“Call logging wins every way you look at it. It's a relatively low cap ex item, it's an investment that can deliver ROI almost overnight and it enables resellers to fulfil the text book advice to focus on looking after the customers you already have in a recession, rather than chasing new business that just isn't there at the moment.
It never ceases to amaze me that, no matter how many call logging licences we issue through resellers - and the numbers haven't dropped at all in recent months- that they still represent a penetration of only 5 to 10% of system sales. Perhaps the sales guys did not need the marginal add-on commission that goes with adding call logging to a hardware sale: I have to suspect they may take a different view today. And by my reckoning there are 90 - 95% of the systems out there that are ripe to buy call logging. Call logging pays for itself with systems of all sizes - a business with just one line is a potential user.
The business benefits of call logging should make it an easy sell - and the pick of the new generation of call logging software has fantastic web interfaces that makes them easy to demonstrate and easy for customers to use in future.
In a recession call logging really comes into its own: are you missing calls or keeping customers waiting too long? How do your staff perform and compare? Can you identify - and then manage - the customers who take up disproportionate amounts of time with your support staff? The list of parameters that you can monitor grows - and our ACD wallboard display modules, fully integrated with the call logging software, can show them alongside a menu-driven choice of business performance indicators from your main business database - chopping and changing the display mix at the click of a mouse, which makes for a pretty powerful staff motivation tool.
And why stop at call logging? Call recording has become a natural add-on, either now or at a later date. Once again, having a fully integrated solution that shares the same users interface should help to make the upsell seamless and relatively easy - if not now then when the Baroness' green shoots really do appear.
It's all very well telling resellers how to manage their business - what else is Oak doing to heed its own advice and look after existing customers, you may ask? "We maintain what we believe to be the best support service for resellers and their customers - and we have the call logging stats to prove it!" says Reynolds.