Every company receives incoming calls, sometimes on a daily basis. Even if social media messaging and live chats are becoming more and more popular, customers and clients still need to contact you, and picking up the phone is still an expected step in this process.

The Definition Of Inbound Calls

Inbound calls are phone calls made by customers that are directed to a company's customer care or support team. The company's call center or help desk normally answers these calls and then deals with the customer's concern or request. Most customer service teams that want to improve the customer experience prioritize answering incoming calls.

Help desk staff in inbound call centers typically handle these incoming calls. Not every inbound call is answered on the first attempt. It takes more time and effort to successfully answer some consumer inquiries.

The two primary categories of inbound calls are:

• Inbound calls for customer service: Calls that come in from existing clients seeking to address issues or make enquiries. To maintain a high level of customer satisfaction, customer service representatives work to quickly address them.
• Inbound calls for sales (i.e. warm calls): Typically, prospective clients who have a question about a good or service start these calls. In this type of conversation, the agents are attempting to encourage a sale while also responding to consumer questions.

How To Handle Inbound Calls?

How to handle inbound calls?

Customer experience should be at the forefront of the minds of all customer-centric businesses. Every customer service agent in your call center needs to have the appropriate training and telephone call handling abilities.

To offer the finest customer service, they must also be knowledgeable about your goods and services. Agents can build these talents and learn the ins and outs of your products through ongoing training and seminars.

In-house contact center

Using an internal contact center is a common method for handling incoming calls. Incoming calls are therefore handled by your own staff. A single customer service representative, a help desk, or a receptionist are common in small enterprises. Larger companies might have their own call centers staffed with inbound call center employees or a team of customer service representatives.

Automated contact center

There are some client inquiries that can be handled entirely without a live agent. The usage of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and automated messaging chatbots can speed up customer service, decrease hold times, and streamline incoming call processing.

Customers looking for straightforward information or help, such business hours, appointment scheduling, or technical support, benefit from automated solutions.

Omnichannel contact center

Offering several ways for clients to reach you is a method that is becoming more and more common for handling incoming calls. Email, social media messaging, and conversing with live agents via online chat or helpdesk are a few examples of these.

Calling is integrated into the omnichannel contact center rather than replacing the conventional call center.

Outsourced contact center

Other companies contract out their call center operations. In their own contact center, this entails hiring a third party to manage incoming calls. It's possible that this contact center answers incoming calls from numerous distinct companies.

Outsourcing your inbound contact center is a common choice for big enterprises or startups trying to grow, and we'll go over the benefits and drawbacks of doing so below.

Inbound Call Strategy 

What is an effective inbound call strategy?

The main goal of building an inbound call strategy is to enhance customer experience. Inbound call center solutions are among the most expensive customer support services. Therefore, you need to know how to best allocate your resources to get the most out of your budget

Reserve the voice channel

Whether you have a call center or not, make sure your customer service team is speaking to valuable customers by adapting your communication channels to the various stages of the customer lifecycle. The more consideration the purchase of a product requires, the more the voice channel will be important.

Maintain a toll-free number so that customers may reach you at any time, but consider where to position it. Especially for mid-sized businesses, placing the phone number at the top of your webpage stretches the call funnel and reduces the value of incoming calls. Think about placing the phone number at the bottom of your pricing or product pages, or immediately after your calls to action.

Arrange human resources to be always available

The next step is to make sure there is a qualified person available to answer the phone on your end once you have confirmed that you are only receiving the most lucrative kind of phone calls. Don't allow the phone to go to voicemail or an administrative assistant; you need to get the correct person to answer right away.

Additionally, if your team is small enough that one employee might reasonably handle a shift on their own, you might want to think about implementing an on-call system for your business.

Make data accessible

Make sure you can access your CRM data whenever or wherever you receive a call. When you personalize your CRM data with social data, you may tailor how you respond to callers depending on contract values, close dates, or social media updates from Facebook and Twitter if an existing lead or prospect contacts you.

It's simple to overlook the value of the voice channel for expanding your company when you consider how much more than just a calling device smartphones have become and how people are yearning for digital, personalized experiences. Adopt and enforce an inbound call strategy to get an advantage over rivals who rely on automation and self-service. Also, don't be reluctant to advertise your phone number; doing so can only help your company as long as you place it appropriately.

Track real-time metrics

Real-time metrics are necessary for inbound call centers to function efficiently. A real-time agent dashboard will gather data on service level, average wait time (AWT), average handling time (AHT), and other factors to help agents make better decisions.

Managers should also have access to this information so they can act quickly and strategically to improve customer happiness and call center efficiency.

Use trustworthy contact center software

Think about using multichannel contact center software if you want to keep your customer service in line with contemporary standards. You may manage client inquiries from many sources, including phone calls, emails, social media posts, etc. You must be prepared to accommodate the various communication preferences of your clients.

StringeeX Contact Center Software can help businesses receive inbound calls from customers with stable connection. Additionally, call agents can record inbound calls for further analysis, while managing customer information effectively into the built-in CRM.

Provide continuous training for agents

Professionalism, empathy, patience, and in-depth product and service knowledge are required when working at a contact center.

Don't expect your agents to handle every issue on the very first call by throwing them into the deep end of the pool. If you don't already have a strategy in place, it's time to consider coaching and training.

It's likely that your goods and services are always changing. When contacting you, your clients could ask you about several topics. Motivate your employees! It helps you deliver better customer service while also improving the agent experience.

>>> Read more: 8 Essential Call Center Metrics For Customer Experience and Agent Productivity

FAQs

What are the differences between inbound and outbound calls?

Who initiates them makes a significant distinction between the two. Agents in inbound call centers take calls from clients looking for assistance with an issue or inquiry. Agents at outbound call centers call current or potential consumers. These might involve market research, follow-up phone calls, telesales, etc.

Can I use the same contact center software for both inbound and outbound calls?

The effectiveness and efficiency of the incoming call management process are essential to any company's service quality and customer experience. Businesses that want to grow must give even more thought to how they handle incoming calls since they may need to move beyond a one-person help desk or customer support staff.

How many inbound calls should an agent handle?

There is no precise number. The number of calls that your agents should handle will vary depending on the time of day and other factors.

Summary

Now you understand things about inbound calls. They are calls from clients to businesses to ask for customer service.

Inbound calling is an essential part of contact centers. Additionally, a lot of businesses use incoming calls as a sales tactic. The majority of companies include a phone number on their websites so that customers can call with questions or complaints.