The telecom industry has changed drastically in recent years. What is considered essential today is very different from just a few years ago. This guide shows what good telephony should include – and how a superb solution can improve the customer experience!
Introduction
There’s been a huge amount of change in the telecoms industry in recent years, so much so that it can be hard to keep up! Landline phones are more or less passé these days. But don’t worry – we’re not saying you have to stop making calls over the phone network and rip out the cables to the landlines. Your existing telephony infrastructure can easily be adapted to integrate other, more modern systems.
Today, as we are increasingly on the move and workplaces become more flexible, mobile phones are the first choice for communication. In addition to this, there are a number of other elements required to build a good foundation for your company’s telephony. In this guide, we’ll look at what goes into a well-functioning telephony solution and how a good solution also enhances your company’s customer experience!
How to define successful business telephony
Today, a smart, cloud-based switchboard is the foundation of a well-functioning communication platform. It integrates traditional telephony with IP telephony, CRM, IVR, and more. Today, you get much better value for money when you invest in telephony, which also allows you to deliver better value to customers.
Smart telephony is defined by a number of factors common to all digital services today. So, what does successful business telephony actually mean? Here are five characteristics we believe are the most important:
1. user-friendly
The technology should simplify internal processes with a simple, smooth interface. No one should have to think about where or how they invite to a conference call. It should be so user-friendly that it is obvious.
2. easy to understand
Everyone needs to understand the platform. It shouldn’t matter what your technical knowledge is, a smart telephony solution is one that doesn’t require a complicated manual. It’s a solution offered by a supplier who takes care of the whole thing and delivers a finished product that you just need to install – and you’re done!
3. integratable
In order to offer the best possible overall experience for customers, it is optimal to integrate the PBX with IP telephony, CRM and other services. We will describe this in more detail later!
4. flexible
At a time when remote working is becoming increasingly popular, there is no point in fighting it, but rather adapting to it. Employees in your company will demand a more flexible work situation and to best accommodate this, you should ensure that your telephony is also adapted to this.
A cloud-based solution will bring great added value to the company, whether for those working at the front desk or as salespeople. When the customer service department can provide professional support from the home office and IT staff can do their troubleshooting on the bus, half is already won.
5. Willing to cooperate
If all telephony in the company is managed in one app, it becomes much easier for different departments within the company to communicate with each other. It can thus enable stronger collaboration between, for example, the sales and customer service departments.
Use business telephony the right way
The most important thing for employees is to have the right tools for the right occasion and that the methods and approaches they use are established and appropriate for their work.
Bringing all telephony together in one app
Today, we need apps for everything, including telephony solutions. Smart, digital telephony should be managed exclusively via an app to make work run as smoothly as possible. This means you can work on your work computer in the office or at home, or why not on your mobile phone on the way to a customer meeting? For maximum efficiency, you should be able to manage the switchboard, transfer calls, make internal and external calls, chat with colleagues and much more – all in the same app.
Mobile or fixed number?
Many people in business get by with a cell phone and a number, while some, such as sales or customer service staff, may benefit from a fixed number linked to a desk phone. This is mainly for a more professional appearance rather than functionality.
The same applies to the company’s main number. It’s still good to have a fixed number that customers with more general questions can call. For staff, however, the most important thing is that they can make their calls when and where they want. Even if a salesperson has two numbers, they can answer on any device – and if they want to call from the app on their computer or from their phone, they can do that too.
Chat and video conferencing
To meet the rise of remote working, smart tools are needed to establish effective collaboration. Hybrid meetings, where some people participate from home and others from the office, have increased significantly. Therefore, consider formulating a video call strategy and investing in a video conferencing tool that ensures excellent audio and video quality. Read more about Telavox video conferencing tools here.
A clear trend that has accelerated since the pandemic is that your customers have higher demands on how and when to contact you. It’s not enough to just have business phones, but combined with email, social media and a live chat, you’re ready!
Strengthen the customer experience in 4 steps
So how can smart, well-customized telephony not only make you work together more efficiently within your company – but also give customers a better experience when they contact you? This is actually quite easy to achieve by looking at the following things:
1. Be available in the channels your customers are active
Contacting businesses today should be easy, and customers expect to be able to do so in a variety of ways such as phone, email and chat. Today’s increased demand for accessibility also means that you need to make sure your customers can reach you exactly when they need to. One way to create a seamless way for customers to contact you, regardless of the platform they use, is through omnichannel. Read more about omnichannel and how a contact center enhances the customer experience in our guide.
If your company has a main number, it should be clear when you can actually be reached on this. Many companies choose to refer only to an email address, but to be accessible to as many people as possible, you need to adapt more than that. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a main number (or keep your current one) that everyone can call, whatever the issue. Many people find it easier to ask a question verbally and by not having that option, you may miss potential customers and lose existing ones.
2. Meet customers’ increasing demands for accessibility with IVR
For the most accommodating customer experience, you should have an IVR function implemented. This can be a voice that tells the caller what the company’s phone hours are or what choices the person can make depending on the case.
IVR can also be useful for employees, to set up personal messages for example if they are on vacation, sick, in meetings or have left for the day. You will have happier customers if they find out that a particular person gets off work at 4pm every day. They’ll know straight away that it’s smarter to try again earlier in the day rather than keep trying to call at the same time and never reach the person.
3. Integrate the switchboard with your CRM and increase customer satisfaction
For a complete customer experience, your CRM should be integrated with your telephony. Why should it be? Because it can make your support not only more efficient and profitable – but also much happier customers.
This is because as soon as an existing customer calls in, the support staff get their details straight away. They have immediate access to all the information they need to offer help quickly. Not only can they see the customer number, social security number, etc., but they can also see what the customer has purchased and whether there are any previous cases on file.
4. Invest in the right number of switches
No one wants to stand in line or be passed around between a bunch of different menus. Ideally, you want to get through straight away, and be connected to the right person immediately. However, most people are okay with waiting in line for a while – as long as they end up in the right place once they get to talk to someone. Most people probably also feel that it feels better to stand in line (and be constantly updated on which queue you have) than to be busy so that you have to call again and again.
Tip: Review the pressure on your current switchboard in your company. If callers often have to queue for a long time, you should consider scaling up to more exchanges.
Unified communication in an omnichannel contact center
A smart way to improve the customer experience is through your contact center. Many contact centers today include omnichannel, which is a way to achieve seamless communication across all channels – on all devices. Your customers are busy and want to be able to connect whenever they want and on the platform they are active on.
All voice and text-based communications are brought together in one view, helping agents resolve tickets more easily and reducing internal errors. Customers also get a consistent user experience across all devices and channels. So for a modern and personalized customer experience, omnichannel is the way forward for any contact center.
See trends and collect statistics from your contact center
A crucial factor to improve your communication and telephony is to follow up on metrics and statistics. Study your customers and learn from their behavior and adjust accordingly, if possible. We recommend tracking metrics like first-contact-resolution to see how often your agents resolve a customer issue on the first try.
It is also important to have an overview of your contact center. How many calls are waiting to be answered? How long does the average caller have to wait? How many agents are available to take calls? By reviewing the situation, you can adapt to ensure your service is as efficient as possible.
What can Telavox do for you and your business?
Telavox was one of the world’s first IP telephony providers and we were already working in the cloud in 2002. Modern, smart business telephony has always been part of our DNA. We strive to help our customers communicate better through great functionality and flexibility.
Our integrations
Connecting your different tools with each other ensures better working days for employees and streamlines your workflows. It’s easy to integrate your favorite tools with Telavox, for example:
- CRM tools like Salesforce and Hubspot.
- Statistical tools such as Power BI.
- Security tools such as BankID.
One of the integrations our customers appreciate the most is with Microsoft Teams. With your telephony in Microsoft Teams, it’s easy to stay connected at all times, no matter where your colleagues are stationed. Read more about our integration with Microsoft Teams.
Real-time statistics
This is the dream feature for every team manager out there. An efficient way to gather insights without having to add new metrics. You get a clear overview of:
- Number of calls in queue.
- Average waiting time.
- Number of agents in calls and which ones are available.
- Availability feature – you can see if someone is at lunch or home sick.
Telavox Contact Center
Omnichannel communication is available as an additional feature in our contact center solution. It brings all your customers’ information together in one place, no matter what channel they use to contact you. If you use it effectively, customers won’t have to repeat a question to customer support ever again, which would be nice, right?
Call Center Pro
Call Center Pro is an add-on service to strengthen your switchboard service with extended statistics and queuing features. Who is it suitable for? Well, just anyone who uses a contact center and wants to improve how they handle calls and manage statistics!
Thank you for reading our guide!
That’s all the tips we have right now on how to achieve business telephony success. But just like the telecom world itself, we at Telavox are constantly evolving. Because our UCaaS solution is developed in-house, we’re always looking for ways to improve it to make it easier for your customers to communicate with you – and for your employees to communicate with each other.
If you’re interested in reading more about telecom trends, take a look at what our Product Manager Tor Blomdell has to say on the subject. And if you’re interested in knowing more about us at Telavox and what solutions we can offer you, don’t hesitate to get in touch! Business telephony has changed a lot in recent years. Here are the current trends and features that your business telephony must have.
