A Day in the Life...Customer Service

Customer service is integral to the success of any company, and with the current state of the economy providing quality customer service is more important than ever. You want to keep your customers satisfied so they will keep coming back and will recommend your business to others.

Customer service takes many forms, ranging from a customer service agent taking orders in a call center to a salesperson managing multiple customer requests while on the road – even an engineer providing tech support. Below our engineers explain how using a feature-rich IP-PBX phone system helps them provide efficient and effective customer service on a daily basis.  

Improve Accessibility
Taking the time to record greetings for when you are out of the office, in a meeting, away from your desk, etc. informs customers of your accessibility. Our engineers use personal statuses hand-in-hand with these greetings, assigning specific greetings to each status so that the personalized greeting is played when the corresponding status is selected.  

Changing the personal status also lets others in their work group easily determine who is available at a given time, and the IM feature enables them, while on a call, to quickly ask another engineer if he can manage an incoming call. 

When our engineers are accessible from a remote location, they configure routing lists to allow callers to reach them wherever they need to be reached. Or, they automatically route incoming calls to a cell phone, and, with just a couple clicks, easily forward incoming calls from the cell to another employee at the office. If they are not accessible, they configure routing lists so that the caller can leave a message or speak with another engineer.  

Our personal tip:  Once you have set up personal greetings and attached them to statuses, call your number to understand the caller’s experience firsthand. 

Prioritize Calls
Every now and then, the influx of incoming calls outweighs the number of available engineers. Luckily our engineers can prioritize calls, while already on the line, using the Caller ID and Call Announce features. Caller ID allows our engineers to see the company name, or customer’s name, and phone number on the ViewPoint screen that pops up on the desktop computer. Call Announce allows the caller to identify him or herself, which is then played through the desktop speakers. 

Using these features, and with a simple click of the mouse, incoming callers can receive a special greeting to let them know the intended party is on another call and will be with them shortly. Callers that receive this greeting tend to wait patiently 95% of the time, rather than hang up or select voice mail. If both the current call and the incoming call require immediate attention, the engineer can drag and drop the call to transfer it to another available engineer. 

Our personal tip:  Eliminate the game of phone tag. Ensure that calls are addressed the first time around by using the Caller ID, Call Announce and drag and drop features to quickly manage all incoming calls. 

“Take Notes” With Call Record
Let Call Record take notes for you. When a customer calls in for technical support, actively listen to the caller while they are giving the details, rather than trying to write everything down, which may cause you to miss important points. Then go back and review the recording to retrieve the pertinent details of a problem or configuration steps. 

Our personal tip:  Hone your active listening skills. Use the call record button to capture any detailed conversations, directions, instructions or strings of numbers to ensure accuracy.

Tackle Tough Issues as a Team
On occasion an issue requires a team approach to solve it. In such an instance, our engineers can easily e-mail call recordings to another individual(s) within the company for their review and input. Using this feature, no details are lost in the verbal passing-on of information. Instead, each employee hears the customer’s issue in his or her own words. 

Our personal tip:  Avoid miscommunication on tough issues. Use the call record button to share detailed conversations and issues, in the customer’s own words, when a team approach is necessary.

Decrease Response Time
When resolving technical issues, in a given day/week our engineers will often contact the same person several times. They save time by using the Dial Bar to retrieve the last 20 numbers called rather than dialing the number on the phone keypad each time. Simply use the pull-down menu on the Dial Bar to find the number, and then click on the number to place the call. Another time-saver they enjoy – using the Call Log for callbacks. Just locate the number in the log and right click to call. 

Our personal tip:  Cut down on response time by using the Dial Bar and Call Log to quickly locate and place calls, all with a couple clicks of the mouse.

Diverse Phone Systems for Diverse Needs

These are just a few of the ways our engineers use our IP-PBX phone system to provide prompt and accurate customer service. Our spring series has shown you how phone system solutions can help multiple employees – from the office manager to the marketing team to the sales staff – work more efficiently and effectively. We hope you will share these tips with your entire staff and encourage you to share your stories of how your IP-PBX phone system has improved your business.  Just e-mail your story to us at officemgr@AlternateAccess.com.