selling.
• Enhance Team Collaboration: Shared calendars, customer information, documents, and communication features keep everyone informed.
• Create Data-Driven Strategies: Gain insights to optimize strategies, target high-quality leads effectively.

25 Best Sales Tools for 2025

A strategic inside sales approach hinges on utilizing the right mix of sales tools. From lead management to advanced sales analytics, these solutions can transform a disjointed sales process into a cohesive and tandem system.

Here’s a round up of 25 sales tools that can help your business across domains:

Sales Tools for Lead Management

Lead management software offers a wealth of features to help sales teams capture, nurture, generate, and convert leads more effectively; all the while making the process feel seamless and under control.

There are lead management apps for businesses of all sizes. They typically include CRM-like platforms that centralize all lead information, making it accessible and organized for sales teams. These solutions offer a range of features, including contact management, click-to-call, sales pipeline visualization, lead scoring, and task automation. With automated sales tasks, you can set up follow-ups, status updates, call logs, and email communications, ensuring that no lead falls through the cracks.

Another critical feature is lead scoring, often powered by AI, which ranks leads based on their likelihood to convert. This means your reps can focus their efforts on high-potential prospects, maximizing their chances of success. Many lead management solutions also offer customizable sales pipelines, workflow templates, and business integrations. These aid in visualizing and streamlining the progress of leads through different stages of the sales funnel.

Best lead management platforms for sales include:

1. Zoho CRM
2. Pipedrive
3. HubSpot Sales Hub
4. LeadPages
5. Zendesk Sell

Sales Tools for Voice Communication

Voice communication tools are indispensable for sales teams, especially when it comes to outbound calling and global outreach. Many VoIP providers not only offer cost-effective local and international numbers, but also capabilities such as international forwarding, advanced routing, call recording, transcription, international calling, softphone integrations with CRMs and other platforms, among others.

Businesses can expand internationally by getting local phone numbers from anywhere in the world and using local caller IDs. With cloud telephony, sales reps can make and receive calls from their computers or mobile devices, regardless of their location. This means, your US teams can call APAC prospects with a local Thailand or India number. Managers can track productivity and core call metrics for sales teams by analyzing call records and reports.

Top players and sales tools for voice communication:

6. Global Call Forwarding
7. United World Telecom
8. Skype
9. Zoom
10. Microsoft Teams

Sales Tools for Email Management

Email management tools have come a long way offering solutions from decluttering inboxes to streamlining digital workspaces. For sales reps specifically, these business email tools and enhancements can truly make a difference.

For instance, the ability to schedule emails ensures timely communication, whether it’s sending a follow-up at a specific time or hitting a prospect’s inbox first thing in the morning. Some sales tools even help consolidate emails extracted from LinkedIn or analyze your interaction history to prioritize incoming emails. This way, important messages from key clients or hot leads rise to the top, saving you valuable time sorting through your inbox.

Tracking and real-time notifications are also commonly offered features—allowing you to see when your emails are opened or links are clicked. This insight can enable sales reps to tailor their follow-up emails for better response rates.

Additionally, these tools simplify internal communication allowing sales reps to work on emails with colleagues, share drafts, and assign tasks. This ensures everyone is on the same page, fostering teamwork and streamlining the sales process.

Some of the best email sales tools are:

11. Google Workspace
12. Microsoft Outlook
13. Mailchimp
14. Yesware
15. Streak CRM for Gmail
16. Mailsuite

Sales Tools for Chat and Messaging

Alternative channels of communication like live chat, instant messaging, and AI-powered chatbots are now essential tools for sales. These platforms allow for quick interactions with potential customers, keeping them engaged throughout the sales lifecycle. Live chat apps can be added to business websites for customer support and engagement. One significant feature that many chat app makers are offering is chatbot.

Chatbots can be configured to answer routine questions, qualify leads, and even suggest products automatically. This frees up sales reps for complex queries and personalized interactions. AI-powered chatbots are also useful as virtual assistants.

Similarly, instant messaging apps like WhatsApp for Business offer a variety of communication options like texts, videos, images, etc. So besides responding to queries, sales reps can share product demo videos or send voice notes for a personal touch.

Widely used sales chat tools include:

17. Slack
18. Zoho SalesIQ
19. WhatsApp Business
20. Intercom

Sales Tools for Intelligence and Analytics

These tools help convert raw data into actionable insights, providing right information to reps at the right time. They gather data from a variety of sources, including market research, website visitor data, client feedback, and social media. Then by analyzing comprehensive data sets, these apps produce reports offering a clear picture of customer demographics, buying behavior, etc. Businesses can use these reports to create sales strategies and identify areas of improvement.

Furthermore, sales intelligence software leverages predictive analytics to analyze real-time data and identify high-value opportunities with a higher likelihood of conversion. This proactive approach allows salespeople to prioritize their outreach efforts and target the most promising leads at the opportune moment.

Beyond basic contact information, many sales tools offer deep insights into each lead’s preferences. This enables personalized outreach. These analytics can even suggest the next best action based on customer data and past interactions.

Major apps in this domain:

21. Leadfeeder
22. Linkedin Sales Navigator
23. ZoomInfo
24. CIENCE GO
25. Cognism

How Can Global Call Forwarding Help?

Keeping up-to-date in sales isn’t just about knowing the latest trends. Advanced and AI-powered technology helps by giving instant insights, automating routine tasks, and making customer interactions more personalized. This agility will help sales teams adjust quickly to customer needs, stay ahead of competition, and seize new opportunities.

A reliable business communication system is crucial for sales, ensuring seamless interactions and timely responses that build relationships with customers and drive growth. Global Call Forwarding has been guiding businesses across the world in upgrading their business phone systems.

Want to learn more about our cloud phone solutions for sales teams? Speak to our experts and let us help you up your game!

For most businesses, their sales and support operations typically depend on reliable phone service and communication.

And toll-free numbers provide a cost-effective way for local and international customers to connect with a business.

Now as a business, you understand the importance of backing up your systems, processes, contacts, documents, and so on. The same should apply to your business phone system which includes your phone service, phone numbers, forward-to destinations, features, and so on.

Let’s look at the importance of having a backup toll-free number provider and why it should be a part of your disaster recovery plan.

Why Should You Have a Backup Toll-Free Number Provider?

System failures, network downtimes, or service disruptions can significantly impact operations. When your primary toll-free number provider experiences a service failure or your number gets disconnected, your business is instantly cut off from your customers.

Support phone lines go dead. Sales inquiries stall. Your teams are left scrambling to get your communications up and running again.

Having a backup toll-free number provider in place can help businesses when:

• The main provider goes down — this could be due to outages, denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, network failure, etc.
• One of the main provider’s upstream providers malfunctions, recalls phone numbers or has long and difficult lead times to activate numbers—especially true with hard-to-reach countries.
• The business experiences a network malfunction affecting on-premises systems.

Global Call Forwarding is a virtual phone number provider offering local and toll-free numbers in more than 160 countries. With us, you can have a cloud phone system ready to go if your primary system fails.

Switch to Your Backup Toll-Free Provider

In case of such unforeseen circumstances — and to avoid any communication downtime — you can easily flip a switch and move on to your backup provider.

Having a backup toll-free number provider can help businesses:

• Stay reachable and accessible in emergencies
• Seamlessly failover to alternatives in moments of crisis
• Reduce missed sales opportunities
• Protect mission-critical communications
• Diversify your communication infrastructure with more access to cloud telephony features and functionality
• Ensure voice redundancy and maintain business continuity
• Balance loads during peak times
• Protect against regional disruptions if your providers are spread geographically
• Safeguard against cyber threats when you have two different providers in place, and more

How Can Global Call Forwarding Help?

As an international toll-free number provider, Global Call Forwarding offers cloud toll-free solutions that give you access to over 160 countries and hard-to-reach areas. You can easily forward calls from our toll-free numbers to any device or location as needed.

We have a suite of failover features to ensure you receive calls wherever your teams are situated if your primary setup fails. Businesses have come to us when looking for backup solutions for their communication needs.

Want to see if we are a good fit for your business? Our team is here to help you find the right toll-free number solution. Contact us today or book a personalized demo!

As businesses scale and their needs evolve, they often need more advanced features, global coverage, or better cost efficiency. Some reasons why users switch from Grasshopper include lack of global coverage, call quality, and less responsive customer service.

We can help you port a toll-free number or local number, based on your requirements, without any service interruptions.

In this guide, we’ll go over:

• What to keep in mind when porting numbers
• How long does it take to port
• How to port phone numbers from Grasshopper

Porting Phone Numbers from Grasshopper

You may want to port your number to a new service for a variety of reasons:

• Low voice or audio quality
• Lack of reliable coverage for target regions across the globe
• High monthly bills, especially for international calling
• Need for more responsive customer support, and so on.

When you port to a new service, you get to choose a provider that better meets your needs such as better voice quality, more global coverage, responsive support (even outside the US), and advanced features.

What to Keep in Mind When Porting Numbers from Grasshopper

To port your number from Grasshopper to a new provider, like Global Call Forwarding, you will need to submit a number porting request and provide the necessary information (see requirements below).

Your new provider will communicate with your old provider to start the porting process. Wait till your new service is active before canceling your old service provider to ensure zero downtime or service interruptions.

Related: Number Porting Myths Debunked

How Long Does it Take to Port Numbers from Grasshopper?

Typically, porting a number can take up to 2-4 weeks. But this process is faster for certain number types and countries.

Want to know exactly how long it would take to port your Grasshopper number? Chat with our team online to find out.

How to Port Phone Numbers from Grasshopper to Global Call Forwarding

Porting from Grasshopper to Global Call Forwarding is a pretty straightforward process. You will need to:

• Ensure your number can be ported
• Prepare to port with the required documents
• Submit your request
• Wait for activation
• Start using your new service

1. Ensure Your Number Can Be Ported

Before you start the process, you will need to ensure you can port your virtual phone number from Grasshopper to Global Call Forwarding. Some factors that can inhibit this process:

• The number is no longer in service — If current service is terminated, the new provider cannot port.
• The old provider does not allow porting due to contract restrictions.
• The new provider doesn’t offer the specific country or phone number type you requested — In this situation, we can offer a different alternative from our inventory of 160+ international phone numbers.
• Country-specific porting issues — Ease of porting numbers depends on the country as there may be some geographical limitations.
• Your business cannot provide the necessary documentation required for porting.

Check country coverage or browse our inventory to see if we cover your target regions. You can also easily chat with our team to see if your Grasshopper number is portable to our service.

2. Prepare to Port

Once you’ve determined that you can transfer your number to our service, start preparing with the following documents:

• List of all phone numbers you would like to port from Grasshopper to the new service.
• Letter of Authorization (LOA) which states that your business gives your new phone number provider permission to act on your behalf when communicating with your old provider.
• Old provider information and account number so the two providers can communicate to complete the process.
• Copy of current phone bill which includes business name and address registered with the current provider. This works as proof of ownership of the number.

You will need to submit this along with your porting request.

3. Submit Your Porting Request

Submit your request through our number porting form. Wait for us to reach out to you for further processing and documentation.

4. Wait for Activation

Once we’ve received all your documents, let us take care of the rest.

The service transfer can take a few days to a few weeks, based on your number’s country and type. Remember to maintain your old service during this transition period; cancel only after the new service is activated.

We’ll be in touch with you along the way.

5. Start Using Your New Service

We’ll notify you once the transfer is done and you are ready to use your new service with us. You will now receive call traffic automatically on the new service and you are free to cancel your old service.

Log in to your new Global Call Forwarding control panel to set up any features you’d like and start making calls!

Switch to Global Call Forwarding

Global Call Forwarding is a suitable Grasshopper alternative if you want to expand your global coverage, reduce international communication costs, and receive 24/7 customer support. We’ve been in the business since 1996, providing communication solutions to businesses across different industries around the world.

Read what our customers have to say about our service.

Ready to port phone numbers from Grasshopper over to Global Call Forwarding? We’re here to ensure a smooth transition with little-to-no downtime. Call us at +1 (561) 908-6171 or chat with our experts!

A well-functioning customer support center has agents available to quickly connect when customers call. But what happens if agents aren’t available when customers need them most? The result: frustrated callers and a potential decline in customer satisfaction.

The key to ensuring agent availability and keeping customers happy lies in schedule adherence.
In this guide, we’ll look into:

• What is schedule adherence?
• Why is it an important call center metric?
• Actionable strategies to improve adherence.

What is Schedule Adherence?

Schedule adherence is an important call center metric that measures how well agents adhere to their schedules. This metric encompasses factors like punctuality, agent availability, call time, post-call handling time, and break time among others.

Goes without saying that effective schedule adherence is crucial for call center success. A high adherence rate helps businesses offer better customer support as well as improve operations. Even if just one agent deviates from the schedule, especially during peak times, it could throw everything off balance.

Say a customer calls with a simple routine question, only to be stuck on hold for ages. This could be a result of low agent adherence. Similarly, if an agent arrives late during a call time, the remaining agents must manage a higher call volume.

This could translate to an increase in wait times for customers. Not only will that leave customers frustrated, but also overburden the other available agents, possibly leading to burnout and a dip in performance.

Why is Schedule Adherence an Important Call Center Metric?

Understanding the impact of schedule adherence lays the foundation for appreciating its significance. Here are some common reasons why schedule adherence is a crucial call center metric:

1. High adherence directly affects customer satisfaction because it ensures consistent availability of agents. This reduces wait times, leading to smoother operational efficiency, quicker resolutions, and more call center sales.
2. With agents available as planned, there is better resource allocation. Managers can monitor and observe factors such as call volume, length, etc. and utilize resources more efficiently, minimizing staff burnout and agent turnover.
3. Optimal resource allocation and utilization reduces costs from overstaffing, underperformance, or vacant, idle time.
4. Ultimately, schedule adherence is a valuable tool for call center managers. By analyzing adherence patterns, they can make data-driven decisions related to predictive scheduling, training, staffing levels, and more.
5. Low adherence can also lead to a higher number of missed calls and sales opportunities.

How to Calculate Schedule Adherence for Your Call Center?

To calculate schedule adherence, you divide the minutes an agent is in adherence by the total scheduled minutes. Then, multiply that number by 100 to get the schedule adherence percentage:

Typically, adherence is calculated for the whole call center by averaging all agents’ individual rates. Additionally, it is important to note that activities like training sessions, meetings, etc. during scheduled hours count towards adherence.

You can find this information through your schedule planning tool, call records, CRM integrations, time management software, etc. For example, agents can log time spent on training, meetings, pre- and post-call tasks, etc., on the CRM or project management software. Managers can also verify time spent on customer calls through call detail records. Then, compare this with time scheduled and expected of them.

What Factors Affect Schedule Adherence?

Understanding the root causes for disruption is crucial for developing solutions that promote consistent adherence. These are some of the top factors that disrupt adherence:

1. Agents taking ad-hoc leaves due to sickness or personal emergencies can disrupt the planned schedules. In turn, this may overburden present staff further affecting their adherence.
2. Unanticipated, non-seasonal spikes in call volume can overwhelm scheduled agents, making it difficult to adhere to work plans. For instance, there is a sudden influx of calls related to product malfunctions. Agents might even have to work through their breaks to handle the call volume.
3. Agents might be forced to pause work when dealing with technical challenges like system downtime or glitching. This is especially true when you don’t have a call center recovery plan in place.
4. Factors like inefficient break scheduling and low motivation can also affect agents’ drive to adhere to schedules.

How to Improve Schedule Adherence in Call Centers: 6 Strategies

Once you’ve identified the causes of low adherence in your call center or service center, you can plan out strategies to improve these numbers. Here are some actionable strategies to improve schedule adherence:

• Identify and Address Adherence Issues
• Set Realistic Schedules and Goals
• Leverage Virtual Call Center Features
• Monitor Specific Key Performance Indicators
• Conduct Regular Training and Collect Feedback
• Offer Flexible Scheduling Options and Rewards

1. Identify and Address Adherence Issues

Maintaining high adherence rates requires a proactive approach. Managers would have to spend time analyzing data such as adherence percentages over time, call analytics, reports, etc. This helps identify specific times adherence dips. For example, are there recurring patterns of tardiness or unplanned absences? Are there multiple instances of outages or service downtime? Is call volume trending upwards with staff unable to match call needs?

Once the root cause behind low adherence has been identified, businesses can develop targeted solutions. Some reports also reveal that agent and rep disengagement leads to poor service and high economic cost. To address this, businesses could offer motivational incentives or implement clearer policies. Furthermore, providing agents with timely constructive feedback is essential as this promotes a culture of transparency and support.

2. Set Realistic Schedules and Goals

To foster consistent adherence among agents, it’s crucial to begin by setting realistic schedules and goals. Balancing customer needs with agent well-being is key. Overloaded schedules can lead to burnout, harming both adherence and customer service quality.

Calculate and analyze your current adherence rate to establish a baseline and develop achievable schedules. Refer to agents’ adherence history while goal setting. Further, as part of goal setting, have open communication about the importance of adherence–specifically how individual actions affect team performance and customer satisfaction. When agents understand their impact, they’re likely to stick closely to their schedules.

Also, by making adherence a shared responsibility, businesses can build a culture of adherence in the organization. And by integrating schedule adherence into the organizational culture aligns agent objectives with business goals.

3. Leverage Virtual Call Center Features

Call center software can be a lifesaver when it comes to improving schedule adherence rate. Solutions like call routing, call flow builder, and helpdesk/CRM integrations up the game by streamlining operations, enhancing call handling efficiency, and automating repetitive tasks.

Having call flows with predefined routing rules help agents better adhere to schedules. They structure how incoming calls can be managed automatically. For example, sequential call routing distributes calls evenly among agents, preventing overload and maintaining balanced workloads. Similarly, skill-based routing will ensure callers get directed to the most suitable agent promptly.

VoIP-CRM integrations can further optimize workflow efficiency by automatically syncing call and customer data between the two platforms. And, agents can use these integrations to handle calls directly through their CRM interface. This saves them time switching between systems and keeping them focused on their schedules.

Such solutions reduce wait times as well as minimize agent idle times, thus changing low adherence levels.

4. Monitor Specific Key Performance Indicators

Schedule adherence is certainly a crucial metric, but it doesn’t exist in isolation. It interacts with and influences other call center KPIs, such as handle time (AHT), first call resolution (FCR), average call duration, and customer satisfaction.

For instance, lower AHT generally translates to more calls handled within an agent’s shift, potentially improving adherence. Now, consistent schedule adherence ensures that there are enough agents available to handle incoming calls, reducing wait times and potentially lowering AHT.

Monitoring other KPIs helps identify areas where schedule adherence might be impacting overall performance. Say adherence is high but FCR is low. This could mean agents are rushing calls to meet scheduling goals—which, in turn, may lead to unsatisfied customers who need to call back.

5. Conduct Regular Training and Collect Feedback

Regular training and feedback collection are some other ways you can impact adherence rates. Ongoing training keeps agents up to date. Equally important is collecting feedback from agents to identify any challenges they face.

For instance, let’s say a company notices a dip in adherence rate after introducing a new CRM system. The feedback from agents may reveal that they find the platform cumbersome and time-consuming. In such cases, a focused training session on navigating the system better can equip agents to handle calls more efficiently.

So by regularly collecting feedback and addressing any issues through training, businesses can ensure continuous improvement in adherence over time.

H3: 6. Offer Flexible Scheduling Options and Rewards

Rigid scheduling often leads to frustration and ultimately, low adherence rates. A Gartner survey found that 43% of participants credited flexible working hours for boosting their productivity levels. So consider providing agents with flexibilities like the option to work from home or remotely and adjust their shifts. With cloud telephony solutions, you can provide agents with more location flexibility without compromising on call quality or privacy.

For instance, an agent has a last-minute doctor’s appointment. With flexible scheduling, they could swap shifts with a colleague or work remotely for part of the day. Providing such flexibility to adjust their shifts or work remotely also acknowledges the importance of work-life balance, thereby boosting morale and commitment.

Beyond flexibility, recognizing achievements goes a long way. Rewarding agents who consistently adhere to their schedules closely can boost morale. This could also motivate others to strive for the same level of commitment and excellence.

By implementing these strategies, businesses not only improve adherence metrics but also cultivate a culture of accountability and efficiency among their workforce.

How Can GCF Help?

High agent availability = happy customers. You can achieve this with high schedule adherence at your call center. One effective approach to enhance adherence is by leveraging virtual call center solutions. However, navigating the multitude of options and functionalities available can be daunting.

Contact Global Call Forwarding and let our virtual call center experts help you make the right choice for your business.

Call us today and find out how GCF can empower your business with tailored solutions for better operations!

Imagine a busy hospital where unanswered calls lead to missed appointments and critical lab results get stuck between departments. Such scenarios can compromise patient safety and satisfaction, creating a stressful environment for healthcare professionals.

The healthcare industry requires clear and efficient communication. From booking appointments to receiving critical medical advice, timely and accessible healthcare communication tools and channels are essential for both patients and providers.

As the demand for more streamlined healthcare communication grows, the limitations of traditional phone systems become more apparent, affecting patient satisfaction and operational effectiveness.

Cloud telephony has varied solutions to bridge these healthcare communication gaps. Its secure and scalable platform can transform communication within your institution. This translates to streamlined workflows, facilitated information sharing between departments, and ensuring calls reach the right person. Ultimately, this improves healthcare accessibility for patients and enhances overall care delivery.

Challenges of Medical Phone Systems

Here are some of the reasons why traditional phone systems fall short of providing effective communication.

1. Traditional phone systems lack integration with electronic health records (EHRs) and other digital platforms, which creates information silos. This may cause delays in patient care and hinder interprofessional collaboration.
2. These phone systems have limited scalability. Therefore they struggle to handle fluctuating call volume and adding new features, phone lines, or users.
3. Traditional systems also lack advanced telehealth capabilities. Audio call conversations don’t have the visual cues and detailed information exchange that video consultations offer.
4. Traditional and legacy systems can prove more expensive than VoIP alternatives. Research shows companies can reduce costs by 87% when switching to a cloud phone solution.

What Role Can Cloud Telephony Play?

Cloud telephony leverages the internet to make and receive phone calls. Instead of relying on traditional phone lines, this technology transmits voice data as packets over the internet using voice over internet protocol (VoIP).

VoIP in healthcare allows for greater flexibility, scalability, and advanced features compared to traditional systems.

6 Ways to Increase Healthcare Coverage and Accessibility with Cloud Telephony

Besides facilitating telehealth services, cloud telephony has offered innovative solutions to overcome traditional communication barriers in patient care.

Let’s take a look at six ways in which you can leverage cloud communication for healthcare telephony:

1. Extend global reach with virtual phone numbers
2. Streamline communication for distributed healthcare teams
3. Organize call flows with IVR
4. Track calls to improve caller experiences
5. Enhance privacy for professionals with caller ID management
6. Ensure service continuity with failover options

1. Extend Global Reach with Virtual Numbers

Cloud telephony provides extended global coverage for target regions through virtual numbers. You can get toll-free numbers or local numbers for your business from different regions. And for hard-to-reach and remote regions, some providers offer other bespoke solutions to enable accessibility.

Patients from these regions requiring specialists can reach your organization for free or with local standard rates. This expands access to specialized care and breaks down geographical barriers for patients in remote areas.

Global Call Forwarding can set you up with international phone numbers from more than 160 countries around the world. Check out our global coverage to see if we cover your target regions!

2. Streamline Communication for Distributed Healthcare Teams

If your clinics, teams, or specialists are dispersed globally, you can connect through a centralized communication platform. With cloud telephony features like international call forwarding and advanced routing, you can automate call management, sending calls to the most appropriate location automatically.

Or, acquire multiple international numbers and have the calls pass through one phone service to the right location. For example, one of our healthcare clients Healthy Stuff needed a phone system that covers their sales and support teams across Australia, Ireland, and US and sends incoming calls to their teams in the UK.

With international phone numbers and routing, you don’t need a manual operator managing incoming calls. You simply set everything up beforehand and let the system work for you.

3. Organize Call Flows with IVR

Cloud telephony empowers healthcare providers to manage call flows strategically, fostering both efficiency and patient trust. An interactive voice response system (IVR) routes calls based on voice or touch-tone inputs from callers. You can plan for different call flows and customer queries beforehand and feedback them into your healthcare IVR.

For instance, the IVR can greet callers and present clear options—‘1’ for scheduling appointments, ‘2’ for prescription refills, etc. Based on the input, the IVR system can route the call to an agent or voicemail or the appropriate destination accordingly.

This automated telephony system can significantly improve patient satisfaction by reducing wait times, improving accessibility, and empowering callers with self-service options.

4. Track Calls to Improve Caller Experiences

Every call holds valuable information. Track trends in call volume, wait times, and reasons for calls using call records and analytics. By analyzing this data, healthcare institutions can identify areas for improvement like appointment scheduling bottlenecks.

Say there’s a spike in calls for appointments during lunch when lines are busy. Features like time of day routing can be implemented during these times, and incoming calls can be redirected to another available team. In this manner, you can reduce wait times and deliver better customer experience.

Moreover, dedicated hotline numbers for emergencies and non-emergencies ensure patients receive the appropriate level of care promptly. Then, when calls come in, your teams can identify the type of call and know how to respond. This targeted approach prioritizes urgent situations while also addressing non-critical needs through self-service IVR options.

Also, call tracking data can help in allocating resources effectively based on call types. For example, if a high number of calls are related to pediatrics, more staff or dedicated lines can be channeled for pediatric inquiries.

Marketing and advertising campaigns benefit greatly from call tracking data. By using multiple numbers for different marketing channels such as flyers, social media, and websites, you can track call volume and determine which channels generate the most calls. This allows businesses to make targeted and efficient marketing spends.

5. Enhance Privacy for Professionals with Caller ID Management

Caller ID management is a valuable feature that empowers healthcare organizations to protect their professionals’ privacy during private patient consultations. Adjust your caller ID to display the healthcare organization’s number instead of a professional’s personal number, especially during telehealth visits.

This way, patients don’t have access to professionals’ personal contact information and vice versa, maintaining clear boundaries and avoiding unwanted calls outside of work hours.

6. Ensure Service Continuity

Cloud telephony platforms and features are built for resilience. And both provider and customer redundancy mechanisms are crucial for a reliable communication system.

With phone calls being the preferred communication channel, VoIP providers must maintain robust backups and redundancy options to ensure their network and servers are always operational. Make sure to check their network distribution to understand how they protect their systems and servers.

They should also provide features like failover forwarding and redundant routing that help keep communication active in the event of technical glitches or internet outages. When you set these features up, they automatically route calls to alternative numbers or backup systems, if the primary communication system fails.

Another way to maintain continuous service is to use a responsive provider. For instance, another healthcare client Novartis was experiencing service-related issues and outages with their local provider. They needed a responsive cloud telephony provider so they could continue to communicate with customers without any downtime.

As a healthcare provider, you must safeguard patient access to communication channels and professionals even in unprecedented scenarios. This reliability can make your business a dependable source of healthcare support in times of crisis.

How Can Global Call Forwarding Help?

A robust communication system is absolutely vital for any healthcare setup. Using a combination of solutions like call forwarding, IVR, voicemail, call recording, etc., you can meet unique communication demands of your organization.

Global Call Forwarding has been helping healthcare institutions worldwide with a suite of communication tools to build advanced business phone systems.

Talk to our experts and find out how you increase healthcare accessibility with cloud telephone!

Even though digital communication channels are growing, a surprising 65% of potential customers still prefer reaching brands by phone. This makes phone calls a critical touchpoint for businesses. However, lengthy calls could affect positive customer experience, as attention spans are reducing, and customers expect faster resolutions. Therefore, by reducing average call time, businesses can transform customer interactions into thriving long-term relationships.

In this article, we’ll go over:

• What is average call duration?
• Need for calculating call durations
• How to measure it
• Reasons for longer calls, and
• Top strategies for reducing call duration

What is Average Call Duration in Call Centers?

Average call duration—sometimes referred to as average talk time (ATT) or call time—is a key performance indicator (KPI) that measures the average length of time an agent spends on a call with a customer.

Businesses and call centers that depend on call communication for sales and customer support can use this call center metric to track efficiency and performance.

Importance of Calculating Average Call Durations

It is important to calculate average call time since call durations affect the overall efficiency and effectiveness of customer service operations. Let’s have a look:

Improved Customer Satisfaction

The length of calls directly affects customer satisfaction. For instance, shorter calls are likely to lead to quicker resolution, which translates to happier customers. So, by calculating average call duration, businesses can deliver better customer experiences.

Higher Agent Productivity and Effective Resource Allocation

Tracking call duration can help boost productivity as businesses can increase agents’ capacity to handle more calls. Managers can determine agents’ average call times and identify ways to shorten unnecessary long calls. Shorter calls would free up agents to take up more calls. With a firm grasp of call time, businesses can make informed decisions regarding staffing needs, scheduling, and other factors related to resource allocation.

Better Budgeting and Cost Control

Did you know that even a small reduction in call duration can significantly impact your bottom line? Shorter calls mean agents handle more calls per hour. This allows them to serve a larger number of customers without the need for additional staff, directly reducing labor costs.

How to Calculate Average Call Time for Your Call Center?

While different businesses may have varying practices, average call duration is generally calculated by dividing the total call time by the number of calls handled over a specific period.

This method provides a clear call metric for assessing efficiency and agent productivity.

So, how long should the average customer call be?

Average call duration varies significantly across industries, reflecting diverse customer expectations, service requirements, and business practices.

A high average call time may not necessarily be problematic. This is because call time is quite contextual. For instance, call centers in the financial services industry may have a higher ACD than those in the retail industry. This may be because financial services calls are often more complex, sometimes involving multiple levels of customer authentication, which could add to the total call time.

Comparing call durations across industries

The average duration for inbound contact centers across industries is about 4 minutes. Industries like healthcare, consumer services, and manufacturing tend to have shorter call times, at 2.48 minutes, 3.05, and 3.03, respectively. Whereas travel and hospitality, information technology (IT), and financial services industries have a high ACD—3.78 minutes, 3.48 minutes, and 3.47 minutes respectively.

Related: 12 Call Center Metrics to Track for Customer Success

Reasons for Longer Calls

But what causes longer calls? Various factors—from agent proficiency to complexity of customer queries. Identifying these issues is necessary to create strategies for call duration optimization, and ultimately improving service quality.

Here are some of the potential reasons for longer calls:

Call Complexity

In-depth troubleshooting and technical assistance require comprehensive understanding and detailed solutions. Agents need to fully grasp the issue which can result in prolonged conversations as agents work to understand and resolve the problem accurately.

Agent Skills and Qualification

Agents who haven’t received appropriate training on products or call handling could take longer to resolve queries and close calls. Similarly, multiple agent escalations can increase the customer’s time spent while on hold and being transferred. Poor communication or difficulty understanding customer concerns can lead to misunderstandings, requiring additional time to resolve issues.

Inefficient IVR Systems

Complex phone menus may lead to significant time wastage. Customers may get connected to agents who are not equipped enough to address queries.

For instance, a customer calls the internet provider because their internet has been down for hours. But the customer reaches the IVR with a complicated list of options, none of which directly address “internet outage.” So the customer selects the option to reach technical support, where they get connected to an agent who can only offer basic troubleshooting support. Such situations can extend call times.

High Complaint Volume

Handling complaints and customer dissatisfaction requires a lot of care and time. A high volume of complaint calls can therefore add to call times.

Customer Behaviors

Sometimes agents have to offer additional assistance or reassurance to manage talkative customers, provide detailed explanations, or guide them through troubleshooting steps. This type of assistance may need additional call time.

5 Strategies to Optimize and Reduce Average Call Duration?

Long call durations can frustrate callers and damage brand perception. They can also strain agent productivity. Fortunately, there are effective strategies to tackle this challenge, including evaluating current performance, leveraging technology, and more. Here are some call center best practices to optimize average call duration:

1. Evaluate Current Performance

Start by calculating your average call duration and track it over time. You can track this across teams, departments, or on an individual basis. This metric acts as a valuable benchmark, helping you identify areas where call handling processes or agent efficiency might need improvement.

Companies like Global Call Forwarding offer the call detail records (CDRs) which provide core call metrics including call duration. You can easily access and download your business call records through the online control panel.

2. Encourage Training and Refreshers

Based on data from evaluations, businesses can plan regular training for agents. Emphasize active listening skills and empathy in customer support to ensure agents fully grasp customer issues before offering solutions.

Encourage experienced agents to take refresher training to be up-to-date with goals, tools, and best practices. For instance, a refresher course could cover new product features, updated company policies regarding customer interactions, or best practices for handling escalated situations.

Related: How to Design an Escalation Matrix in Your Call Center

3. Re-Allocate Resources

Call duration data is important for making resource allocation decisions. For instance, when you multiply average call duration by the expected number of calls, you get an estimated total time required for call handling. This estimation, in turn, helps in determining the number of agents needed to cover that time.

Additionally, managers can create better, more accurate schedules and shift planning. If a business experiences peak volumes during certain hours, managers can schedule more agents during those times.

4. Leverage Technology

Technology can help greatly with optimizing and reducing call duration. One such way is to integrate VoIP with CRMs or help desk software to centralize communications, improve connectivity, and optimize call handling. For example, Global Call Forwarding offers integrations with Zoho, Zendesk, Salesforce, and other platforms.

When a call comes in, the CRM automatically populates the agent screen with relevant customer information, including past interactions and call history. This eliminates the need for agents to spend time gathering information at the beginning of the call, allowing them to jump right into assisting the customer. This enables agents to resolve issues faster.

5. Monitor and Analyze Call Data

Analyze call data regularly and look for recurring issues that lead to extended call durations. For example, if you notice that certain types of queries consistently take longer to resolve, you can develop specific strategies or provide additional resources to handle those queries more efficiently.

Customer feedback can provide insights into why calls are taking longer and help you address those issues directly. Agent feedback is equally important as it highlights operational challenges and areas where additional support or training might be needed.

How Can GCF Help?

Caller experience often serves as the first direct interaction a customer has with a business. A positive, fruitful call can set the tone for the entire relationship. Therefore, the speed and effectiveness with which customer problems are addressed can directly impact customer satisfaction and overall experience.

Global Call Forwarding provides a host of advanced call management features and products, from call records to CRM integrations, that help you optimize and reduce average call duration. Our cloud communication solutions empower businesses to streamline call handling processes and optimize agent efficiency.

Contact our experts today and learn about how our solutions can help you achieve your communication goals.

A staggering 88% of healthcare appointments are booked by phone, indicating that calling remains the preferred way of scheduling appointments and receiving other assistance. Because of this, healthcare organizations need strong communication technology.

That’s where cloud telephony plays a vital role in this mission. For instance, global voice coverage and remote consultations, facilitated by cloud technology, empower patients to access care and connect with your organization from anywhere.

Virtual phone numbers are another cost-effective and feature-rich cloud solution revolutionizing healthcare communication globally. These are cloud-based phone numbers that use VoIP technology to transmit calls over the internet, eliminating geographical limitations.

In this article, we’ll explore how healthcare organizations can use virtual numbers to:

• Prioritize Patient Experience with Phone Communication
• Provide Global Toll-Free Customer Support
• Centralize Communication
• Forward Calls for Improved Staff Accessibility
• Connect and Research Globally
• Maintain Privacy for Telehealth Consultations
• Enhance Outreach for Public Health Initiatives
• Set Up 24/7 Support Hotlines for Non-Emergency Needs
• Prepare with Disaster Recovery

Cloud Telephony Solutions for Healthcare

The healthcare industry thrives on innovation, constantly seeking ways to bridge the gap between patients and service providers. And healthcare communication technology is one place where advancement is needed.

Traditional phone systems often create gaps in healthcare communication due to:

• Limited accessibility — Traditional systems are bound to physical locations, meaning healthcare and life sciences companies must remain at specific locations to provide care. This can be limiting, especially in large healthcare facilities or for providers who need mobility to check on patients throughout a facility.
• Lack of integration with digital health records — Unlike cloud phone systems that have no-code integrations, it is hard to connect regular phone systems with web-based portals and other digital management systems.
• Scalability issues — Adding international coverage, additional phone lines, locations, and features often comes at a higher cost with traditional systems.
• Limited remote access — With telehealth and remote consultations becoming increasingly common, traditional phone systems fall short. This is because users cannot make and receive calls outside the physical network, limiting remote and flexible access.

These gaps can lead to delays and downtime in patient care, miscommunication among healthcare professionals, and ultimately, a decrease in patient satisfaction.

Here, healthcare organizations may benefit from a more flexible and scalable solution like VoIP phone systems.

What Cloud Telephony Helps With?

Cloud-based phone systems, on the other hand, offer healthcare organizations more flexibility and reliability. They address a myriad of challenges faced by healthcare providers, including the need for global reach, secure telehealth options, and efficient call management.

With VoIP, you can cost-effectively scale up or down based on demand, integrate seamlessly with management systems, access call management features, and provide remote access. This will help organizations meet patient needs and deliver the best possible care. And it is particularly significant during health crises, where timely communication can drastically influence outcomes.

Furthermore, new developments in cloud telephony, such as AI insights, call analytics, and advanced integrations with telehealth platforms, will continue to revolutionize patient interactions.

By leveraging cloud-based communication solutions, healthcare organizations can overcome geographical barriers, enhance patient privacy, and streamline communication processes with ease.

How Healthcare Organizations Use Virtual Numbers: 9 Use Cases

Virtual numbers offer a powerful and flexible communication solution for healthcare organizations. And the best part? They come packed with an array of advanced calling features for efficient call management.

Here’s how healthcare companies can leverage virtual numbers to improve patient care, streamline operations, enhance outreach efforts, and more:

1. Prioritize Patient Experience with Phone Communication

Phone conversations continue to be the preferred communication channel when discussing healthcare concerns, followed by video and text. This means healthcare organizations must prioritize accessible phone channels.

Increase healthcare accessibility and customer satisfaction by using virtual numbers in target regions where your customers are located. Virtual numbers offer a reliable, secure, and convenient way to connect with patients, fostering better communication and improving the overall patient experience.

2. Provide Global Toll-Free Customer Support

For global healthcare organizations, providing accessible and affordable customer support is crucial. Long-distance and international calls via traditional phone systems can be expensive, leaving patients hesitant to reach out. Eliminating or reducing the cost of long-distance calls removes a major barrier to communication, encouraging patients to reach out for support or to schedule appointments.

Virtual toll-free numbers offer a game-changing alternative. You can get international toll-free numbers for your target countries. These calls will be cost-free for callers calling within those countries, even if they are ultimately forwarded elsewhere. This means you don’t even need a physical presence in the country or region.

With a global virtual phone number provider like Global Call Forwarding, you can get local and toll-free numbers from more than 160 countries around the world. And our phone numbers come with advanced telephony features like call forwarding and routing features for better call management. View our country coverage.

Renowned healthcare company Novartis used toll-free numbers for various Latin American and Caribbean regions. With these numbers, Novartis could route important customer calls to their regional centers and boost global customer support.

3. Centralize Communication

Medical establishments like labs and clinics operating across different cities and countries can use virtual numbers to centralize business communication. You can do this in a few different ways:

• Purchase local numbers for target regions and have all incoming calls forwarded to one central location.
• Get one nationwide phone number (also known as national numbers) for that target country instead of multiple ones for each location within the country. Calls to this central virtual number can be automatically routed to the appropriate clinic or specialist based on the patient’s needs.

This way, you prioritize making it convenient for patients and medical facilities to reach your business—no matter their or your teams’ location. And since these are local or toll-free numbers, callers won’t have to pay high long-distance fees. When you consolidate communication technology like this, you improve call handling and caller experience.

4. Forward Calls for Improved Staff Accessibility

Call forwarding is also beneficial in improving staff accessibility. You can redirect incoming calls to healthcare providers’ mobile devices and ensure patients and international medical tourists can reach doctors, nurses, home healthcare workers, and other medical professionals wherever located. These professionals too can respond promptly to patient inquiries, emergency situations, etc., regardless of their location.

For example, home healthcare agencies that employ mobile nurses can use virtual numbers to connect patients with nurses. This will enable teams and agencies to coordinate care plans, schedule patient visits, and quickly forward emergency calls directly to nurses’ mobile phone devices. This ensures everyone involved in the care process stays informed and facilitates a collaborative approach.

You can further improve and centralize call handling with IVR for healthcare services. When patients call, the IVR presents them with a menu of options, like scheduling appointments, requesting prescription refills, etc. Based on the caller’s input, the IVR will direct calls to the right destination, without the need for human intervention.

By distributing calls efficiently, you can improve patient satisfaction by allowing them to reach healthcare providers when they need them most.

Related: IVR Templates for Medical Answering Services

5. Connect and Research Globally, Including Hard-to-Reach Areas

Virtual numbers bypass traditional phone limitations, allowing researchers to connect with participants and partners anywhere in the world. Advertise these local numbers on marketing and outreach material to encourage interested participants. This broadens the pool for clinical trials and ensures valuable data isn’t limited by location.

For clinical research organizations operating in diverse geographical regions, virtual numbers can offer extended global coverage, including access to hard-to-reach areas. You can smoothly communicate with research participants to collect data efficiently as well as facilitate collaboration among stakeholders.

6. Maintain Privacy for Telehealth Consultations

Virtual numbers with an outbound calling solution allow healthcare providers to manage their caller ID when calling patients. This feature is particularly useful for private consultations as telemedicine professionals can display a business caller ID, keeping their personal numbers private.

On the other hand, masking the outbound caller ID with your business phone number offers a sense of familiarity to patients receiving the call. This improves the chances of patients answering calls.

Providers like Global Call Forwarding offer a number masking feature that can be used for outbound caller ID management. Read our article on ways to use number masking.

7. Enhance Outreach for Public Health Initiatives

You can leverage toll-free numbers for public health outreach initiatives. Engage with the community on vaccination drives, preventive care campaigns, health education programs, etc. through dedicated 24/7 toll-free hotlines.

Toll-free numbers are free to call, making it easier for the public to connect and work with your organization. This can further help establish your business as a reliable source of healthcare knowledge.

8. Set Up 24/7 Support Hotlines for Non-Emergency Needs

Similarly, you can also set up 24/7 patient support hotlines to:

• Provide non-emergency medical advice,
• Streamline medical tourism processes,
• Answer basic questions, and
• Offer guidance to patients outside of regular office hours.

This reduces unnecessary emergency room visits and improves overall patient care coordination.

9. Prepare with Disaster Recovery

As virtual numbers are cloud-based, they are not tied to a physical location. And with features like call forwarding and routing, calls can be quickly rerouted to alternate locations like remote service centers, mobile devices, employees’ homes, etc in the event of a disaster.

And you can easily scale virtual phone systems up or down as well as add more destinations depending on demand. This provides additional flexibility and capability to handle high call volumes during emergencies.

This ensures that healthcare organizations can maintain communication channels even during emergencies or disruptions at their physical facilities.

How Can GCF Help?

As the healthcare landscape evolves, with tech advancements and shifting patient expectations, the need for innovative communication solutions becomes increasingly clear. Cloud telephony equips your organization with communication tools to improve patient care and access.

Embrace the future of healthcare communication with cloud telephony. Global Call Forwarding has been helping healthcare organizations worldwide with our virtual numbers and call handling features. Reach out to us and find out how your business can benefit from virtual numbers.

Speak to our experts today, contact us now!

Are you in the travel and hospitality business, striving to enhance global support? Imagine offering round-the-clock assistance to your global clientele, leveraging the latest in cloud telephony.

Travel companies face the critical challenge of providing exceptional, uninterrupted customer service to a global audience. But how do you maintain high-quality support across various regions and time zones effectively and cost-efficiently?

By building a global phone service that efficiently routes calls from traveling customers to the right agent at the right time. From understanding diverse customer expectations to offering multilingual IVR support to optimizing outbound calling efforts, the possibilities for enhancing global customer satisfaction are endless.

In this article, we’ll go over the different ways travel companies can offer 24/7 global customer support using cloud telephony solutions, including:

• Getting international phone numbers
• Leveraging advanced routing features
• Organizing custom call flows
• Using global support strategies
• Optimizing outbound calling campaigns, and more.

Cloud Phone Solutions for Travel

The travel industry encompasses diverse businesses, including travel agencies, hotels, transport services, ecotourism ventures, and more. But the common denominator is the need for exceptional, responsive, and, at times, global customer support.

One way to achieve this is by offering round-the-clock customer support. Doing so meets the needs of travelers from different regions across time zones. Cloud telephony solutions can help set up a state-of-the-art 24/7 global support system for travel companies.

What Cloud Telephony Helps With?

Cloud telephony allows you to connect with customers across different regions and time zones virtually. And call management features like international call forwarding and routing lets traveling customers reach you, regardless of your or their physical location.

You can also set up multilingual support options so that when travelers call your business, the automated IVR system greets them and provides language options to choose the language in which they need support. Based on their selection, the call routes to the most appropriate agent or department.

Certain advanced IVR systems can also provide self-service options for travelers. This can include options for common inquiries, such as booking status or account and flight information, allowing callers to resolve their queries without agent assistance.

How to Offer 24/7 Global Support as a Travel and Hospitality Company

There are several ways in which travel companies leverage VoIP to offer 24/7 support to their global customers. Here are some of our recommendations:

1. Find a Global Telephony Provider

First and foremost, you’ll need a global telephony provider that can cover the target regions where your customers reside or travel to. This phone service provider must be able to offer all the solutions you need—from global phone coverage to call management features—to centralize communication across multiple locations and platforms.

Doing so will help you streamline operations and provide consistent customer experiences worldwide. And by consolidating communication services onto a single platform, you can manage customer interactions more smoothly.

From international numbers to high-quality voice calling, your global telephony service provider can equip you with solutions to enter the global stage.

2. Get International Phone Numbers

Extend your voice coverage and establish a local presence in target countries with in-country international phone numbers. This includes using local and toll-free options that are accessible and cost-effective for traveling customers. These virtual numbers enable you to enter different countries without a physical presence. By making it easy for customers to reach your business, you show your dedication to helping them.

For instance, a US-based tour agency can get virtual numbers for popular tourist destinations like Singapore or Japan. By offering toll-free number options, travelers visiting these countries can easily reach the agency for assistance without incurring charges.

EaseMyTrip, a global travel service provider, used Global Call Forwarding to consolidate global telephony with local numbers from 6 countries. By doing so, they were able to offer uninterrupted support for international clients while accessing real-time call data and management settings through the control panel.

3. Leverage Advanced Routing

Once your global phone numbers are set up, you can use advanced routing features to provide 24/7 support. Most cloud phone service providers offer different types of routing features and strategies. We recommend businesses use time-of-day routing and geo-routing to provide global support.

With time-based routing, you route calls according to the time of the day or day of the week. If a customer calls outside of your regular business hours, you can send the call to another location, such as a team in a different time zone or backup call center.

With location-based routing, you can direct customer inquiries based on the caller’s geographical location or their caller ID. So, a Spain customer calling for assistance is automatically routed to the European service center. Agents there are available during local business hours and speak the customer’s language. This ensures that customers receive localized support from agents who understand their needs, enhancing the overall customer experience.

By pairing these routing strategies, your business can adopt a follow-the-sun support model, becoming available to customers 24/7.

Crystal Cruises found that many customer inquiries were reaching their US-based reservation office after hours due to time zone differences. This led to missed calls, delayed responses, and lost sales opportunities. They used virtual phone numbers to forward calls to a local support center in Cyprus, ensuring that customers could receive prompt assistance during Gulf Standard Time.

4. Create Custom Call Flows

Now, when you’re juggling multiple phone numbers and countries, call handling can get tricky. To ensure efficiency, you’ll need to create tailored call flows for different regions and requests to cover core touchpoints in the customer journey. That’s where IVR and auto attendant systems come in handy. You can use these tools to redirect inquiries to the appropriate departments, such as bookings, check-ins, or complaints.

For instance, at the booking assistance level, customers may have questions about available destinations, pricing, package deals, or special accommodations. Once you have identified the various possible inquiries, you can design a multi-level IVR system that guides callers through various options. Something like: “Press 1 for Destinations,” “Press 2 for Pricing and Packages,” etc. Each option leads to a different branch of the call flow, directing the caller to the appropriate and available agent.

This way, a call flow builder and multi-level IVR systems can create personalized communication systems to assist customers, regardless of the time of the day.

5. Use Global Support Strategies

24/7 global support strategies range from using VoIP features to distributing workforce. Here are strategies to consider:

• Establish a network of global and regional contact centers or leverage remote agents in different time zones to provide round-the-clock support.
• Train agents to understand, distinguish, and respect cultural differences when working with global customers.
• Ensure smooth handoffs across different regional teams with proper documentation within a CRM or help desk software.
• Use IVR to automate responses to common FAQs and redirect or provide self-service options for callers. For instance, directing travelers to the best websites for booking flights can empower them to find quick solutions on their own. This lets your caller independently get the help they need swiftly.
• Utilize multilingual IVR systems to cater to callers who speak different languages. Provide prompts and menu options in multiple languages, allowing callers to select their preferred language for assistance and then route them to teams located in those regions.
• Use translation features like voicemail translation and call recording translation to increase comprehension and accessibility, leading to efficient follow-up and resolution. Check out our guide on how to translate voicemail in your preferred language.

Learn more in our guide to global customer support strategies.

6. Prepare for High Call Volumes

Anticipate peak travel seasons and prepare for high call volumes using automated routing tools for self-service and escalation. With these tools, you can:

• Reduce wait times
• Distribute workload efficiently among agents and teams
• Enable customers to resolve simple inquiries on their own
• Free up your support staff to handle more complex issues and handle every call with care
• Set up backup support options during high call periods, and so on.

Design an escalation matrix within your IVR and ACD systems for callers who require further assistance. This makes sure high-priority inquiries are attended in a timely manner.

7. Optimize Outbound Calling

Outbound calls with recognizable caller ID, such as your local business number, are more likely to be answered. This is because travelers may be wary of answering calls from unknown or unfamiliar numbers due to concerns about potential scams or unsolicited marketing calls.

By using and displaying local phone numbers, you can streamline the follow-up process, making it easier for your agents to engage with missed connections. Local numbers will also encourage more return calls (callbacks) from customers.

8. Integrate with CRM

Adding cloud telephony to CRM systems allows your support agents to access comprehensive customer profiles. They can:

• Access real-time booking information and purchase history,
• Assist with reservations and queries, and
• Review customer preferences and interactions.

With this information, your agents can personalize the support experience without needing to catch up on the call. They can address customers by name and anticipate their needs based on past interactions. Plus they can add notes and make and receive calls directly from the CRM interface. This reduces the need for customers to repeat information, enter data manually, or toggle multiple platforms.

VoIP CRM integration systems provide valuable insights into customer behavior, trends, and preferences. You can analyze call data, customer interactions, and booking patterns to identify opportunities for improvement and refine marketing strategies.

How Can GCF Help?

Cloud telephony solutions can greatly help in offering 24/7 global support. Pair these with your customer support strategies, and you can improve customer experiences across the board.

Global Call Forwarding has been helping businesses across industries worldwide with top-notch cloud telephony solutions. We can help you design a global support system with our advanced calling solutions.

Want to see how we can help your travel business? Call us or chat with us online today!