A new advertisement or marketing campaign generates attention and more potential customers start calling, causing the business owner and staff to spend significantly more time on the phone taking orders or answering questions.

An increase in calls can often overwhelm small- and even mid-sized businesses as they try to qualify new leads, or answer general inquiries while still trying to maintain service quality elsewhere.  Some hire additional staff, while others rely on the phone company to provide additional lines to manage the workload – but these options carry significantly greater cost than automating inbound calls.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is the common automated menu system heard when customers call into businesses. IVR systems allow businesses to filter or route calls to specific people or work groups – such as sales or customer support – making inbound communications more efficient all around. Alternatively, some businesses use their IVR to share pre-recorded answers to common questions, such as office hours or location info.

IVR offers a business owner free and easy access to create, edit, and remove the menus or prompts (recordings the customer hears when calling the company) via web interface. This is especially useful for on-the-fly updates, like a limited discount offer or an emergency office closure.

Most hosted IVR systems include mailboxes available via their virtual phone system’s web interface. Real estate listing services, for example, would use these virtual mailboxes to create MLS directories that connect buyers to recordings about specific properties – freeing up sales agents to follow up with the most serious prospects first.

Follow-up with most promising prospects first.

Advertising effectiveness can also be measured by designing the IVR system to collect data from calls from different metropolitan areas or those catering to local customer markets (i.e. pizza delivery services, community service groups, etc.). This enables the businesses to compare IVR reports to advertising campaigns determining which number combination/ad generated the greatest response.

Whether deployed to pre-screen callers, provide better service, or free staff from their phones, a virtual phone system with IVR features is certainly an affordable, flexible way to handle inbound calls more effectively.

Ali Aalaei, the Principal of the firm, noticed a discrepancy between the number of calls directed to the firm by a referral agency and the number of calls that the firm was registering. The referral agency indicated that they were missing three to five calls a week. Mr. Aalaei and his colleagues were shocked by the realization that they were losing potential business. This prompted further investigation into the customer experience of a caller to the firm.

Looking into this matter more closely, the attorneys at the firm determined that after hours, when their receptionist had left for the day, all calls would go to voicemail after eight rings or a total of 32 seconds. Many callers became frustrated and simply hung up. Plus, their many international callers had no desire to waste nearly a minute waiting for the phone to pick up, only to transfer them to voicemail.

Ari Law determined they needed to dramatically change their phone handling procedures so that all clients had a much more satisfying experience. When searching for a suitable solution, the firm determined that they needed a system that worked with the existing PBX system, answered calls with a human touch, and accounted for the security of their clients.

Small law firm improves customer experience.

Halloo’s virtual phone system with integrated contact management was the best solution for Ari Law. With Halloo, they were able to set up a unique number to be used on the website, in e-mails and on business cards. This provided many benefits including being able to track the statistics of calls and interactions with the live receptionist. Halloo’s phone system also gave them the ability to loop multiple people onto a single call with the instant conferencing features.

Ari Law took the new number and routed it to their traditional office line, giving them the use of multiple extensions and enhanced voicemail. With these features, voicemails received through their office line would not only appear on their Halloo Dashboard, but also be sent securely to their e-mail so they were immediately alerted to the missed call when they opened their Inbox. By incorporating call forwarding, Ari Law provided their clients the option of selecting a lawyer’s extension, which would then forward to their cell phone, allowing the client to reach their lawyer outside of the office.

Mr. Aalaei sums up their experience saying, “Halloo provides our clients in the Bay Area and in Asia an incredibly accessible way to communicate with our team here in San Francisco and Orange County.”

A: Simply set the “Maximum incoming voicemail length” to “0″ for the extension(s) that you don’t want to reach voicemail. Note: If you record a greeting for that extension, it will still play, which will allow you to record a brief message before the script hangs up. In addition, if you check the “For further assistance” option, the caller will be given the chance to jump to another extension, including back to the auto attendant by pressing 9.

Halloo can help reduce the number of calls that go to voicemail through a solution called ‘hunt groups.’  Chances are that as a member of a small businesses, you’re frequently traveling by car or plane, or simply on the move from business to business.

What happens when you have clients calling and leaving messages at your main office while you’re not there? A full-time receptionist based out of your primary location is not necessarily an option. That’s what a hunt group is for. It’s a feature utilized by phone systems, such as Halloo, that allows any client to call the business phone number and immediately get transferred to wherever you happen to be — with the use of your cell phone.

Hunt groups can direct calls to your cell phone.

Think of it as an ‘automatic transfer.’ Get the calls directly and be more readily available to your consumer.

In this small business world, it’s essential to be accessible and available as often as possible when there’s an incoming call. You can’t be reached in absolutely every situation (for example, when you’re in a meeting), but you can increase the odds dramatically by not having your phone ring in an empty office. You’ll still need voicemail capabilities and there will still be calls that you need to return. But, a hunt group can help you interact with more customers promptly and directly. While this solution won’t negate having to listen to voicemail ever again, it will help reduce the number of missed calls due to the mobile nature of most small business team members.

Stop losing calls and customer confidence. Simply set up phone systems features that support your business lifestyle.

Pierre contributed to this article.

With bulky, complex customer tracking software, the volume of data that needs to be entered, let alone accurately, can be daunting. Hundreds of fields such as time of call, notes, sales representative name, etc., etc., often require hours of data entry and additional upkeep time in order to have a viable system. If mistakes are made during the data capture period, they can significantly impact the customer. Some mistakes even lead to loss of the sale.

When incorrect data gets entered into an overly complex CRM, not only does the company look bad, but each of your individual team members suffers while on the phone with your customers.

Here are two reasons to simplify your CRM and use Halloo’s integrated contact management system.

Complex CRM software is expensive.

For the cost of installing, training and implementing specialized CRM programs, you’ll receive far more bang for your buck with your virtual phone system. Keep in mind, most CRMs are canned and can’t be updated or modified as your company needs change. With the nimble, cloud based Halloo solution, your integrated CRM will be far more responsive to your business needs.

Data entry is costly and error ridden.

With Halloo’s seamless contact management system, you’ll drastically reduce errors and data entry requirements as many fields are pre-filled automatically while the caller is on the line. Team members can interact with each other as well. Using a call log silo system, each employee can see the actions, entries, and log of others without interfering.  It’s easy to know who called at what time and see who took the call internally.  These details, such as loading of the time the call originated along with numerous other fields, cut down on most of the CRM box work – saving employees time and frustration.

Consider simplifying with Halloo. You’ll boost your customer service, employee morale, and the bottom line.

Boost customer service with Halloo's contact management system.

Elspeth M. contributed to this article.

Your company’s ability to handle customer service requests well can increase sales, satisfaction, and build loyalty. In fact, customer service can be a key component for distinguishing your business from the competition. Consider Zappos.com. By instilling legendary customer service, primarily via phone, they have been able to grow sales beyond shoes and expand into new markets such as clothing and purses.

Can your customers reach you via phone?

Dedicated customer service through toll free numbers can help your organization:

1. Convince reluctant consumers. Customers may feel skittish about buying from or signing up with an unknown businesses if there’s no way to contact the business. Even if they don’t need to call you, just the comfort that the option exists is a powerful signal that your business cares.
2. Be available when the customer needs you. With Halloo Receptionist service, you can have your calls answered by a live human 24x7x365 for a tiny fraction of the cost of hiring your own customer service rep! You can pick up your own phones during standard hours and let Halloo pick up after hours. Most startups will not be deluged with calls, so the after hours expense will be relatively minimal. Having this service available is a powerful draw. You’ll be signaling your customers that you are there any time that they need assistance.
3. Solve customer problems quickly and efficiently. Turbocharge your phone handling with Halloo’s Virtual Phone Service so that you can handle routine calls using an interactive voice response system (e.g. store hours and location). You can also enable features such as roll-over hunt groups to ensure that you pick up more calls, leading to higher first call resolution for your customers.

Online access is increasing, allowing a wider range of consumers (about 78%) to go to the internet for a wide variety of services, including problem-solving. While this can be very helpful to consumers and companies alike, don’t forget that nearly 95% of the U.S. population has access to a telephone and many prefer the personal touch associated with reaching a “real” human on the other side of the line.  Make sure to carefully consider your target audience and their preferences when determining your company’s customer service solutions.

Does your company handle more customer service through web or phone? We’d love to hear your perspective.

NPR’s MarketPlace recently featured a segment discussing “What Makes You Happy When Your Call Is Put on Hold?” This piece explored the evolution of the industry and how hold music can impact customer satisfaction.

Although on hold music technically does very little to increase a caller’s level of satisfaction, being greeted by silence has a negative impact on customer service according to Scott Broetzman, President of Customer Care and Consulting.  The most positive response from customers were received when they listened to on hold greetings with estimates of how long they’d be waiting. Emily Yellin, the author of “Your Call is Not that Important to Us,” added that treating customers well and keeping hold times shorter than a minute were the real keys to increasing satisfaction.

Avoid on hold frustration.

While this information may seem to be against on hold music, answering the phone in less than a minute might not be a realistic goal for your company at this moment. Having a system in place, such as an auto attendant, for handling the extra call volume may be necessary. If that’s the case, remember your company’s first impression is made, through your greetings and on hold messages or music.

On hold music can support your customer service efforts by:

1. Projecting a polished image for your company.
2. Captivating your audience.
3. Making hold time seem shorter.

Matching your current advertising and branding campaigns with your music selection can project a unified company. As your customers call, appropriate music selection decreases frustration, thereby reducing the number of dropped calls. This will lead to higher first call resolution rates and increased customer satisfaction. Well-chosen on hold music will make your customer’s time on hold seem shorter.

But remember, there’s definitely more to the on hold music than simply uploading a song from your iTunes account (potentially illegal, by the way). Taking the time to seek the right music selection for your organization will be worth the effort as your customers have more favorable impressions of your company as well as their customer service experience.

What customer service techniques does your organization use when customers are on hold?

Part of a disaster plan should address how you’ll communicate with your customers, clients, and employees. It may not be feasible to individually call each member of your team or expect team members to have access to their normal work environment. Instead, you may need to set up a communication system that can be accessed by employees once they reach safety. Including a virtual phone system with automated attendant, call forwarding, and hunt group features into your disaster plan can minimize service disruptions.One of the businesses that successfully implemented hosted solutions in the face of disaster and continued business disruption was the Louisiana SPCA. Here’s their story:

In a matter of hours Hurricane Katrina left the LA-SPCA without an office for their emergency animal rescue efforts. Their dispersed staff (only 4 of the 50+ pre-hurricane staff remained in the area after evacuations) scrambled to re-establish communications, while tens of thousands of pet owners called phones that were submerged under water, ringing to no one.

The LA-SPCA Halloo virtual phone system enabled SPCA staff to publish their new toll free hot line on their website within hours. The multi-level self-service menus and smart call-forwarding system enabled the SPCA to communicate effectively with a broad array of callers, despite far fewer local employees to answer phones. Residents had instant access to directions on how to report strays or abandoned animals, pet owners received immediate information to help them find lost pets, and displaced staff members could retrieve specific emergency status updates. Critical calls could be forwarded to available staff members and volunteers, wherever they were located, as staff members were each able to receive calls on their mobile phones.

Disaster recovery starts with a plan.

Message notification also sent phone users email or text messages when urgent voice-mails arrived — a very useful feature when cell phone coverage is spotty in the wake of a disaster. The organization maximized volunteers’ phone time with a “hunt group” set up to roll calls automatically to the first available dispatch line. This allowed more callers to get through to someone who could answer their questions as quickly as possible.

When an alternate shelter was established two weeks later, the LA-SPCA entered new local land line numbers into the system via the web, and their multi-line dispatch center was connected to their phone system in minutes. The transition from the distributed, emergency ad-hoc network of mobile phones to an office-based set of land lines caused no disruption to customer service.

A subsequent move into more permanent space could be handled entirely by a volunteer, over the web – once again, no service interruption, no multi-day (or week!) delay waiting for an overburdened vendor, and no hardware or software to coordinate.

The Halloo virtual phone system eliminated the complexity typically associated with telephone service restoration, and allowed the Louisiana SPCA to focus on its critical mission of supporting the region’s animals and pet owners through their recovery from this unprecedented disaster.

But, is a full blown enterprise system like Salesforce.com right for your small business? While it would be wonderful to have all of our customers organized neatly into opportunities and leads, along with the probability of closing and potential value of the deal, rarely is this the way information is handled in smaller organizations. Certainly, having this full contact information, along with organizational chart intelligence about the counter-parties that you deal with would be ideal. However, with the demands of running a business, vast amounts of data can be overwhelming.

Most small businesses have relatively simple products and services. For example, Mary calls to ask whether you have any openings in June for your rental cabins. You tell her there are openings and give her a quote, but she’s not ready to book yet and hangs up. From her Caller-ID, you can see that she’s calling from the Jacksonville, Florida area. But, you weren’t able to gather more information from her during your brief conversation.

Your business may get dozens or even hundreds of calls like this per day, but chances are that you keep most of these conversations on yellow post-it notes or scrap paper, if you track them at all. Let’s face it, the time it takes to log these transactions into a traditional CRM is just too much. Often it’s not even possible to create a full record because all of the information you have on the contact is the date, time, phone number and the caller’s first name.

At Halloo, we recognize that small business customer relationship management is very different from enterprise CRM. A more practical and user-friendly system is required and data entry has to be minimized. And, the technology advances that are available need to be incorporated into the system.

After all, the virtual phone system tracks when a call comes in, so why does that information need to be re-entered into the contact management system? Plus, the caller id info should be incorporated into the contact record so that agents don’t need to spend time asking questions such as city and phone number.

Halloo’s virtual phone and contact management system tracks all of this information as well as allowing team members in your company to add their notes directly into the contact record. That way, you’ll know your colleague, Tom, talked to this person yesterday and already gave her a quote on a cabin, so you can start the conversation by asking her if she’s ready to make a reservation.

Halloo contact history

Halloo’s tools were designed to work seamlessly together to save you time and effort. All of the best benefits of CRM have been incorporated into this small business-friendly, easy-to-use contact management system.

Toll-Free Brokers

Vanity combinations are so popular, there are companies that keep tabs on the numbers and snatch them if they become available. Conceptually, this is similar behavior to those that wait for certain website domains to open up or those that squat on a desirable URL and then resell for exorbitant fees.

Toll-free brokers buy and sell numbers. You can purchase available vanity numbers from the broker but then must find a service provider to host the number within a certain period of time. The number is then ported to the new service.

Toll-free numbers

Abused Vanity Numbers

From a business perspective, if you decide to extend branding through a vanity line for your organization, it is important to make plans to keep the number reserved and/or activated. One of the downsides of vanity toll-free numbers (as well as web domains) is that numerous popular combinations are not owned by the businesses that you expect to hold them.

Many vanity toll-free numbers have been snatched up by unrelated companies capitalizing on another brand’s popularity. These “rogue” numbers can be very harmful to your company’s reputation.  Beware! Have a plan in place to avoid this type of problem before you purchase a vanity number.

Customer Confusion

With the limited 800 toll-free number availability, your organization may decide to use one of the other prefixes to extend your company’s branding through a vanity number. Use caution. Customers can become confused and dial 800 instead of 855 or 888. They may remember the vanity portion, but not the prefix, thus reaching another business unintentionally.

Make sure to investigate the other prefixes with your vanity combination to find out who the customer will reach if the number is misdialed. Consider and plan for the consequences of a misdialed number. Weigh the drawbacks and benefits associated with each vanity toll-free option. Remember, the end result may be more detrimental to your business’ reputation than just a lost opportunity!