Business competition in today’s economy is fierce. Your customers expect the highest level of customer care, and you and your staff need to be reachable, professional and customer focused at all times – no matter where you’re located. That requires a solid phone system.
If that’s your business model, is your phone system serving you like you serve your customers?
Use this checklist to evaluate if your phone system gives your customers the experience they now expect from their chosen providers. Any items you can’t check off may signal that you could be getting more out of your phone system.
Reachability and professionalism
1. Customers can access your sales staff anytime and anywhere with mobile capability that directs incoming office calls to be received on your sales staff’s mobile phones
2. Outbound calls look professional, coming from the main company number, even when your employees are using their smartphones
3. Customer focus is enhanced by connecting your CRM tools with Outlook to give you conversation history with your client
4. Employee productivity is increased by merging call records with customer records to improve sales trending projections and staffing optimisation.
Employee productivity
5. Employees and partners can communicate in ways that are easy and intuitive through audio and web conferencing, regardless of where they’re working
6. Employees use presence features to be reachable by establishing if they are in the office, out of office, or in a meeting by using presence features
7. Teamwork is made easy with voice and video calling, including screen sharing
Cost effectiveness
8. Ongoing administration, such as adding a new employee is easy, not labor intensive
9. Local support is available to train your staff to use features that improve customer experience
10. You have the option of outsourcing your phone system management to an experienced local company
How did you do? Depending on your responses, here are some things to think about.
– If you scored an 8-10, you’re using your phone system to improve your customers’ experience as they work with you.
– If you scored a 5-7, there may be some phone system features you can use to improve your company’s competitive positioning and your customers’ experience.
– If you scored less than 5, it’s time to look at phone system capabilities you can bring to your company to help your staff be more reachable, professional and customer-focused.
You want your employees to function effectively while improving company productivity and increasing customer satisfaction. Your phone system should help you do all that – and boost your competitive advantage.
