A Beginner’s Guide On An Effective Inbound Call Strategy

A Beginner’s Guide On An Effective Inbound Call Strategy

Keep up with the latest news, tips and features right here!

A Beginner’s Guide On An Effective Inbound Call Strategy

Inbound Call Strategy

Most companies will set up or adopt a call center to field customer service requests and complaints. These call centers organize phone support queues and equally distribute calls to reps on the service team. While call centers are a common feature of most customer service teams, setting up one for your business is no easy task. Inbound calls are phone calls made to a company’s customer service or support team and are initiated by the customer.

This post will break down the different components that make up a call center as well as how your team can develop an inbound call strategy.

This post will break down the different components that make up a call center as well as how your team can develop an inbound call strategy.

What Are Inbound Calls?

Inbound calls are typically fielded by the organization’s call center or help desk which then handles the consumer’s complaint or request. Responding to inbound calls is a primary function of most customer service teams that are looking to enhance the customer experience.

Inbound calls are a fundamental aspect of customer service and support call centers. Most companies provide a phone number that customers can reach out to when they have complaints or requests. These organizations own either an in-house call center or a remote one that takes the call. Some companies even have remote call centers where employees work from the comfort of their homes. This makes it easier for customer service teams to provide 24-hour support since they have employees working in different time zones.

Call centers will also utilize call center tools that assist with the distribution of inbound calls. Depending on the industry, call systems can screen incoming calls and analyze the customer’s request. Then the software transfers the call to the rep who’s best suited to resolve the issue. This can significantly increase a call center’s productivity while improving customer experience.

Once the inbound call is connected, the rep will try to resolve the issue during the first interaction. If that’s not possible, the rep can follow up with the customer via email, or if needed, over the phone again. In these cases, the rep can set the expectation for communication moving forward and continues to work on the case until it’s resolved.

Most customer service reps field inbound calls daily, but this isn’t the only type of call a representative will take. Many customer service teams will offer both inbound and outbound calling options for their call centers.

Three Common Types Of Inbound Calls

The most common call types received by an inbound call center are related to customer service. These include:

  1. Orders and payments 

Despite the popularity of e-commerce, many shoppers still prefer to place their orders over the phone. Inbound calls facilitate customer transactions via phone. Shoppers also might contact a company with billing questions or to find answers for a payment issue.

  1. Product and tech support 

Customers call for help to solve a wide array of issues, from returning damaged products or changing account information and passwords to complaining about product malfunctions.

  1. Upgrade, renewal, and cancelation of products and services

The popularity of subscription-based businesses (monthly clothing deliveries, online streaming services, and more) for both consumers and the enterprise, such as software as a service (SaaS) and cloud storage, has increased the number of calls related to the upgrade, renewal, and cancellation of products.

Inbound call centers can be configured to address a wide variety of a brand’s sales, marketing, and customer service needs. When structured to achieve clear objectives, inbound call centers can also be revenue-generating.

Today’s inbound call centers often provide customer service not only through telephone calls but also via email, chat, and more.

Best Practices For Effective Inbound Calls Strategy

1. Focus on customer experience

Businesses have moved beyond competing on price and product and are now trying to differentiate themselves based on the experiences they provide. Our consumer benchmark study revealed that 87% of consumers are willing to buy more products from businesses that provide great experiences, so it’s a sound strategy. Inbound call centers play a crucial role in delivering these revenue-generating experiences, so everything from the standard greeting to agent training to the establishment of KPIs needs to be designed with the customer in mind. Additionally, organizations should regularly seek customer opinions about call center experiences by administering surveys that measure:

2. Engage agents

The saying “happy agents make happy customers” may be overused, but that doesn’t mean it’s not 100% true. Engaged employees feel an emotional commitment toward their employers and are more vested in helping their employers succeed. According to a Gallup study, high employee engagement leads to higher customer engagement, lower employee turnover, and 21% higher profitability. Engage your agents by recognizing outstanding performance and providing frequent, effective communication. We’ve seen businesses improve agent engagement by making individual performance stats available on agent dashboards and by the gamification of specific agent behaviors.

3. Choose and focus on the right metrics

Inbound call centers have so many things they can measure that it’s tempting to make each measurement equally important. That can lead to data overload and the really important metrics can get lost in the shuffle. Call centers should have 5-8 KPIs they use to assess the health of the operation and they should include a mix of operational and customer-related metrics. Every inbound call center will have unique priorities, but here are some examples of metrics that are usually dashboard-worthy:

4. Invest in your supervisors

When inbound call centers are treated like cost centers, they typically run on very tight budgets. This often squeezes training funds, especially ones earmarked for training supervisors. Call centers should resist the attitude that “supervisors will pick it up as they go.” Instead, they should invest in supervisor development so they are competent in everything from agent coaching to handling escalated calls to understanding and managing metrics. One sure way to increase agent attrition is to make them work with an undeveloped supervisor. Fight the urge. Train your supervisors.

5. Automate where possible

Modern technology has created a unique opportunity for automation in inbound call centers. Interactive voice response (IVR) systems can automate common tasks to remove the need for customers to have to speak with an agent altogether, like checking account balances and paying bills. Chatbots assist customers with common questions, and if the issue is complicated and needs agent support, the chatbot can pass all that relevant information gathered to the agent to reduce the agent’s handle time. Speech analytics tools can screen 100% of recorded calls to identify common issues and individual calls that need further attention. These self-service and automation techniques are particularly impactful for inbound call centers as they help reduce the overall inbound traffic and decrease labor costs, improve accuracy, and give customers the opportunity to self-serve. The business case can almost write itself.

6. Give agents the tools and data they need

The customer experience delivered by inbound call centers is highly dependent on how prepared the agents are. Training is a big part of that, but agents also need to be equipped with technical tools and data that includes everything from company policies to details about the customer’s previous interactions with the organization. Centralized knowledge bases can house relevant static information in easily searchable formats while customer relationship management (CRM) software puts customer data at agents’ fingertips.

7. Get professional input regarding compliance

There really isn’t anything fun regarding the topic of compliance, but being out of compliance can generate a whole lot of excitement. Bad excitement, to the tune of thousands of dollars in fines. 

8. Plan for the digital transformation

There will come a time when organizations that only offer inbound call center support will be a thing of the past. Customers expect to have options for how they interact with businesses, and this includes a higher demand for digital support through channels like chat and social media. Inbound call centers should plan for the day when they begin supporting additional channels and position themselves accordingly, including choosing call center software that can meet these future needs.

Final Thoughts

In addition to looking at the data on their own performance, inbound call center agents may appreciate having visibility into their ring group or the performance of the call center as a whole. This may help them with benchmarking and goal setting. Some companies even use call center gamification as an incentive system for performance.

Call center agents benefit greatly from having access to reporting metrics. This is why advanced call center solutions come with real-time and historical reporting out-of-the-box.