Having Call Management on Your Business Line Ensures You Provide the Greatest Care to Potential Clients

Having just purchased a memorable phone number that allows people to find my company. What I hadn’t realised or at that point know was all of the call management systems that you could choose from a provider. I reasoned it would be of benefit providing some clarity on the huge minefield that is Call management.

So to start with what is call management?
A structure that you set in position to sort calls that come into your organisation and deals with them in a way set out by you is what call management means. The variety of ways your calls can be dealt with are numerous but here is a selection of market standard systems.
 
Web management – what this lets you do is log into a computer anywhere in the world and read, change, listen to and redirect the phone calls that are coming into your organisation. Great if you travel a lot and have to be kept up to date with the latest happenings within your organisation.

A Time/Date plan – allows you to organise how your system deals with calls at specific times of the day. For example directing calls to the workplace from 9am to 5 pm, your blackberry from 5pm to 7pm and then answer phone from 7pm till 9am the following day. You can organise this for whatever time you need and can be a client saver if used in the right way.

Call divert – The majority of memorable numbers 0800, 03, 0845 etc will let you send incoming phone calls to that number or any other number which ensures you never have to miss a phone call it doesn’t matter what the circumstances. Can be very useful particularly as part of a business continuity plan all of your equipment may have gone into temporary storage but you can still receive your calls and direct it to new site accommodation until you have the disaster sorted out.

Voicemail to email – ensures that if it is of real necessity you receive calls that come into the organisation that you can visit any internet café any where in the world and listen to your phone calls. Don’t forget however that if you are abroad and have just checked your mail that ringing a client up direct may cost you quite a bit.

Welcome message – A welcome message is just what it says on the jar letting the person ringing know they have contacted the correct number and getting across your professionalism. First impressions are a must in any organisation.

Call Queue – “I’m sorry the person you have called Is busy you are number 20 in the queue”, not the message you want to hear but allows you to make a decision that the person you are ringing is busy and that you can either hold the line or leave a voicemail. This kind of system can help sort urgent and less urgent calls and also gives you access to a captive audience when it comes to marketing.

Caller options – The sort of phone system that is automated but puts the caller in charge, “press 1 for accounts, 2 for Facilities” etc. Each option can be broken down into varying options allowing the customer to get through to precisely who they need.

Hunt group – A hunt group is extremelly useful as it lets you direct calls to different people that could deal with the types of questions that would be arriving in on that line. Really useful if you have a large team and need certain people to answer calls, will direct to number 1, then number 2, then mobile 3, then voicemail. Helps ensure that clients don’t get sent to the wrong people and get passed around from pillar to post.

Geographic call routing – This is a useful little system for people that do their job within a network of offices or franchises across the country as It will redirect to the office closest to the person that is calling.

As with any systems ensure you have a clear idea what you need to get out of your call management, in that way you don’t pay out more than you need to. Most organisations are happy to talk through your requirements and provide what you want if possible. Sit down and write out what your organisation will need before you pay out, call management is brilliant if used in the right way get as much information as you can, hopefully this has been of benefit.

Call Management lets you look after your clients phone calls.