How a Call Center can help your business with lead management

Your business, regardless of its size, can make a highly profitable use of a real time and effective lead management system. However, creating such system on your own would require the commitment of tremendous time, energy and expertise. That commitment can seriously distract you from your core business operation. Getting distracted in this economy can be fatal to your business.

The good news is that leading call centers have a state-of-the-art lead management system that is already in place and ready for your use. All that your business has to do is link up with the call center. In an instant, your business can enjoy increased leads without being plagued by huge capital expenses and maintenance costs. Most importantly, you enjoy the benefits of the lead management system without getting distracted from your core operation.

The lead management system in top call centers provides your business with a complete view of your prospects and customers. Your key departments, such as the sales, marketing and customer service departments, can then share and use the information in real time. As a result, your business turns more prospects into customers, and new customers into repeat customers. Efficiency in these conversions puts your business way ahead of your competition.

The key to lead management is consistency. The lead management system consistently monitors inquiries for your business. It then routes these inquiries to the right department in your business organization. Because timing is critical, this process has to happen in real time and without glitches.

State-of-the-art lead management systems in call centers allow your business a mix of automated and manual routing systems. This way, every piece of information lands on the lap of someone in your business organization who would use it productively. Nothing gets wasted.

How do top call centers develop the database? The lead management system gathers information from your online forms. Visitors of your website encode requested information on these forms. Information usually includes the name and email address, along with information on what the visitor is interested in. The system then captures this information and integrates them into the lead management database of your business.

The other sources of leads would be the database of prospects gathered from your other online and offline sources. These include your seminars, conventions, trade shows, direct mails, and the like. The lead management system can import the data from these sources and integrate them into your lead management database. There is minimal need for manually typing the information.

The integration process is where the rubber hits the ground in lead management. Data from all sources come in different formats and data structures. Duplication among leads and existing accounts is also solid reality to be dealt with. Manually done, integration can eat up precious time and resources of your business. By the time it’s done, information is most likely stale. That’s not a good thing for your business.

However, the expertise of call centers in the integration process helps your business digest and store information fast, so that your business can use it while it is still hot. That’s the bacon that you really want to bring home.

In lead management, there is absolutely no need to reinvent any wheel. Your business just has to engage a leading call center. It already has a lead management system in place and ready to use. Your business can then instantly focus on your core business operation and pursue hot leads. You leave all lead management headaches to the experts.

What is Seminar Reservation Service and how it works

The Seminar Registration Service is a call center facility that brings the right kind of audience into your seminars. Just give the necessary instructions to the service through their sign up pages. With these instructions on their monitors, the call center agents would then effectively represent you in calling up prospective participants. Their output would be a list of confirmed participants that you expect to come on the seminar dates.

To avail of the Seminar Registration Service, just sign up for the service. Leave us your instructions. A step-by-step process helps you ensure that you cover key details. After that, you leave everything to us.

Step 1 - Log in to TeleDirect.com. If you don’t have an account yet, you can create one for FREE. Yes, there is no charge for signing up with us.

Step 2 - From the TeleDirect Dashboard, go to Seminar Edge. Click create a new account. You have the option of carrying over your TeleDirect profile to the Seminar Edge account.

After completing all information, you would see the Seminar Control Panel. This panel keeps track of all your current and pending seminars. You will also see here some incoming messages.

Step 3 - Create a seminar. Indicate the title of the seminar, the seminar dates, the opening greeting, the closing line and a few other requested information.

Step 4 - Create the reservation call scripts. You won’t literally create it. Just check the boxes opposite each standard script when deemed applicable to your seminar. You may also add some custom-made responses if you wish.

Step 5 - Indicate the number of meetings for the seminar. This is one of the many beneficial features of the system. It can let you organize several meetings in different locations for the same seminar.

For each meeting, indicate the date, time, location, answers to frequently asked questions and related information. This is also where you encode the meal plans.

Step 6 - At this stage you will be shown a summary of all meetings you have organized. You have the option to edit or delete them. Otherwise, just confirm them.

Step 7 - Select a Pricing Plan. You will be billed for the services only at this point. Payment is easy, fast and secure.

Step 8 - Choose the toll free number you want.

Step 9 - Sit down and wait as the call center works for you. You may even want to dial the toll free number that you have chosen just to see if work has indeed started.

The system allows you to view the list of participants as names get added to it. For a more personal touch, you may print mailing labels for sending letters to them. You can use the printable labels provided by the System so that you can focus on sending the mails.

Most interestingly, the system will give you hints about what each participant is looking for in your seminars. With these hints in mind, each one would go home feeling that you created your seminar just for them. They won’t forget you.

You have a seminar that people can benefit from. TeleDirect has the means to help you make your seminars happen. You focus on your message. TeleDirect focuses on bringing in people.

Your success is what the Seminar Reservation Service is all about.

Increase Customer Conversions With Phone Answering Services

What is the number one question asked when a company has to make the choice to continue letting phones ring off the hook or attempt to have help from others? Will using an answering service really increase my conversions or is my company going to fall flat on its face? Now how could extra hands, ears and a mind for your company be a bad thing? Really, it’s a simple question but many tend to juggle if it’s actually worth it or not.

How many times have you lost a prospect only to learn later they went to another company, a competitor for the lack of support your company is providing (or not providing)? People research before they purchase or even lease. On the web, by the phone, in person - they will test you. If you are willing to let your hard work slip away, continue missing calls & customers then please stop reading. But if you want to increase your sales, give 24/7 support and increasing the overall gain please read on.

Right now many companies have switched over to answering services and there are many reasons for this. One is that no one can ever be 24/7/365, people are humans not robots and we all need our down time. No one can work every hour of every day, so for those hours an answering service of fresh and upbeat staffers are available to take your calls (inbound) or give the calls you need (outbound) during the hours you cannot.

Another great reason is labor, not all companies have the same budget in mind for their employees working overtime. With a service though, you can be assured that there will always be someone on the other end of the phone in case a call comes in when an in-house employee is unable to do so. Why spend that extra money on over time when you really do not need to? Save the money, have guaranteed help when needed and not waste your budget at the same time!

Quick, simple and dependable – an answering service can save you time and money. Now do not forget, the service is only as good as the representative behind the line so when you are checking out possible services make sure they vet their reps otherwise you get what you pay for. Do you have a company behind you that will stand for exactly what your company will? Are they going to provide top notch service to your customers or prospects like you would? How about being professional? What are their average conversion rates for similar company needs like your own?

When you are looking for a company to help your own, make sure you are able to ask questions and get the answers you need to make the proper decision for your specific needs. It’s possible you may need an agent who can work with you to fine tune everything that they can offer to you and what you need, not just what you want or what they want for you.

Automated Voice Menus Can Save Your Business Time & Money

What exactly comes to mind when you hear “Automated Voice Menus”, even more what is this foreign language that you have just been asked about? Does it talk to you when you are bored, when you may need a listening ear or even to listen in while you practice an important speech? Of course not, but it can help to save you time and money when you break down exactly what its role is with you – company side or client side.

Automated Voice Menus have been around for years now and if you are not too sure exactly what we are talking about, call up the first large company you can think of. That little voice inside the phone that picks up to help you navigate through the system, that’s your AVM working hard to take care of you the client, to make sure your needs for that company are met and handled with ease, quick & simple.

Not all automate voice menus are built the same, and it’s true! You want to make sure the AVM that you are using for your company does exactly what it should; it needs to be able to recognize many voice types (even with accents) in a clear and precise manner in order to route the call to the proper department. There are many people who hate AVM systems for this reason alone, however doing it right the first time prevents you from having to back pedal later to fix a useless IVR.

Think of the time and money that you spend for your company or charity; whichever the case may be. How many man hours, the building rental fees (or mortgage) take up another chunk of funds, the electric bills, the furniture, and everything else you could add in cut into your bottom line? How much money are you spending on an entire staff to take care of the needs that an AVM can drastically cut?

What would you do if you were able to save those funds, put them to better use and still have the top shelf service that everyone expects from every company out there right now? Would it be worth it? Of course it would, but how can you start a slow trickle of change and focus it onto the larger picture over time? An automated voice menu allows just that, an auto attendant that lets you do the same job for more savings to better fund other areas of your business.

The options are almost endless. If you have high or low call volumes, need support help 24/7 or just part time, an AVM is a great asset to have. As a menu system that allows for the routing of calls to specific departments of your company to others which allow for line coming in which can be routed to another extension for support representative, something general like taking a voice mail or even a greeting after hours that can help to provide information for your company.

Sending SMS Messages Can Increase Revenue

To stay relevant in the world for personal or business, you have to stay up to date in regards to the technology used to send and share information. Mobile phone applications have increased tenfold in the past decade, and there’s no telling if or when the advancements are going to slow down any time soon. And the savvy business person will take advantage of those many applications and turn them into ways of increasing their revenue. There’s more truth now to the old saying “Time is money” then there ever was. SMS messaging is another term for instant messaging, and this is the perfect communications medium in this high tech business environment.

Even locally based businesses have global ties these days, so the fact that that SMS messages can be sent or read at any time is a big help in staying in touch with business associates around the world. If your competition is working around the clock, so should you. Whether you’re checking on the status of a sale, trying to pinpoint exactly where an order is right now, or simply touching base with a sales lead, SMS messaging is slowly becoming the medium of choice for on the spot communicating.

Communicating in this fashion is not restricted to the usual conversation type of talking either. Communicating with a sales lead can mean sending an advertisement, or a survey of what products and services they need and pointing out that you have what they need. A soft sell approach such as this works very well with SMS messaging. Advertising in this manner is very cost effective also, in that you are not paying for this advertisement aside from any standard messaging fees that may apply. And keeping a low overhead will help ensure increased revenue.

And you don’t even have to worry if the message you’re sending is on the same network as the person or company you’re sending the message to. SMS messages are supported by 100% GSM [Global Mobile Systems] phones and can be exchanged between any and all wireless carriers.

All GSM mobile phones support this. So whether you’re local, statewide, nationwide, or worldwide, you should be seeing an increase of revenue by using SMS messaging in that you are getting your sales, shipments, and payments expedited regardless of when or where you are doing your communicating.

This method of communication has so many applications, from ad sales, to ring tone sales, to binary data exchange, that it may take the novice awhile to make use of them all. But once you’ve adjusted your level of expertise to your business needs, you will see a definite rise in revenue because you are now on the cutting edge of technology. This technology is vital in today’s business world in that it helps you keep pace with your competitors. And the more competitive your business is, the more important it is to keep your revenue high. This not only keeps you relevant in the business world, but respected as well.

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.

How to Dramatically Reduce Shipping & Fulfillment with TeleDirect

This is a fast paced business world we are working in these days. If you want to keep a leg up on the competition in the shipping business, you will want to make sure your response times are competitive. In this article, we will discuss how TeleDirect will help you in this regard. Organization is the key here. And this includes being able to streamline your entire process. No process is perfect, but you can work on reducing your errors, and the right call center will help you do just that.

TeleDirect has been a leader in the industry for 39 years, and in that time has streamlined the process to meet any and all of your needs. Their order fulfillment software and 24/7 live support call center work seamlessly with each other to keep your needs flowing in real time. 2 shipping bays that store product as well as perform same day shipping services work with web-based software to give you a seamless view of your customer requests and the fulfillment of those requests. Their up to date web based software is what makes it all happen.

Their live support call center is highly trained in every aspect of the business. Not only will they keep you informed of your highly maintained inventory levels, but they can also help you stay on top of what moves the fastest. In addition, automated voice menus are used to separate customer service calls from order calls, essentially pre-qualifying leads before sending them back to TeleDirect. Interactive voice response, or IVR direct, works together with their call center software providing you with real time oversight of your customer’s experience. This is all part of the process that helps you dramatically reduce the response time between you and your customer.

Getting in front of your customers is also a good business practice that TeleDirect is expert at. E-Mail and SMS messages that automatically go to your leads and customers will keep your communications on top of the game. They will also keep on top of your internet leads. An online request for services that is handled promptly and professionally will not only help greatly in acquiring a new customer, but it will give the customer a good idea of how quick and efficient your services are. If your response time to their initial request is an indicator as to how expedient your shipping and fulfillment services are, you’re as good as gold.

So if reducing your shipping and fulfillment response times are a main concern to your business right now, they shouldn’t be. With TeleDirect you have a leader in the industry with all the latest software, and the most highly trained call center staff at your disposal 24/7. Whatever it is that you need for them to do, they are not only up to date in the methods by which they need to get done, but they are highly trained to implement them. Their response time to your needs, translates into the response times to you customers’ needs.