Business ownership has always been filled with unexpected twists and turns and it takes a hefty amount of flexibility and adaptability to recognize when you need to change course.
The good news is that you don’t need to roll with the punches all on your own. Finding the right tools and systems can help you deal with the seemingly endless shifts and changes that come along with business ownership (with far less panic and nail-biting).
If you’re ready to implement some tools that can help you build a more resilient business, let’s look at a few ways CallRail can help you not only ride the waves of business ownership—but come out on top.
3 ways to meet changing customer needs with CallRail
You don’t have a business without your customers, so you know you need to keep them happy. But, doing so is tougher than ever.
Customer expectations are continuing to evolve, and they demand more and more from the businesses they interact with. In fact, in one 2021 survey, 58% of customers admitted that their customer service expectations are higher than they were a year ago.
How can you deliver the top-notch interactions they don’t just appreciate but expect? Here’s how CallRail can help.
1. Deliver personalized customer experiences with call routing
CallRail’s Call Flows enable you to create customizable call routing for each of your tracking phone numbers. That means when a customer calls your business, you choose what they hear and who answers, based on the settings you create.
Imagine that a customer calls your business with a support question. But, they somehow end up talking to someone in your sales department—before getting bounced around again in search of the right person to answer their question.
It’s inefficient for your staff, frustrating for your customers, and detrimental to your reputation, customer retention, and ultimately bottom line. After all, 86% of consumers will leave a brand they were once loyal to after only two bad customer experiences.
Personalization is key to a positive experience, with 71% of customers saying they expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. That goes beyond just knowing their name. It means they need to find the right person who can help them on the very first try.
With Call Flows, customers no longer need to feel as if they’re being bounced around like a ping-pong ball. You can create various flows and settings (based on anything from a customer’s need to their zip code) so that callers can get connected with the right person immediately. A few other ways to use Call Flows include:
If you have a bigger team, use a round robin Call Flow to ring one person. If they don’t answer, you can ring another and so on.
Add a prerecorded greeting that plays for your callers before someone from your business answers. This is an easy way to provide some helpful information about your business. You might even answer their question before they even get connected with someone.
Use call queues (available with any of our Lead Center plans) to keep your callers on the line when you can’t immediately get to them. They can listen to music or you can create customized messages to deliver pertinent and personalized information. For example, the message for people calling about sales questions might cover pricing while the message for people calling for support might cover basic troubleshooting steps.
2. Give your customers options with text messaging
According to Pew Research Center, along with taking photos, text messaging is the most common non-voice application Americans use on their mobile phones.
But, they aren’t just texting friends about dinner plans. 93% of customers say they want to be able to text with businesses. If you aren’t set up to communicate with them that way, you run the risk of losing both leads and customers.
Businesses using Lead Center can text customers using tracking numbers right from their computer or our smartphone app while keeping the personal number private. Use Quick Text templates for commonly sent messages to save time and ensure consistency in messaging to your customers, regardless of the team member who sends it.
If you are currently routing your call tracking numbers to a landline phone, you may be missing out on customers who are trying to reach you via text. Lead Center makes it easy to stay on top of inbound texts as well so you aren’t letting potential customers slide under the radar.
Curious what’s driving those customers to text you? You’ll get visibility into the source of those text leads, just like you do with phone calls.
3. Engage your customers with automated responses
For customers, speed matters. They don’t want to wait for a reply from your business and most expect a reply within 12 hours at the absolute longest—or even a few minutes for more immediate channels.
But, the reality is that you can’t always get back to customers as quickly as you’d like to. How do you make sure they still feel connected, engaged, and remembered even when you can’t deliver the instant reply they expect? Automated responses.
When a customer reaches out, these automated response messages for missed calls or texts will let your customers know when they’ll hear back from you. It’s reassuring to them that their message isn’t floating aimlessly and helps you realistically manage their expectations.
Make sure you also set up missed call or text notification emails so you know exactly who to reach back out to when you’re available.
3 ways to adapt your own business operations with CallRail
Keeping customers happy is top of mind for any business owner. After all, any benefit to your customers is also a benefit to your business.
But, there’s another important group of people that needs to feel supported and satisfied: your employees. CallRail can make things easier for your staff too. Here’s how.
1. Streamline your staffing with reports
It seems like every business is dealing with staffing shortages, but those labor challenges have been especially severe for small businesses. 52% of small business owners say that it’s gotten harder to find qualified people to hire compared to a year ago.
That leaves many business owners to try to do more with what they already have. Using data is one of the best ways to maximize your existing resources without burning your staff out.
The Missed Calls report will give you details on your number of missed calls on each day of the week as well as within each hour in a day. That will give you insight into your peak call times so that you can staff accordingly.
CallRail can also help boost efficiency on your team. Lead Center’s unified inbox and complete interaction history for every caller enables your entire team to work from a single workspace. Everybody can view and respond to customer calls, texts, and chats faster. Plus, they can support repeat callers that may have been previously handled by another person without missing a beat. All of the context they need is right there.
2. Prioritize flexibility with softphone
What do your employees want? Flexibility. In fact, 59% of employees in one survey say that flexibility is even more important to them than salary or other benefits.
Giving your employees the wiggle room and autonomy they crave doesn’t have to be bad for your business. You can still satisfy their need for flexibility without compromising the level of service you provide your customers.
Our Lead Center softphone is a complete virtual phone system that lets you answer and place calls, texts, and chats, from within the CallRail platform from your computer or phone. It’s designed to be a team workspace when your team isn’t—or can’t be—in the same space.
Whether a team member wants to handle things from the office, their couch, or even the waiting room at their kid’s orthodontist, they’re able to get things done from wherever works best for them.
3. Provide top-notch employee training with call recording
One-third of employees don’t receive any formal job training. They’re left to fend for themselves and figure things out as they go along. That’s intimidating for employees and can also cause problems for your customers in the form of inconsistent or low-quality service.
But, if you and your existing team already feel spread thin and strapped for time, it’s hard to dedicate the necessary energy and hours to bringing new employees up to speed.
You can take some stress out of that process with inbound call recording. Included with all Call Tracking plans, it captures all your incoming customer calls so new employees can listen to those and self-train, which saves you both time and money. You can also review their conversations and provide helpful tips for future interactions.
Adding Lead Center into the mix lets you automatically capture outbound call recordings as well, so you get the complete picture of all calls placed and received. Lead Center also gives you the ability to monitor or join in on live conversations so you can provide real-time coaching and support for your new staff as they are ramping up.
Roll with the punches (without getting knocked down)
For business owners, it seems like the only constant is change. When things inevitably shift, you need to be nimble enough to quickly adjust.
From increasing customer expectations to evolving employee preferences, CallRail can help you run a business that’s both adaptable and resilient. With CallRail’s support, you’ll be able to roll with the punches of business ownership—without getting knocked down.
Ready to make adaptability a priority for your business? Get started with CallRail today.
