I can’t think of many business types that don’t receive customer calls. Maybe some industries don’t have customers in the traditional sense but they’re still taking incoming calls of some sort. A farmer sells milk! Even a utilities supplier needs to receive fault reports. If you can think of a business that doesn’t take incoming calls, please let me know!
This begs the question, can any businesses afford to lose customer calls or mishandle them and risk that the customer calling will not be a customer for much longer?
Lot of industry studies show that customer service can in some cases be more important than price when a potential customer is making a buying decision. Additionally, in most cases, if the call is dropped or handled badly, the caller is not going to hang around to complain.
Voting with their feet and silently never coming back is a real risk for today’s businesses. Enter the concept of an informal call centre!
Many businesses don’t even know they are running what we in the industry would call an informal call centre. So, what defines an informal call centre? I’ve had numerous conversations at Sangoma around this, resulting in my attempt at a definition:
The informal call centre
“An informal call centre refers to a setup where customer interactions are handled in a less structured and centralised manner compared to a traditional, formal call centre. Unlike formal call centres which typically have dedicated departments with specialised staff, standardised processes, and full featured call-handling systems, an informal call centre operates with more flexibility and less rigid infrastructure.”
Sounds pretty familiar right? Lots of businesses operate like this. But how can embracing the concept of an informal call centre really help a business?
I think the most obvious one we already discussed – that is handling calls elegantly. This can be as simple as letting the caller know they are in a queue, with relevant music on hold, rather than hearing endless ringing. Or making sure every call is answered by expanding call queues or making sure mobile or remote workers can answer the call.
Then there’s the element of staff (call handlers) satisfaction. Being chained to your colleague’s desk whilst they’re out at lunch to cover answering calls is not cool in today’s technological world. Why not create a queue and allow agents to sign in and out. Even on their mobile so that they can answer the call whilst in the queue for a sandwich at Tesco.
Recognising and embracing the call centre within
The key to making an informal call centre successful is not to think of it like we picture a typical call centre in our mind’s eye – a massive room filled to bursting with people wearing headphones.
An informal call centre is much more fluid and less structured. The business has to get buy in from staff that everyone will pitch in to make customer experience a priority. Yes, you in finance, you will have to answer customer calls if all other staff members are busy!
In the industry we are seeing features that were previously only in the realm of the enterprise grade call centre tricking down to well developed UC offerings. The next UC system you chose has to have those informal call centres available and all businesses should be leveraging these.
Guiding businesses
I’d like to conclude by saying that yes, every business is a call centre. The questions remain: 1. Whether they know it? 2. Whether they care?
Resellers and MSPs have a huge opportunity to guide businesses through those two questions. Once businesses acknowledge that an informal call centre is integral to their operations, they can implement the right technologies, i essential to the future of their business.
I’d love to know what you think, whether you agree or think I’ve lost the plot! Contact me at shorton@sangoma.com