Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have a lot of problems to contend with on a daily basis. Some of these problems tend to be about communication with customers. If you have a customer service department within your business, they may receive a lot of calls every day. Here are seven ways you can cope with this influx of customers over the phone!
- Schedule your employees
It’s crucial that you always have someone on your phones or social media that is ready to actively communicate with your customers. Don’t just put all of your employees on the phone at once. Instead, stagger your employees to come onto the phone line during different times of the day.
- Universal Communications
If you feel nervous about using a landline to support all of your calls, you may want to consider purchasing a universal communication system, potentially from Gamma. This will help simplify your different communication platforms into a single service. What’s even better is that it will rely on a virtual line. Therefore, it is more reliable than a landline.
- Create specific departments
As a company, it’s natural that different employees are going to deal with different tasks. Instead of having a phone line going to one department, why not have a dialling system available that can direct a client or collaborator to a specific department? This will help clients reach the right people for their questions.
- Create an FAQ
Most of the time you are going to have customers coming to you with the same questions over and over again. So, why not create an online FAQ that can be referenced by both your staff and customers? This will make it easier to find answers to the most basic questions about your business.
- Install a live chat
Don’t just rely on a phone system to keep in contact with your customers. Instead, spread out the communications onto the internet. You can create a live chat to ensure that customers can get in contact through different systems. This will lessen the amount of phone calls you receive.
- Utilise your social media
If you want to lower the amount of calls you get to your SME, you can use your social media to speak to your customers. Encourage them to contact your company over your business Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. That way the amount of calls you receive will become manageable.
- Create a call-back service
No one likes to be kept waiting on the phone, especially if your customers end up being left in a queue. Instead of being forced to wait, you could schedule your calls properly by offering a call-back service. That way you can speak to your clients at a specific time instead of randomly. This should alleviate the pressure on your team.
Be flexible with your communication methods
Overall, you should try and avoid just relying on phone calls to speak to your clients. Be creative and offer different ways to reach out to them. This organisation will help you manage your calls more effectively, allowing you to provide the best customer service that you can.
