Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Using a Call Center to Build Your Customer Base




Most business owners quickly find out that customer service is just as important in building their brand as marketing. One bad experience with a customer service representative can send a customer packing for good, and even lead that person to steer away other potential customers, as well.

Many times, these bad experiences come when businesses stretch themselves too thin and try to handle customer relations in-house. An easy alternative to this is hiring a professional, reputable call center to manage your customer relations. Over time, you’ll discover that this will even help you to build your customer base.

A professional call center will give customers a great first impression of a business, whether they’re calling for assistance with a problem or have a question they need answered. Call center employees will be provided with a great wealth of knowledge about your business so that they are able to answer questions quickly and knowledgeably. They also will be much more efficient than in-house employees when it comes to redirecting messages to their proper locations and offering technical and back-office support solutions.

Once you have a call center working for you, your business will be able to focus much more on important areas like hiring, marketing, human resources and more. Customer service takes up quite a bit of time and energy, so the effect of removing this burden should not be underestimated. Each area of your business will be able to receive more manpower when customer service is taken out of the equation, and with more money and energy devoted to marketing, you will be able to generate even more leads for your customer service team to handle.

The team at TeleDirect Call Centers has over 20 years of outstanding customer service experience. With our services attached to your business, you will be able to leave the customer interactions to us while you focus on building your customer base and growing your company. Contact us today to get started with all of the great services we have to offer, and discover the power that comes with working with a call center like TeleDirect!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Making a Personal Connection with Customers



You should always be focused on providing an outstanding product or service to your customers. Sometimes, however, that simply isn’t enough. Customers want to know that they are cared about, and the best way to do that is by providing the highest level of customer service possible.

An extra personal touch can make all the difference in customer satisfaction. With that in mind, here are some tips for how you can make personal connections with your customers that will keep them coming back to your business:

  • Ask questions. Don’t just launch straight into your sales pitch—take the time to get to know your customer and what he or she is looking for. Once you know that, then you know exactly how to shape your pitch so that you give them the information that correlates with their needs.
  • Talk about yourself. Not that you should babble on and on about yourself, but revealing something about you or your organization that the customer can relate to can make a customer service phone call much more personal. People like doing business with people, not robots, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that there’s an actual person on the other end of the line.
  • Listen. Customers will feel extremely insulted if they feel like they’re being ignored. Pay close attention to what the customer is saying and ask follow-up questions if necessary to reassure them that you care about their questions and issues.
  • Be patient. Don’t rush the process. The customer will notice if you’re trying to hurry through the call. Treat the customer with respect and take as much time as is needed to satisfy their needs. This will make return business much more likely.
  • The little things matter. If you have return customers, try your hardest to remember one or two details about them and bring them up in conversation. Your customers will be quite impressed that a business keeps tabs on its customers in such a manner, and this personal touch will keep them coming back.
TeleDirect has been offering high-quality customer service at its call center for over 20 years, and we know that it’s how you treat people that makes all the difference in the business world. If your organization is in need of outstanding customer service, we can provide it for you. Contact us today!

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Making a Personal Connection with Customers



You should always be focused on providing an outstanding product or service to your customers. Sometimes, however, that simply isn’t enough. Customers want to know that they are cared about, and the best way to do that is by providing the highest level of customer service possible.

An extra personal touch can make all the difference in customer satisfaction. With that in mind, here are some tips for how you can make personal connections with your customers that will keep them coming back to your business:

  • Ask questions. Don’t just launch straight into your sales pitch—take the time to get to know your customer and what he or she is looking for. Once you know that, then you know exactly how to shape your pitch so that you give them the information that correlates with their needs.
  • Talk about yourself. Not that you should babble on and on about yourself, but revealing something about you or your organization that the customer can relate to can make a customer service phone call much more personal. People like doing business with people, not robots, and sometimes it’s easy to forget that there’s an actual person on the other end of the line.
  • Listen. Customers will feel extremely insulted if they feel like they’re being ignored. Pay close attention to what the customer is saying and ask follow-up questions if necessary to reassure them that you care about their questions and issues.
  • Be patient. Don’t rush the process. The customer will notice if you’re trying to hurry through the call. Treat the customer with respect and take as much time as is needed to satisfy their needs. This will make return business much more likely.
  • The little things matter. If you have return customers, try your hardest to remember one or two details about them and bring them up in conversation. Your customers will be quite impressed that a business keeps tabs on its customers in such a manner, and this personal touch will keep them coming back.
TeleDirect has been offering high-quality customer service at its call center for over 20 years, and we know that it’s how you treat people that makes all the difference in the business world. If your organization is in need of outstanding customer service, we can provide it for you. Contact us today!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Start Your New Year Off Right With TeleDirect




A new year is a time for new beginnings and new commitments. Why not start anew in the area of your business’s customer service with the outstanding call center services from TeleDirect? We guarantee the highest level of professional customer service 24 hours a day, seven days a week all year long.

Our customer service representatives are trained to handle all of your calls with a cheerful demeanor and a helpful nature. Since 1988, we have been entrusted by many businesses to answer all of their calls in 20 seconds or less. The great service we offer comes as a result of our excellent representative training programs; all of our CSRs undergo constant training and tests to ensure continually high levels of performance on the job. Our managers and supervisors work closely with these representatives to ensure that they handle your calls with the utmost professionalism.

It’s not simply the call services that make TeleDirect so great. As a TeleDirect client, you will have 24/7 access to our software and your data. This software truly separates TeleDirect from the rest of this competition. Software likeSeminarEdge, Fill The Lot and Work The Lead have been the subject of rave reviews from our clients and add a new dimension to what call centers can do for your business.

Does your business have a lot of bilingual customers? TeleDirect offers customer support in both English and Spanish, 24/7. We also support video customer service using American Sign Language. This language flexibility will allow you to reach out to brand new markets without placing a huge investment in your direct staff and infrastructure!

We don’t limit ourselves to communicating with your customers over the phone, either. Our website features a live chat support system that allows your customers to instantly ask questions and have them answered by one of our talented CSRs. We provide email and SMS messaging services for a quicker, simpler means of communication.

All of these features and many more are great reasons why your New Years resolution should involve the high quality services from TeleDirect. After all, there’s no better time to start!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Start Your New Year Off Right With TeleDirect




A new year is a time for new beginnings and new commitments. Why not start anew in the area of your business’s customer service with the outstanding call center services from TeleDirect? We guarantee the highest level of professional customer service 24 hours a day, seven days a week all year long.

Our customer service representatives are trained to handle all of your calls with a cheerful demeanor and a helpful nature. Since 1988, we have been entrusted by many businesses to answer all of their calls in 20 seconds or less. The great service we offer comes as a result of our excellent representative training programs; all of our CSRs undergo constant training and tests to ensure continually high levels of performance on the job. Our managers and supervisors work closely with these representatives to ensure that they handle your calls with the utmost professionalism.

It’s not simply the call services that make TeleDirect so great. As a TeleDirect client, you will have 24/7 access to our software and your data. This software truly separates TeleDirect from the rest of this competition. Software like SeminarEdge, Fill The Lot and Work The Lead have been the subject of rave reviews from our clients and add a new dimension to what call centers can do for your business.

Does your business have a lot of bilingual customers? TeleDirect offers customer support in both English and Spanish, 24/7. We also support video customer service using American Sign Language. This language flexibility will allow you to reach out to brand new markets without placing a huge investment in your direct staff and infrastructure!

We don’t limit ourselves to communicating with your customers over the phone, either. Our website features a live chat support system that allows your customers to instantly ask questions and have them answered by one of our talented CSRs. We provide email and SMS messaging services for a quicker, simpler means of communication.

All of these features and many more are great reasons why your New Years resolution should involve the high quality services from TeleDirect. After all, there’s no better time to start!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Online Customer Service During the Holiday Season




During the month of December, everything gets quite a bit busier. Just as the stores fill up with customers doing their holiday shopping, the phone lines and internet also light up with customers who have questions about products or services.

Here are some tips you can follow to help you prepare for the busiest online customer service season of the year.

First, be ready for all kinds of feedback on social media sites. Sure, customers may come to your Facebook or Twitter pages to talk about how great of a shopping experience they had at your business, but more often than not they go online to sound off after they’ve had a negative experience.

On Facebook, you should always have it set so that people who “like” your page can post on your wall and tag your business in photos, but you should also have it set so that you get a notification every time someone does so. That way, if there are negative posts to address, you can do so quickly, and if there are positive posts, you can thank them immediately for their business.

The same goes for Twitter. Chances are that the users who choose to message you are going to do so to complain about something. Make sure you have your Twitter set so that you receive an email notification every time someone mentions you or sends you a direct message, so that you can address every issue as it arises.

Review sites can be just as powerful as social media when it comes to how your business is perceived by the general public. If you haven’t already done so, make sure that you have accounts for your business on sites like Google Maps, Yahoo Local and Yelp. Make sure you get notifications via email every time a new review is sent in. If you have a bad review, make sure you leave an appropriate response. You don’t want to censor these reviews, but you do need to reassure other customers who might find the review page.

The holiday season is also a great time to offer discounts, considering how much shopping the average person is doing. One way to do this is by giving special discounts to anybody who checks into your business via the social network Foursquare. Another is to put together a discount policy for unsatisfied customers. You want to keep people coming back to your store, and unless you do something to make their situation better they probably will not do so.

Customer service isn’t always easy or enjoyable, but it is extremely important that you provide the best service possible, particularly during the high-stress holiday shopping season.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Using Fill the Lot from TeleDirect



As you know, TeleDirect Call Centers' Fill the Lot feature is a great tool for car salespeople everywhere, and using it is unbelievably easy. When you do, you'll have customer service all day, every day dedicated to capturing your leads and setting your appointments.

As you know, TeleDirect Call Centers' Fill the Lot feature is a great tool for car salespeople everywhere, and using it is unbelievably easy. When you do, you'll have customer service all day, every day dedicated to capturing your leads and setting your appointments.

To create your campaign, all you have to do is click “Create New Campaign” at the top, under “Control Panel.” When you add the name of your campaign, keep in mind that you can have multiple campaigns going at one time, so you should try to keep each one distinct from the others. You can then enter the form of advertising that your campaign will use, and let the program know if you’d like to give your leads directions to your dealerships.

Choosing the script type customizes how you want your calls to go. You can pick appointment setting, short and sweet or standard loan by phone. In the next step you can customize the script, adding or removing any questions you desire, among other options. Once you’ve finished customizing, the bottom of the script shows what your price per lead will be, a handy feature that makes budgeting easier than ever. After you’ve finished your script, add custom FAQs about the campaign so that TeleDirect’s customer service representatives are well-versed in your business.

The next page focuses on lead distribution, and allows you to add different leads to each one of your locations. You may add as many or as few dealerships as needed. If you have more than one location, you can distribute leads by percentage, area code or zip code.

The final step is to fund your account. Enter your credit card information and pick your toll-free number. Once you’ve completed this step, congratulations! You now are set up with TeleDirect’s outstanding Fill the Lot service!

If you have any questions, contact the call center pros at TeleDirect today to learn how Fill the Lot can benefit your business.