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A call management system is a software or cloud-based service that handles and directs your business phone calls. It replaces traditional, limited phone lines with an advanced, digital cloud phone system.
Dreaming about starting something of your own seems to be easy. But when you take the first step towards this dream, you get to see the number of hurdles that come in the way. But you thrive in this battle and establish the business. But still you can’t take a breather, because you have placed your dream in a field where there are already some giants and big names flourishing and thriving well. Taking the first step needs to be planned strategically. You cannot let go of necessities and features that make your business well equipped, to be added on a later stage.
A well equipped business front will give you a necessary foothold in the field and a good call management system is one of the basic necessities that you need to fulfill for your business to thrive. A call management system is like the first impression on your business and if it is not good enough, your business will also suffer.
In this blog, we will look into 4 basic features of a call management system that you need to look out for.
Introduction
For a long period of time, the big names in the commercial space have kept a domain over the business phone systems. These big corporations benefitted well from using features like automated call routing and toll free numbers. But now the scenario has changed and these features are now accessible to every small enterprise out there.
The small enterprises which felt too small or technically poor due to their missed customer interactions and lack of response made the big mistake and now they are aware of what needs to be done in order to regain their credibility.
However, the playing field of businesses has leveled evenly for both small and big companies due to the rapid growth of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and cloud phone systems. There are affordable and user based plans that now give the business access to a wide range of call management tools that were once only accessible to the big names.
The collective impact of the four essential features is massive as they instantly boost your scale, enhance your credibility, and improve your operational efficiency.
Toll-Free Number
The first essential feature that your business needs is to look upon the contact number that you have given to the customers. If it is a landline or mobile phone number you really need to change the way of this process. Because whenever a customer has a query and he or she needs to communicate, instead of dialing the personal numbers they can easily get access to your company through a toll – free number. This increases the credibility that your business provides to them.
Why does a local contact number limit the growth?
A local number can fulfill the needs of your local marketing essentials. But there are a few inherent limitations that it carries:
- Geographical limitations: First of all if your business consists of a local number it automatically ties your work to a specific location thereby affecting the vast number of customers that you may have got. Likewise those interested customers who reside far away may assume that your business is out of their reach.
- Business size: Giving a single contact number may be off putting to customers as they will assume that your business is small or you lack the staff capacity to answer their queries and concerns.
- Customer cost anxiety: While many customers have long distance recharge plans, they will opt out of choosing your business as it feels a costly affair to reach.
The Enterprise Perception of a Toll free number:
Toll free numbers which begin with 800,888 etc.. gives a sense of credibility. You might have seen these in a number of advertisements by government bodies. It shows:
- National Presence : A toll-free number suggests you are a national enterprise, ready to serve any customer regardless of their location.
- Instant credibility : Customers associate toll free numbers with successful and credible companies or institutions.
- Professional image : Placing a toll free number in necessary social media platforms and official websites is an effective way to project your professionalism.
This feature is no longer expensive. With modern small business VoIP solutions, a toll-free number can often be added for a small monthly fee, sometimes even included in the base plan thereby making it affordable for everyone.
Interactive Voice Response
After acquiring a professional number the another step is to manage the calls that rush through every hour, even when you are busy. This is where IVR or Interactive voice response changes the game in your business strategy. So what is an IVR?
IVR is often termed as auto attendant, which is the automated menu that greets the callers with options like, Press 1 for sales, Press 2 for queries, Press 3 for billing etc…
What happens in a scenario that lacks an IVR?
For small to mid range enterprises, the major challenge they face is to handle the call volume. Often they lose customers because they couldn’t reply or take the call due to their busy phone systems which leads to customer frustration and thereby churns. Also even if the staff picks up the call they will be drained too soon of their productivity which can instead be used on their tasks effectively.
IVR handles this call volume without requiring you to hire a full-time receptionist as staff. It acts as an infinitely scalable filter.
24/7 Professional Call Routing
The most essential need of a call routing system is to handle calls effectively and the greatest benefit is that they work 24/7 regardless of the hour. This helps to give your business a feeling of standard and customer – centric.
With implementing a call routing system you can:
- Direct sales to sales : if a customer is asking a query regarding a product and its specification the system can directly route it to the sales team member.
- Support to support: if the customer has some concerns over a product or service they can be directed to the support team to solve the issue.
- After hours information : if a customer is seeking information which is after the working hours of the company or institution, the system can provide essential information like hours of operation or a link to an online FAQ before offering to take a message, solving simple queries without staff intervention.
So therefore, an effective IVR doesn’t just route calls—it screens and prioritizes them, giving your team a critical head start.
Advanced Call Routing
Through a basic call routing system we can handle all the calls without getting anything missed. But advanced call routing systems add an intelligent layer to this process by passing the call to the appropriate agent who deals with the specific section of the query. This system definitely impacts the efficiency of your business by increasing your first call resolution rate.
Intelligent call routing ensures that it uses its predefined logic to transfer the call to match the customer’s need with the agent’s capability. Imagine an IT firm, where a call related to a software issue is directed to x and a call related to network setup is directed to y. This ensures a skill based routing thereby reducing customers frustration and ensuring their ease of use. Also this feature allows the queries after your working hours to be routed to an on call manager or a voicemail box thereby ensuring every call is answered and customers expectations are met.
Call Analytics and Reporting
The difference in using a simple traditional landline system and a budget friendly call management system is in the data it provides. This helps small business enterprises to make data driven decisions and strategize accordingly.
What does call data reveal?
Your phone system provides you with continuous and real time market data that you might have been overlooking. Basic call analytics and reporting provides insights like:
- Missed calls: the data of time and duration it took.
- Peak hours: shows data of when customers are trying to reach your service often.
- Call duration: shows data of what kind of calls or what issue related calls took more time.
- Agent performance: Measures the average handle time and first call resolution period of each employee.
Analysis of this data helps you to move beyond merely reacting to calls and strategize your business efficiently.
With a basic analysis you can stop guessing and start optimizing:
- Identify peak call times to adjust staff: if you see a churn of customers via missed calls in a certain hour of the day repeatedly , you can use this data to employ more staff to this time of the hour thereby reducing the problem.
- Track which marketing campaigns generate major leads: by assigning a certain unique number to specific marketing campaigns you will be able to identify your marketing fund to the specific area of customer interest.
Adopting this call analytics feature enables you to scale your business in future according to the growth. You can easily implement and add new features such as CRM etc.. to efficiently handle the proceedings. This feature will provide you with foundational metrics to track profitability and scale operations smoothly.
Choosing the Right Management Solution
Selecting the right provider who can cover all these basic features in an affordable manner will be a strategic move for your business. It should be taken cautiously.
What to look for in a provider?
These are the key questions that you need to ask yourself while choosing a provider:
- Scalability: Is the provider able to remove or add users instantly without taking a massive fee in return for the service? A good provider will be able to scale from 2 to 200 employees easily overnight.
- Cost: Does the cost cover all essential features like the ones that your business needs, or do we have to pay an extra price for those?
- Reliability: Check for each provider’s prescribed uptime. Since these are cloud-based solutions, you need a provider with a proven, reliable track record.
- CRM Integration: Is the system equipped enough to integrate to your existing crm software.
Conclusion
Your business phone system is the clearest indicator of your professionalism and credibility. By adopting these 4 basic features of a call management system like toll free number, IVR, advance call routing and analytics, you increase your customers reliability to your services.
Book for a demo to know more or visit our website at bonvoice.
Frequently asked questions:
What is a call management system?
A call management system is a software or cloud-based service that handles and directs your business phone calls. It replaces traditional, limited phone lines with an advanced, digital cloud phone system.
What is the difference between cms and traditional landline?
A traditional phone line provides you with basic calling whilst a cms provides you with a business tool for growth with its features.
What are the basic features to look out for in a cms?
A good call management system will provide you with toll free number facility, IVR, advanced call routing , call analytics and reporting.
Why can’t I use a staff and handle all the calls instead of setting up a cms?
A call management system can effectively reduce the staff’s hard work in tasks that they can use productively instead. Also the cms ensures that no calls are missed and directs the customers to voicemail inbox or a designated staff even after the working hours.