How Incorporating SMS will Improve Your Call Center Customer Experience

Smartphones revolutionized the way we communicate and have now become common necessities for people around the world. Since the release of the first Apple iPhone in 2007, many millennials became early adopters of new collaboration modes. This generation – born between 1981 and 1996 - now make up a large portion of the workforce.

Other generations also began following the lead of the millennials, adopting SMS later. “A Zipwhip survey found that 73% of consumers want more businesses to text them. Customers of all ages, from Baby Boomers to Generation Z, like the ease, convenience and privacy that texting offers.” Companies often get a better response rate with instant messaging because, unlike email or phone calls, people are more likely to send out a short response than spend time formulating a reply email or scheduling time to call you back.

SMS solves a unique pain point for both consumers and call center agents. Picture a scenario where a customer has a quick minor question and does not need an in-depth answer on the phone. The customer can be immediately acknowledged with an automated text. Then, a customer can be serviced much more quickly. For the customer, the main advantage is convenience. They don’t need to set time out of their day waiting to speak to an agent to get the same information.

Call center agents are able to service multiple people at the same time via multiple text channels. They will have a record of all the details of a conversation so they can look up history at any time and avoid having the customer repeat themselves to different agents. Agents will also be able to efficiently manage general questions freeing up time for more complex inquiries. In fact, many call centers are building AI-infused bots that can respond to general SMS inquiries and if necessary, elevate the customer to a live agent.

Incorporating SMS in a call center gives a consumer even more ways to interact with your business. Servicing customers through various channels, offers more options, provides more satisfying experiences, improves productivity and strengthens the relationship with your customer.

How Can I Measure Call Center Success Using Multiple Communication Modes?

Resource Software International Ltd. (RSI) develops solutions that analyze how consumers interact with enterprises around the world. Their flagship application, Shadow All-in-One, allows users to monitor, measure and manage call center activity through intuitive collaboration dashboards and historical reports. Not only can a user monitor standard call wait times and response rates, but they can also determine how successfully consumers were serviced with instant messaging and video chat services. These customizable dashboards give a total picture of all major channels of communication within a given time period to help manage the health of the entire ecosystem.

RSI provides products, training and resources that manage, control, and reduce the expense of a communication ecosystem. Their solutions have broad appeal for customers with collaboration ecosystems that include Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, RingCentral, Mitel, and many others.

Shadow All In One Analytics by RSI is a cloud-based collaboration management system. Organizations now have complete visibility across the entire spectrum of a corporate collaboration ecosystem for any length of time.  The product offers historical call accounting, call center reporting, call recording playback, real time agent/queue dashboards, team collaboration adoption metrics, custom integrations, and emergency notification.  By leveraging the latest technologies, Shadow All-in-One Analytics empowers enterprises to increase adoption of new technologies, remove bottlenecks, reconcile expenses, facilitate team collaboration, improve customer experience, and empower productivity.

For more information, visit our website at www.telecost.com

Or contact me directly:
Nicholas Salomone
Partnerships Manager
“I am responsible for managing & discovering business relationships with resellers across the globe.”

Email: nsalomone@telecost.com
Direct Line: (289) 275-2453

Why a Robust Collaboration Management System is More Important Than Ever

The ever-changing collaboration sector continues to enable people to stay interconnected while working from anywhere on any device. The global pandemic has catalyzed an already upward trend. “A recent article by Erik Brynjolfsson et al. estimates that 31 percent of workers -- in the United States -- who were employed in early March had switched to working at home by the first week of April. Even when stay-at-home orders are relaxed, many workers may continue working at home until the pandemic is fully contained” (US Bureau of Labor Statistics).   Here are some important reasons why collaboration management systems are more important than ever.

Employee Productivity

As a by-product, remote workers are saving time on commuting, improving their work-life balance, and working in comfortable clothes. However, employers are facing several challenges managing remotely. Unable to access office systems, employers may not have the necessary cloud solutions in place to monitor productivity. This can lead to lack of motivation, missed opportunities and failure to meet compliance standards.

With a collaboration analytics tool, companies can analyze calling patterns, identify misuse/abuse, ensure inbound call handling performance, and optimize resources.

Emergency Notification

Kari’s law, which came in affect in February 2020, stemmed from a domestic dispute that ended in the murder of Kari Hunt who was killed in her motel room. Her 9 year old daughter was unable to dial 911 because the phone system required dialing 9 for an outbound line.

This new law mandates that users must be able to dial 911 without having to dial a prefix like 9 or 0. Also, a notification must be sent out regarding the specific location of the emergency call.

It is imperative for companies to ensure the safety of their organization by triggering emergency or critical alerts to authorized personnel, desktops, mobile/IoT devices, lamp lights and email.

Quality of Service

A faulty communication system can cost a lot of money by wasting both the employee’s time and the client’s trust. “PwC surveyed 15,000 consumers and found that 1 in 3 customers will leave a brand they love after just one bad experience, while 92% would completely abandon a company after two or three negative interactions.” Frequent down time will cost money that could have been saved if a quality assurance safeguard was deployed. Having business operations that run smoothly is paramount in optimizing profitably.

To ensure excellence, companies can monitor the health of their communication ecosystem through ongoing analysis of call quality, network reliability and device usage.

AI Reporting

In today’s world, you can get anything we need at the touch of a button. You can order virtually anything online. You can have a car come to pick you up at your door in under 30 seconds. You can find any information you need to settle an argument, etc. Why should managing your internal organization be any different?

Having a collaboration management sy stem lets managers retrieve valuable communication analytics from anywhere by simply activating AI-infused bots that will watchdog the enterprise.

User Adoption

It is important, in today’s everchanging environment that companies utilize the best and most up to date resources to be proactive in their respective industry. Many companies become victim of not keeping up with innovations and thus, fail to keep pace with their competitors.

A collaboration management system enables managers to drive digital transformation by ensuring the best available and corporate-approved modes of communication are successfully deployed and utilized.

Regulatory Compliance

Companies are collecting more and more important and private customer information. This data is often used to mine customer behaviour, predict trends, and ensure quality customer experience. The collection of sensitive data comes with tighter legal obligations and regulatory requirements. Companies must take appropriate action to ensure proper stewardship of the data. Communication management systems can help companies meet legal and regulatory compliance standards.

Training & Monitoring

It is always easier, and requires less resources, to service existing customers than to expend capital and resources to attract new business. In fact, 65% of a company’s business comes from previous customers.

Additionally, 86% of the customers with great purchase experiences will likely buy from the same company again. Thus, companies need to focus on optimizing customer experience.

Users can study call recordings to ensure gold standard customer experience and highlight areas for potential development or retraining. Retaining archives of communication records allows users to query historical records to resolve customer or employee disputes. A communication management system can categorize incidents, determine customer sentiment and arm agents with proper resources.

How RSI can help!

Resource Software International Ltd. (RSI) provides products, training and resources that manage, control, and reduce the expense of a communication ecosystem. Their solutions have broad appeal for customers with collaboration ecosystems that include Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, RingCentral, Mitel, and many others.

Shadow All In One Analytics by RSI is a cloud-based collaboration management system. Organizations now have complete visibility across the entire spectrum of a corporate collaboration ecosystem for any length of time.  The product offers historical call accounting, call center reporting, call recording playback, real time agent/queue dashboards, team collaboration adoption metrics, custom integrations, and emergency notification.  By leveraging the latest technologies, Shadow All-in-One Analytics empowers enterprises to increase adoption of new technologies, remove bottlenecks, reconcile expenses, facilitate team collaboration, improve customer experience, and empower productivity.

For more information, visit our website at www.telecost.com

Or contact me directly:
Nicholas Salomone
Partnerships Manager
“I am responsible for managing & discovering business relationships with resellers across the globe.”

Email: nsalomone@telecost.com
Direct Line: (289) 275-2453