How Technology Enhances Customer Service

We’re living in a world where people expect instant answers. The internet and mobile technology have made it easier than ever for people to get answers to any of their questions immediately. Many people these days even prefer online chat or text messaging to an actual phone call, as it is quicker and easier.

Given all of these changes, it’s easy to understand why the nature of customer service has shifted so much over the course of the past decade. Customers never enjoyed being put on hold when calling in to a customer service line, but now this waiting can feel excruciating when you consider that they’re used to instant feedback. This is what makes technology in all areas of customer service so important; businesses have to be able to provide quick, accurate feedback to their customers, or else they risk losing their loyalty.

For businesses that manage their own customer relations, this can make serving customers be quite a burden. These days businesses need to be prepared at all times to instantly answer their customer’s questions. If businesses don’t have large customer service staffs on hand, this can be extremely difficult. Therefore, smaller businesses can quickly fall behind and risk losing the support of their customers.

This is one of the many reasons why so many businesses choose to outsource their customer service to call centers like TeleDirect. At TeleDirect, we not only take all of your calls all day, every day, but we also offer a number of technological amenities that allow your customers to get the answers they need when they need them. We offer high quality SMS (text) messaging services to communicate with all of your on-the-go customers and a live chat feature that allows your customers to get quick online answers directly from a live representative. We also provide some excellent software for your convenience, such as Instant Sales Expert, which increase the control you have over all of your customer service by giving you instant access to all of your preferences.

Don’t fall behind the curve! Contact us at TeleDirect today and learn how all of our technology can benefit the customer relations aspects of your business.

Reminders vs. Events on the TeleDirect System

If you’re familiar with our Instant Project Expert, or IPE, software, then you’ve probably heard a lot about “reminders” and “events,” and alerts or other features that correspond with them. But what exactly is the difference between a reminder and an event?

Through IPE, you are able to schedule reminders that are directly related to a task or milestone. Obviously this is a very useful tool when you are constantly having to shift your focus between different projects. Clicking the reminder allows you to go from your calendar straight to the task that you set the reminder for, instead of being forced to wade through a long list of tasks. If you’re involved in a lot of projects, this will save you a great deal of time.

Events, on the other hand, are items you put on the calendar that you want to remind yourself about. These items are not attached directly to any tasks or milestones, and include items like meetings. It’s better to use events to remind yourself of meetings, because using a task or milestone, one person could (in theory) not show up to the meeting and get graded as though they completed a task, or everyone else who did show up would have to take a bad grade.

Another advantage to using events is that when you invite someone to an event in IPE, the event automatically shows up on the invitee’s calendar. No emails are exchanged back and forth, saving you time from having to switch between IPE and your email account. However, should you choose to send out email reminders about your upcoming event, you can do so by checking the available “email” box and clicking “update.” Just remember that everyone already gets emails every morning regarding their reminders and events, so you don’t want to flood their inboxes with unnecessary reminders.

If you have any more questions about events, reminders, or the Instant Project Expert software in general, we’d love to answer them. Call us at TeleDirect Call Centers today or use our website’s live chat feature!

The Benefits of Having a Live Chat at Your Call Center’s Website

Just because we're a call center doesn’t necessarily mean that all of our customer service interaction needs to happen over the phone! These days, there are plenty of options available for personal, online interactions, not the least of which is using a live chat feature on your call center’s website.

Here are some of the most prominent benefits that come along with using a live chat feature:

• The ability to multitask. Many live chat features allow customer service representatives to chat with more than one customer at a time. This exponentially increases the amount of work your call center can get done within the same amount of time! In a world where time is money, the importance of multitasking can not be underestimated. 
• Great first impressions. Live chat enables customers to get instant and brief answers to their questions. Many people don’t want to spend the time on a phone call, so these instant answers give a great impression to customers. 
• More feedback options. Live chats can be coupled with a post-chat survey that asks customers to rate their experience with the customer service representative and the company itself. These surveys take less time than a survey over the phone would, so response rates will likely be greater. 
• Build instant leads. Live chats allow your customer service representatives to give links to the company’s website or to quickly gain contact information from the customer. This is a great way to build up business. 
• Instant statistics. Some of the best chat providers offer the ability to see statistics about the customer’s referring URL, IP address, geographic location, and more. This allows you to see who is contacting you, where they’re coming from, and how they found you! 
• It’s easy! Live chat is easy to set up and easy to use. For the amount of benefits you can reap from such a simple feature, there is no reason to not take advantage of it.

Are you interested in learning more about live chat? Check out the live chat feature at www.teledirect.com to get some first-hand experience! Then, contact us to let us know what you think!

Add Live Chat Support & Increase Your Website's Conversion Rate

Wouldn’t it be great if every visitor to your website became a paying customer? Of course it would, but it just doesn’t turn out that way. The average conversion rate is roughly 2.3%. Adding live chat support can significantly increase that upwards of 20%. The why is obvious, you want more business. The how can be a bit more elusive. This article will hopefully shed some light on the subject for you, and help your online business become more successful. Let’s turn a casual visitor into a paying customer. There are three strategies we’ll focus on: Human interaction how cost saving measures can increase conversion, and keeping customers in the buying cycle.

Live chat support puts a human interaction into a website visit, and most visitors are still used to that aspect of the shopping experience. It makes them more comfortable, and that in turn leads to more sales. A highly trained staff will help give them confidence not only in the product that they’re buying, but the company that they’re buying from. A website visitor who is comfortable with a product and it’s seller, turns into a customer. And a highly trained staff will also provide instant answers to help ensure that conversion. You want a first time customer to become a repeat customer, so it’s important that their live chat experience is a pleasant one.

You want a higher conversion rate to increase your profit margin. And live chat support is a cost effective way of doing that. On average, it costs about 25% less than your typical call center. The main reason is that for every 4 staff members in a call center, only 1 is needed as a live chat support agent. It is also an easy system to implement. While most systems are hosted, there are a few that you can run from your own server. If you are just starting out, then a hosted live chat is probably going to be the most cost effective for you.

You want your live chat support team to be proficient in keeping your visitors in their buying cycle while online. This is key in converting them from a visitor to a buyer. With live chat support, you can track your visitors and provide them with a chat box that is pro-active. That way, if they have any questions, you can give them instant answers. This is excellent customer service, and they are 15% more likely to complete their purchase if you are able to give them that.

Most visitors to your website, upwards of 75%, would rather find all the information that they need at their fingertips while they’re there. Convenience is a big selling point, and live chat support is a big part of that. There are plenty of deals out there that can help get you started in live chat support, so you can test the waters cost effectively. You will find that adding this option to your sales arsenal can help your business grow faster, and it can continue to meet your needs as it does.