Can I text your Enterprise Contact Center?

Phone only ‘call centers’ have been rapidly replaced with ‘contact centers’ that can also handle email and chat communications.  Customers want more options for interacting with companies they buy products and services from.  Chat requires the customer to be at a computer and though email may be sent from a mobile phone, generally the sender is at a desktop.    In a wireless world in which every man, woman and child seems to wonder around with a ‘text’  or sms enabled device on their person, does it not make sense that they would want to text your call center?

Most call centers seem to be comfortable adding more and more incoming telephone lines, but never seem to add more agents?  We now queue up more clients to the same number of agents and expect that our customer satisfaction scores will increase with each new telephone line we add.   Chat and email increase the options that an agent can use to communicate with a customer, but only text offers location independent immediacy and the highest level of accuracy in CRM integrations.

A text will be read, on the average, within 10 seconds of its arrival.  It has a significantly higher read rate than email.  It is considered spam free, as you must opt in from you own mobile phone to receive future text messages.  As most folks under 30 do not even have a land line, using the CID of a SMS text will yield a much higher accuracy rate when doing screen pops from CRM integrations.    Self Service options for SMS are enormous and scheduling an agent call back could not be any easier!

What would you rather do: call into a contact center, listen to the obligatory menu of options, self navigate to the customer service group and then hear the first queue message: “the next available agent will be with you momentarily”; or send a SMS text message directly to the contact center group, by passing the automated attendant  and if you do not receive an immediate call back, receiving a confirmation text that an agent will call you at your mobile number in four minutes?

We have created a website to enable you to immediately setup a text based marketing campaign! You can create an account at our TEXT PORTAL  and select a phone number for your campaign and be in the digital marketing world in minutes.  We give you free SMS credits when you activate your account!  Interested in extending this capability to your Contact Center?  We can implement text functionality to your ShoreTel Contact Center or CISCO UCCX in a matter of hours!

Contact DrVoIP@DrVoIP.com or send the word CALLME to 603-426-3253 for sample application!  If you would like to test T2E (Text to Email) text your email address to the same number and we will set you up. – DrVoIP

ShoreTel iPBX phone system Training!

Phone Training is a double edged sword.   Everyone wants it  but nobody really wants to make the time commitment required to get comfortable with the new phone features that a system like ShoreTel brings to your  business.   Most folks figure it is a phone, how complex can it be?   That is true, ShoreTel phone are easy to manipulate and most features are intuitive.   There are however, a range of features that improve customer care, increase availability and enable you to achieve priority call management that are new concepts in business communications.   These features deserve some attention and the hour or so invested in learning about call handling modes, primary phones, simultaneous ring, follow me and custom call routing enjoy more than favorable return on time invested.

In addition to basic user training (we have to find another word to replace user, sounds like drug addict) ShoreTel has applications that also require training.  For example if you have an Enterprise Contact Center or a Work group environment, you will need to provide instruction for your Agents and Supervisors.    Are you using CRM connectors like Salesforce and Microsoft?  Do you have a custom application integrated with your ShoreTel?  Maybe the Recording or 911 application?   How about the Mobility server?   Are you using the iPhone and android aps?  Finally, all of these system need an educated System Administrator to handle adds moves and changes, who is going to provide that training?

When it comes to the basic ShoreTel phone system,  typically we break user training into basic phone handling and save the Communicator as a separate session.   Not everyone needs to learn Communicator, but everyone in the enterprise needs to know the basics phone function if they are going to be effective come “go live”.   How to setup your voice mail, assign your extension, manage multiple calls, transfer, conference and park are essential tricks that all employes should learn.   Generally, this is a 30-45 minute session and groups of 10 people around five handsets with an instructor using a projector for the call manager is a minimum training environment.  Like wise, to get through the Communicator, it will take another 45 minutes.   If you have to train several hundred people, over multiple sites, training is going to be a significant time investment and several days of Per Diem for an instructor on site!

We have found that web based training can be very effective for all of the various types of users that need to better understand these systems.    You can do large groups and a much lower cost without sacrificing the informational content.  Though we find mufti-media self paced training resources to be a very valuable as refrenece material or to help future new team members get up to speed, it is generally agreed that having an insturctor led webinar is a better solution.   The instructor can be aware of the specific configurations that uniquely define every deployment and can answer questions, propose feature solutions and generally help folks better understand the rich library of features they are about to make use of.  System Administration is without question easily done by web, as you are just going to log into a Shareware Director portal anyway!   No need for everyone to hurdle in the server room!

We can help you with distance learning solutions (or come on site) custom tailored to you deployment.  We can cover the full range of ShoreTel products and generally enjoy helping folks!   Give us call or  Text “ShowMe” to 15165197813 and we will setup a meet!