Complete Guide to Creating an Inbound Call Center Strategy

A business cannot survive without offering excellent customer service in today’s era. There should be a way for customers to contact the company for any product/service issues they are facing. It is the company’s responsibility to provide customers with appropriate contact channels. Companies usually offer phone contact channels to customers.

Many companies have a dedicated customer support center with many employees to pick up customer calls. With a call center, calls are equally distributed among customer support executives.

Setting up an inbound call center is not as easy as it seems. Without effective inbound call center strategies, a company cannot delight its customers. Read on to understand how to craft an effective inbound call strategy in 2022.

Understanding the Concept of Inbound Calls

When a customer initiates the call, it is called an inbound call. Customers often reach the customer support team for product/service issues. Inbound calls are picked up by the company’s help desk or customer support center. When looking to elevate the customer experience, responding to inbound calls is among the first things to do. With inbound calls, a business can register all sorts of customer complaints or concerns.

Companies offer a hotline or customer support number to customers. Customers can reach out to the given number when they encounter a product issue or have a complaint.

A company can have a dedicated on-premise contact center where employees can pick up incoming calls. A company can also have remote employees who can pick up customer calls from home.

Companies having employees at remote locations can offer customer support services across different time zones. Offering customer support services across different time zones is essential for global companies. However, not all organizations have the workforce and resources to provide round-the-clock customer service. 

A contact center will also have the required tools to assist the employees. For example, companies rely on software solutions to screen and distribute inbound calls. Automated solutions handle standard inbound strategy calls. Many companies use IVR (Interactive Voice Response) solutions to reduce the workload on call center employees.

Inbound calls are also recorded for training and quality purposes by every company. A call center will have the appropriate resources to record inbound calls and enlist customer information.

After receiving an inbound call, the customer support executive tries to resolve the customer’s issue in the first interaction. However, some customer issues are complex and take some time. In such a case, the rep will follow up with the customer after resolving the issue.

Customer support executives can follow up with customers via call, message, or email. A customer support executive is supposed to maintain communication with the customer until the underlying issue is resolved.

The management continuously works on inbound marketing strategies for call centers. A business cannot win customers’ trust without a proper inbound call strategy.

Most representatives receive inbound calls daily, and sometimes call volumes can skyrocket. Besides inbound calls, customer support executives also have to make outbound calls. Let us understand the concept of outbound calls made by customer support executives.

Understanding the Dissimilarity Between Inbound & Outbound Calls

As discussed above, when the customer initiates the call, it is called an inbound call. On the other hand, when a company representative makes the call, it is called an outbound call. Many companies offer proactive customer support to their customers.

Proactive support includes getting in touch with customers before they reach out to you. It includes helping the customer to get the best out of any particular product or service. Companies that offer proactive customer support to customers have a high consumer satisfaction rate.

With some companies, customers can schedule a call-back from a customer support executive. With a dedicated digital channel, a customer can report their issue to the company beforehand and schedule a call-back.

The customer support executive will also get time to resolve the underlying product/service issue. By submitting their complaints/concerns ahead of time, customers enjoy proactive support.

Usually, the volume of inbound calls is more than that of outbound calls in a call center. However, it can vary according to the call center strategy of each company.

An effective inbound call strategy requires some research. You should look at several call center metrics to decide the right inbound/outbound call strategy.

How to Set Up a Customer Support Center?

If you are thinking of setting up a customer support center, follow these steps:

Craft a Definite Strategy

Before hiring customer support executives, you need to have a robust call center strategy. You need to decide on the contact channels for customers beforehand. The first thing to find out is the type of customer support you will offer. Will your company receive only inbound calls from customers?

In such a case, you only need to decide on an effective inbound call strategy. A company can also choose to offer technical or proactive customer support. The call center strategy will change based on the type of customer support services you wish to offer.

People often consider customer service centers and customer support centers the same. However, there is a slight difference between a support and a service center.

A customer support center only offers reactive support to customers. It helps employees receive inbound calls and solve product/service issues after they have occurred.

On the other hand, a customer service center offers both inbound and outbound services. Therefore, if you want to provide proactive customer support, you should set up a customer service center.

Let us say you want to craft an effective inbound call strategy. To do so, you should have plans for business expansion. How will you continue customer support services when the business expands? As more and more customers come on board, representatives will have to handle a high volume of inbound calls.

A company must prepare for upcoming challenges while setting up a customer support center. Having a far-fetched vision can help you decide on an inbound call strategy that avoids future setbacks. 

Hire Expert Customer Support Executives

Once you have the right inbound call strategy, you need to hire representatives. When starting a new support center, deciding on the number of employees can be challenging. Since labor costs are skyrocketing, you need to know the number of employees to hire. A company can start by analyzing the number of daily/monthly inbound calls.

For example, a company expects to receive 300 inbound calls daily. A single representative can handle up to 30 inbound calls easily in their 8-hour shift. Since the number of daily inbound calls is 300, you will require around ten customer support professionals. To be on the safe side, you can hire 15 skilled customer support executives. Once you have the estimate, it is time to hire some energetic people who can boost the customer satisfaction rate. 

Invest in the Right Tools/Resources

If you want to boost the productivity of your call center employees, you need to invest in the right tools. The first thing to look for is an effective call distribution solution. Most companies rely on IVR solutions to reduce the manual workload of customer support employees.

An IVR solution can interact with customers, register complaints, schedule calls, and distribute inbound calls to reps who are free.

Besides software solutions, a company has to invest in hardware for customer support employees. Headsets, laptops, keyboards, and many other hardware devices are required to provide customer support. You also have to invest in a stable internet connection for your call center employees. Customer support employees should also have access to an effective CRM. With an effective CRM, reps can access useful customer information at their fingertips. While deciding on an inbound call strategy, plan a budget for the call center equipment.

Share the News with the Customers

Let your customers know that a new customer center will be launched to fulfill their needs. Let the marketing and sales departments promote the customer support channels. Display the available customer support services on the official website, newsletter, or mobile application.

If you want to gather responses from the audience, start by offering customer support services only to premium customers. Once the premium customers are satisfied with the customer support services, make it available for all.

Track Call Center Metrics

After setting up a call center, you need to monitor the activities of customer support employees. Tracking KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) is the best way to measure the effectiveness of your customer support services. KPIs like call volume, average call duration, abandon rate, and customer churn can help you measure the effectiveness of your call center.

A definite inbound call strategy will demand focus on multiple fronts. From getting the right tools to hiring expert customer support employees, many things will decide the effectiveness of your call center. So make sure you create an inbound call strategy with adequate planning.