How to use your telephone system to beat the credit crunch

In todayâ??s tough economic climate businesses need to work hard to
ensure they are maximising every customer and opportunity they have.
This article will show you how you can use your existing or a new
stretches well beyond the simple message taking functions of early
voicemail systems. Today voicemail systems control call flow by
automatically answering calls and directing them to the correct person
or department. The voicemail will also queue calls and give
announcements to update callers to their position in the queue.

Voicemail has many other money saving features such as call
recording which allows supervisors to listen to calls via a password
protected web browser application. Call recording can help train staff
correctly, maintain service quality and encourages staff to adhere to
company regulations. It also helps to avoid ambiguity in difficult
situations by allowing both customer and company to listen to a call.

CTI

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) is where there is a connection
between your data network and the office phone system. CTI allows
â??click to dialâ?? from applications such as Microsoft Outlook or
Goldmine.

CTI applications like Avayaâ??s Phone Manager Pro offer a graphical
user interface which allows you to control telephony features such as
forwarding, conference initiation, message control, company directory
and much more.

When customers call, some CTI applications can â??popâ?? the
customer record from the company CRM so the customer can be greeted
personally and the person that answered the call is ready to action the
call immediately.

IVR

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) makes everyday orders easy. Callers never have to speak to a person. The , read back the
product name and then take payment details.

Call logging

It is estimated that call logging can increase productivity by
15-20% as staff know their calls are being counted. The saying goes
that â??you canâ??t manage what you canâ??t measureâ??. This is
especially true for call data. Call logging can show how many calls an
individual takes or makes and reports can be emailed to a supervisor
automatically at the end of each day. Call logging can also be used to
individually bill departments or other companies using the same telephone system.

About the author

Keith McGregor is
a partner of Strawberrysoup, a web design agency with offices in Chichester
and Bournemouth. Strawberrysoup specialise in creative web design, content
managed websites, search engine optimisation, search engine marketing and
graphic design