The cost of missed calls is immense, whether you are a small local shop or a fortune 500 company with a global presence. A huge chunk of this bad customer service stems out of companies missing customer calls, not following up on time, and behaving in a negligent way towards the customer. When you don’t answer customers’ phone promptly, it obviously upsets them, undermining their confidence in your business and convincing them that you don’t value them as a customer.
As a business, you know that is not the case so why is it that you still end up missing calls? The most probable reason is that you don’t have sufficient customer service agents to answer calls. If the same set of customer service agents are managing other customer contact channels such as emails and chats, it could be that they get occupied or overwhelmed handling those and may miss calls. If you have adequate call centre agents given the total volume of interactions but are still missing calls, analyse to see if you experience a surge in volume during certain hours where you need extra customer service agents. The other issue could be that you are missing calls outside your business hours where you don’t have an in-house call centre agents or a call centre outsourcing company to accept those.
Missing out on a few customer calls might not seem like the worst thing to happen to your business. But the actual repercussions are huge.
Given that around 80% of all business communications take place over the phone, this channel is highly critical to maintaining customer relationships. An assumption that they might email or contact you through social media is faulty. In fact, roughly 85% of people whose calls aren’t answered will not call back. Imagine the loss of business in dollar value if even 20% of them were potential customers ready to place an order. And here’s the worst part: More than 60% of the unhappy clients will take their business elsewhere. Therefore, owing to basic negligence and inefficiency at your call centre, you end up strengthening your competitors. The first impressions are always the best ones. And so, if your call centre agents aren’t picking up the calls, you not only piss the customer off but also tend to lose his/her business. The stats above should be a wake up for any business that feels it is not important to prioritise answering calls.
What more, the damage caused by missed calls is not only limited to the lost sale but also ruins your reputation as a brand. An upset customer is likely to tell the world about the bad customer experience, spread the word on social media and do what he can to show your business in a negative light. If a happy customer tells 10 of its friends about good customer experience, an unhappy is bound to tell 30! Are you willing to take that risk?
Is call forwarding a solution? Perhaps not. While it may work if it is a temporary arrangement but long term, no. You could be sleeping, out for a family dinner or driving. Do you really think you can make yourself readily available to pick up these calls and make sure that there are no background noises disrupting the professional image you want to put out for your customers?
What about voicemail? Customers call you because they are looking to speak to a live agent for a question or to share their grievances. In such a scenario a voicemail can seem cold and inhuman and can understandably make your customers upset.
So, what’s the fix? How do you ensure that your call centre doesn’t miss out on a single call, or a single customer? Let’s find out!
If you’re a small team that has constantly getting customer calls, it’s best to work with a call centre outsourcing company. A Customer Service outsourcing company is equipped with well-trained agents to deal with customers 24*7. You wouldn’t have to worry about missed calls anymore because you’ve got call centre outsourcing company taking care of this department from now on.
In addition to being available for the customer all the time, you end up easing the workload on your team members. This, in turn, makes them more productive and efficient at work.
However, while selecting a call centre outsourcing company, be careful that you choose a full suit customer service outsourcing company and not just an answering service. An answering service company can only take a message and pass them on to you which is not of any help when your customer is expecting at least a basic solution to his problem. An answering service is as good as an automated message or voicemail. What you need is a customer service outsourcing company. Customer service outsourcing company agents are like an extension of your own customer service team who don’t only assist your customers with their issues but also engage them in conversation to seek out valuable feedback on what they think about your brand and pass them on to you.
LiveSalesman is a leading call centre outsourcing company. Since our foundation in 2003, we have handled over 20 million customer interactions and executed more than 500 projects for different clients. We offer flexible customer service outsourcing solutions to suit different business needs. One of the biggest benefits with us that we can easily scale up and down with resources (be it inbound or outbound process) at a competitive price. Talk to us
today to see how we can help you prevent missed calls cost effectively.
Source: https://livesalesman.com/the-actual-cost-of-a-missed-call-to-a-business/
Publish Date: April 8, 2019 |
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