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VoIP

Learn about voice over IP (VoIP) services and how businesses can use VoIP technology to communicate better with local and international customers.
Call Forwarding automation
24th September 2020 Learn, VoIP

5 Ways to Improve Phone System Automation with Call Forwarding

Reasons why a softphone is essential for your remote team.
21st September 2020 Learn, VoIP

6 Reasons Why a Softphone Is Essential For Any Remote Team

outbound strategy
21st July 2020 Tips, VoIP

11 Tips to Improve Your Outbound Calls Strategy

5 Ways to Improve Phone System Automation with Call Forwarding

24th September 2020 Learn, VoIP

One of the most important parts of any business is to offer reliable customer support. This means that when a customer calls your business, you are always reachable and can provide quick and effective service. Offering such a support channel can prove difficult at times, especially when your team does not have the right business phone system tools. Fortunately, advanced services such as call forwarding and phone system automation can support your call volume.

Use Call Forwarding to Implement Phone System Automation

Call forwarding and phone system automation can work hand-in-hand to help callers get the assistance they need. This means transferring calls automatically or through an automated response system to the right agent, voicemail, or pre-recorded messages. Doing so can help your business offer quick and accurate customer support. Here are 5 ways to use call forwarding and phone system automation to improve your call flow management.

1. Interactive Voice Response

A cloud-hosted IVR system or interactive voice response is an automated phone system that answers incoming calls, identifies the purpose of the call, and proceeds to assist the caller. Your IVR system can present options to the caller through a series of menus such as “Press 1 for sales, Press 2 for customer support, Press 5 to make a payment, Press 4 for voicemail, and so on.” This way, callers can input the service they need.

2. Name or Company Directory

This feature is part of your automated phone system where you create a name or company directory so that callers can navigate by themselves to the department they want such as “Press 1 for marketing.” Having the automated system present customers with options means that they don’t have to know the department’s number or dial an extension themselves. You can list specific departments or even specific employees with an automated phone system. This also reduces the amount of transferring a caller has to go through before they reach the right department or employee.

3. Advanced Routing Strategies

An automated phone system will give you the opportunity to use various call forwarding and routing strategies for maximum productivity. For example, calls made during off-hours or weekends can be routed to remote employees who have an evening or weekend shift. This is called time-based routing. You may even forward those calls to your own smartphone or home office.

Or, you can have certain calls forwarded to remote employees or international offices located in different parts of the world with location-based routing. This type of automation is especially useful for companies with international reach and clientele. Lastly, you can have incoming calls ring on multiple devices at the same time. This ensures that the call is answered quickly and no call goes missed.

4. Multichannel Communication Options

Offering support only through phone conversations may be a disadvantage. Especially considering most customers look for emails, chat, or social media contact methods. This is why your business should consider using human collaboration with phone system automation. For instance, chatbots can help resolve issues through pre-recorded messages and rules. Automated responses inform customers that your business has received their message and will respond within a few days.

By executing multichannel support, your business caters to customers who do not prefer phone conversations. Thereby, increasing your customer base.

5. Voicemail

Your automated phone system can even forward the call to voicemail when the caller simply wants to leave a message and receive a call back. This is useful when the caller is not sure which department to speak with or if all employees are busy and the caller does not want to wait in line.

 Get Phone System Automation with Global Call Forwarding

Here at Global Call Forwarding, we specialize in bringing advanced communication tools to businesses of all sizes and in all industries. You can use our call forwarding service to help automate customer service and build stronger relationships. Want to learn more? Call us at 1 (888) 908 6171 or chat online with one of our experts today!

Related: 11 Best Business Call Forwarding Services in 2022

6 Reasons Why a Softphone Is Essential For Any Remote Team

21st September 2020 Learn, VoIP

Managing remote or distributed teams can be a hassle. Ensuring that employees stay connected and are able to contact customers and answer customer service calls is important. However, not everyone has access to the tools needed to make such a system work. Here is where a softphone can benefit your remote team.

How Can a Softphone Benefit Your Remote Team?

First, what is a softphone? It is a software that transforms any device (computer, laptop, smartphone, IP phone, tablet, etc.) into a phone. You can then use this device to make and receive calls over the internet instead of a cellular or traditional phone line.

All you need to make this work is a headset, a camera (if video calling is needed), and a voice over IP service. Then, employees can connect with co-workers and customers from any location and any device!

Here are 6 reasons to use a softphone for your remote or distributed teams.

1. Save on Communication-Related Costs

Softphones don’t need extra hardware or equipment to make them work effectively. And so, you won’t need to supply your remote teams with equipment. They can simply use their existing devices (laptops, tablets, smartphones) to connect to your VoIP service and make and receive calls.

When you choose a softphone instead of a desk phone, you save hardware, equipment, and IT costs.

2. Never Miss a Call, Stay Reachable

Another reason to use a softphone for business communication is that users can stay connected from any location (thanks for VoIP). And since employees and agents can use any device, they are reachable no matter where they are located. Plus, incoming calls can be forwarded to their number ensuring that they never miss a call. And when calling customers, they can change their outgoing caller ID to represent the company’s phone number instead of their own number. This way, their personal phone number is masked while they continue doing their job.

3. Maintain Productivity

A softphone gives a remote worker the ability to work at their own pace and from the comforts of their own home or local coffee shop. When giving employees the ability to work remotely, you cut down on commuting and transportation woes and give parents the opportunity to take care of their children while still being able to work. Remote working can significantly reduce stressors present in one’s life, helping them focus better on important tasks. Employees that do not feel burdened or stressed and can therefore do their jobs better, thus maintaining productivity.

4. Take Advantage of Advanced Communication Features

Softphones also give users access to advanced business communication features. The variety of features depends on your VoIP service. Most providers will offer the following:

  • Ability to make and answer calls
  • Call transfer
  • Remote call forwarding and routing
  • Outbound calling (with dynamic caller ID)
  • Call with a single click or by dialing through the dialpad
  • Access to voicemail
  • Ability to make notes about the call and the caller
  • Contact management

5. Support Your BYOD Policy

A bring your own device policy is a workplace policy that encourages employees to use their own devices. This is an ideal situation for remote workers as well as employers. Employers don’t have to worry about expenses related to equipment such as providing laptops or computers, etc. At the same time, remote workers can use devices and applications they are comfortable with. A softphone can easily fit into your BYOD policy as users can convert any of their devices into business communication tools. This way, they remain productive through devices they are comfortable working with.

6. Make Remote Working a Possibility

Finally, the most important reason to use a softphone is to make transitioning to remote-work is easy. Business VoIP technology and softphones make remote working or managing distributed teams easier. So, now, you can offer employees the option to work from home or hire agents in different time zones to get more global customers.

Need More Reasons to Get a Softphone Today?

Don’t wait any longer; choose the right softphone for your business! Get a softphone to enhance and streamline your business communications. Global Call Forwarding can help!

Sign up for our virtual phone number service and use the GCF softphone for any device to make and answer calls through the internet. Call us at 1 (888) 908 6171 to get started today!

11 Tips to Improve Your Outbound Calls Strategy

21st July 2020 Tips, VoIP

Are your outbound calls not making enough sales? You may need to rethink your strategies and implement new ones. Here are 11 tips to improve your outbound calling strategy and generate more leads.

11 Proven Tips to Improve Your Outbound Calls Strategy

Outbound calls are outgoing calls made from a company to its customers, vendors, and business partners. During outbound calls, agents or representatives call a list of promising leads or prospects and encourage them to make a purchase or sign up for a service.

Some common reasons for outbound calling are:

  • To increase brand awareness and visibility
  • Proactive approaches such as checking in with customers, setting upcoming appointments, following up on recent purchases or abandoned carts, etc.
  • Offering customer success services where you and customers or clients together work towards a goal
  • Verify or activate accounts
  • Send out reminders for upcoming payments or renewals
  • Collect feedback or conduct market research, to name a few

Outbound calls are sometimes known as cold calls, which are frequently used for sales, telemarketing, customer success, and more. However, cold calling is difficult because most customers are not prepared for your pitch.

So what can you do to grab their attention more effectively? Here are 11 useful tips to improve your outbound calling strategy.

1. Set Realistic Goals: Identify KPIs

First, it is important to set reasonable goals and share these with your teams. These goals and milestones can be modified as your business grows and new factors come into play. Make sure everyone understands what the goals are and how to achieve them. For example, are outbound calls meant to survey prospects or make a sale? How many sales should be made per month or per quarter? And so on.

Additionally, you want to identify relevant key performance indicators (KPIs) so you can measure employee performance. Common KPIs associated with outbound and sales calls are:

  1. Average Handle Time: Length of calls in relation to the total number of calls. Longer handling times may indicate difficulty in closing, poor persuasion skills, or insufficient product knowledge.
  2. First Call Resolution: Number of calls resolved on the first call in relation to the total number of calls. High first call resolution indicates that agents are doing well and are able to sell effectively without wasting time.
  3. Conversion Rate: Number of sales in relation to the total number of calls. A low conversion rate means that not enough sales are being made and the outbound calling strategy needs more work.
  4. Occupancy Rate: Time agents are spending on calls in relation to the amount of unavailable time spent. A low rate for an agent or rep means that they are struggling with post-call work.

2. Create the Ideal Call List

This goes without saying but if you are not targeting the right audience and demographic for your business, you won’t make great sales. Therefore, creating the perfect list can impact how well your business performs. Conduct market research and allow collaboration between marketing and sales teams so that together they can work on ideal buyer personas for your product. Then, develop a promising list that agents can pursue and generate more sales with.

3. Get an Outbound Calling Service

Consider getting an outbound calling solution to support your local and international outbound calls. With a web dialer, your call center agent can quickly place calls from a computer and log important call notes.

Additionally, they can contact long-distance clients and display local area codes instead of international ones. Individuals are more likely to answer recognizable or local numbers instead of random, unknown ones.

4. Train Your Phone Sales Reps

Part of ensuring your phone sales reps are doing their jobs well is training them to do them correctly. Train and re-train agents to highlight and refresh best practices that they should imitate. Sit in on calls or record calls and review them to offer advice on proper and ineffective strategies. Refer to experts and webinars for more useful and modern sales development training tactics that outbound call center agents can use.

5. Collaborate with Marketing

Your marketing team has a good idea of how to sell to audiences. And your sales team knows who this audience is. Putting these two teams together can help you gain a bigger picture of your target audience and how to appeal to them.

6. Pay Attention to Your Prospect

Most agents dominate the call trying hard to make their pitch and sale. However, in order to gain their attention, you need to engage the prospect. Listen to them, pay attention to their needs, concerns, and issues. And adapt your pitch to make it flexible, allowing you to customize its relevance. This is much more useful as opposed to a stock script. Make them feel valued as individuals and not merely as another conquest in your sales job.

7. Study. Analyze. Optimize

Next, study your processes, responses, and agent performance. Use the KPIs and other metrics to track how your call center or business is performing. Analyze call tracking metrics to boost inside sales revenue.

8. Identify the Best Calling Times

Another factor worth paying attention to is the best time of day to call prospects. Most experts suggest that Wednesday and Thursday are the best days to call prospects. This is because they are not preoccupied with the upcoming week or getting ready for the weekend. Additionally, calling between 11 am and 1 pm or 4 pm and 5 pm is preferable instead of early morning or during the pre- or post-work commute.

9. Consider Outbound Calling Tools

As mentioned before, consider outbound calling tools such as a call center dialer, CRM, and customizable caller ID to boost your success rate. These tools make it easy and even automate processes to a certain degree which can make placing calls and closing deals faster.

10. Simplify the Process

Make it easy for prospects to understand your brand and product, find more information, and make the purchase. Only offer information that is necessary and relevant. Overstatement and technical jargon can put customers off.

11. Record and Review Interactions

It can be very helpful to see how your employees are interacting with customers. Use a call recording software to review calls and pay attention to customer preferences, behaviors, and more. This will give you insights into what aspects of your product or service are most and least successful. Based on that information, you can create better products and services and improve customer care.
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