Call management can be a powerful tool when it comes to controlling costs and ensuring greater productivity - both of which, of course, translate to the bottom line.
Let’s take the example of a small recruitment firm who performed poorly in the last quarter and whose call costs had been slowly but surely creeping up. Only when the MD installed FeaturePlus (a hosted IP service) could he see where the problem lay. By logging onto his on-line administrator account he was able to see the entire company’s call history for the last 3 months and then down the call stats into Excel. On doing some basic analysis it became clear the guys that were meant to be making the sales calls, weren’t. Where calls were being made, there were too many calls to mobiles and non-geographic numbers, suggesting these calls were of a personal nature.
Line-by-line the MD applied a set of call barring measures so that staff were calling the right numbers: those in the database, and only those. Staff who needed wider access had less restrictive measures applied, so they could still get on with work unhindered. Secondly, simply by making the staff aware that he was monitoring everyone’s calls, productivity increased throughout his organisation.
The availability of call data across the business and the fact it could be downloaded meant the root cause of poor sales performance and escalating call costs could be pin-pointed quickly. The ability to apply call control measures in an instant meant remedial action could be taken without delay.”
Jennifer Nicol, Marketing Manager at Highland Networks, Inverness recalls another small business who used FeaturePlus, but in this case the key selling point was the ability to measure and control their marketing costs; “they advertised their business using two different numbers, and as a result were able to see where their business was coming from, and therefore concentrate more heavily on those areas."
Richard Bligh concludes, “Call management is a powerful tool, but only when it can be easily interpreted and solutions can be quickly implemented to address any problem identified. Myinbound.com, an inbound call management service, was designed with this principle in mind; it is all about snapshot data and usability, providing the information that is quickly digestible and is relevant to a business. The data does not require interpretation – graphs relate to real business issues and links to each report are kept simple and not buried in telecoms jargon. This means users can quickly glean the vital information they need such as where their customers are located, how many customer calls are getting through and when their busy hours are.
As an example, a UK supermarket ported their 0845 number onto myinbound.com to address their requirement for sequential routing in Head Office. Myinbound.com quickly highlighted the fact that they were failing to answer up to 1,000 customer calls per day and the Channel Partner then had the opportunity to make recommendations to apply further call management features and to also install more lines – consultancy based on facts.”