Can Call-Backs Do More For Your Contact Center?

Using call-backs to eliminate hold time for your customers is an easy win! It improves your CSAT scores, supports your agents and helps smooth out call spikes in the contact center. What’s not to love? Call-backs are a simple, elegant answer to a great big CX problem. But did you know your call-backs can do more?

If you work in a contact center, chances are you are familiar with the traditional way to use call-backs. When inbound calls are spiking, offering customers a call-back keeps them off hold and protects your KPIs by deferring calls to quier times.

Call-backs also offer superior customer experience. And it’s a good thing, too. Customers hate waiting on hold. According to Zendesk, 60% of customers say waiting on hold is the single worst part of customer service. Talkdesk research shows that 60% of customers would rather receive a call-back than wait on hold.

Call-Backs Work

Clearly call-backs work. They’re a great insurance policy during busy times of the year and they protect your KPIs and improve the customer experience. But a specialized, robust call-back technology, like Fonolo’s suite of call-back solutions, can help your contact center operations in other ways, too.

FACT:

93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who offer excellent customer service. (Hubspot)

Can Call-Backs Eliminate Voicemail?

Yes. Call-backs can eliminate voicemail, the plague of Monday mornings. The plague of every morning, really, if your contact center isn’t open around the clock. Just because your contact center doesn’t operate 24 hours a day, doesn’t mean customers won’t need support at all hours. Often, an after-hours call results in a voicemail, or several voicemails. That means Monday, one of the busiest days of the week in the call center, also gets saddled with answering voicemail.

You know what happens next: you return the call, but your customer doesn’t pick up. Now voicemail has become a fully-fledged game of phone tag.

Don’t let it happen!

By offering after-hours callers a call-back instead of voicemail, you eliminate that middle step. Instead of a game of phone tag, you have an appointment to speak. This removes the manual work of responding to voicemail, and gives your customers a great experience by letting them choose when they’d like to have the conversation. Everybody wins.

Call-Backs Bridge the Gap

Web Call-Backs make the transition from online customer service to the voice channel simple. All the customer needs is a link – a chatbot, agent, or webpage can offer one – to book a call-back at convenient time. This escalates the customer’s call to a live agent, creating a seamless customer experience, free of hold time.

Call-Backs Can Capture Customer Information, Too

Did you know call-back technology can be used to collect customer information, too? When you use an interactive menu to have customers answer a few simple questions while scheduling a call-back, you set your customer up for an excellent experience.

Depending on the nature of your contact center, you can decide which information you’d like to collect. Asking customers their name, reason for calling and account number are good places to start. Collecting this data ensures the agent who returns your call is prepared for the call and customers won’t have to repeat themselves. It also offers a more personalized experience, which is key to great customer service.

You’ll improve performance KPIs such as average handle time, too. When your agents are armed with the customer’s name, details and reason for calling, they won’t need to spend time collecting that information and can get straight to business.

Call-Backs Offer Excellent Self-Service

One of the chief reasons call-backs work so well is because they offer excellent self-service. Full-featured call-backs put customers in the driver’s seat and give them control over their customer service journey. They can schedule a conversation at a time that works for them, from any device they like – phone, web or mobile devices are all good. With Scheduled Call-Backs, they can book a call-back for a time they like up to 15 days in the future. How’s that for service?