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Despite the fact that most sales calls and nuisance calls should not be dealt with, companies have no choice but to respond sincerely when they receive them.
As a result, employees are wasting time and effort.
In this article, we will explain the merits of stopping manned correspondence as a countermeasure against sales calls.
We also introduce unmanned systems such as interactive voice response (IVR), so if you are having trouble with sales calls, please refer to them.
Disadvantages of answering sales calls
Many people may be tired of receiving sales calls on a daily basis while answering the phone.
As long as someone is calling, someone has to respond, but if it costs unnecessary money to respond to sales calls and valuable resources are taken away, it’s putting the cart before the horse .
There are some disadvantages to answering sales calls:
lose concentration
Most of the employees who answer the phone stop their main work and answer the phone.
Constant phone calls interrupting your work can make it hard to stay focused.
Furthermore, if it becomes a sales call that has nothing to do with your main business, your motivation may decrease.
time consuming
Even if I try to decline the sales call, they will not withdraw easily, and it may take a long time.
If precious working hours are taken up by answering sales calls, it may mean that you cannot finish your work within business hours.
not profitable for the company
As a company, we must treat all incoming calls as customers and respond politely.
However, sales calls and nuisance calls do not bring profit to the company, so the effort put into handling them will be wasted.
stress build up
Responding to persistent sales calls is exhausting and stressful.
Originally, answering sales calls should have a low priority, but if the burden is too great, “I ca n’t take time to do my own work for sales calls” or “I’m just answering sales calls every day and it’s not worth doing.” It can also affect the mental health of employees .
What you can do with an interactive voice response (IVR)
An automatic voice response (IVR) is a system that provides guidance by playing an automated voice instead of a person suddenly appearing when receiving a call.
Since you can get an answer from the other party by pushing the phone,
“Press 1 for purchase inquiries, 2 for repair requests, and 3 for other inquiries.”
It is possible to distribute the forwarding destination based on the customer’s selection results, or to send the necessary information by automatic voice.
By introducing an automatic voice response at the time of receiving a call, it is possible to improve the efficiency of telephone work .
unattended
Not all calls to the main company phone or call center require a manned response.
You can respond to fixed content such as answers to standard inquiries by simply playing guidance with automatic voice.
If there are many things that can be left unmanned, it will be easier to connect to a manned counter, and it will also be possible to prevent customers from waiting and overflowing calls due to unanswered calls.
Connect to Contact
Calls can be sorted by person in charge by asking customers what they need to do with the automatic voice response and having them select from the options by push operation.
In addition to eliminating the need for staff to deal with the first issue, costs can be reduced. In addition, it is easier to connect to the person in charge than to manually transfer after hearing the matter, which is advantageous not only for the company but also for the customer.
Overtime support/reception
Automated voice response is also suitable for after-hours response.
After business hours, you can play after-hours guidance and guide the business days and business hours with an automatic voice to encourage you to call back at the time when you can connect.
Also, if you use automatic voice for inquiries that can be fixed, you can answer even outside business hours.
It is also possible to have the customer record a message and return it on the next business day.
return reservation
With automatic voice response, when you receive an incoming call after hours or when the phone is busy and you cannot connect to the person in charge, you can use push input to register the desired date and time, and the person in charge will call you back.
By responding to calls back, customers do not have to wait longer than necessary.
Why automatic voice response can be used to repel sales calls and nuisance calls
An automatic voice response system that eliminates unnecessary phone calls and connects necessary calls quickly.
Recently, there are many cases where it is used to repel sales calls.
Let’s see why automatic voice response can be used as a countermeasure against sales calls and nuisance calls.
Unattended and inflexible
Sales telephones are intended for manned support.
Even if the tele-appointment company has no knowledge of this organization or the name of the person in charge,
- “I want you to connect me to the president.”
- “I would like to know the name of the person in charge.”
and other negotiations.
While doing so, I can’t say that I can’t say that I’m going to get down to the phone, and I’m going to say the employee’s name.
Also, it is a sales call that does not let you hang up easily even if you want to finish the conversation.
If it is an automatic voice response, it corresponds to the template in a good way, so no matter what the other party says, it will only proceed according to the scenario.
The advantage of automatic voice response is that there is no chance for the salesman on the sales call to take advantage of it .
It takes a long time to connect to the person in charge, which is inefficient
Even with an automatic voice response, you can finally connect to a manned window.
However, it is only after listening to all the automatic voice guidance for sorting and answering a number of questions that the automated voice response leads to a manned window.
Automated voice response takes a long time to get to the operator, even when you call to make an inquiry.
It’s very inefficient as a telephone sales person who can’t get an appointment unless he can get a lot of calls in a short period of time.
Appointers often have a quota, so if you have time to listen to the guidance of the automatic voice response, it is better to give up quickly and call someone else.
“Canario” blocks sales calls with AI support
I want to shut out sales calls with automatic voice response.
However, our customers do not want to wait for long voice guidance.
In such a case, we recommend the call forwarding service “Canario” provided by NEC Networks & System Integration Corporation.
In “Canario”, an automatic voice is played at the first voice, so sales calls and nuisance calls are blocked here.
Furthermore, it is from here that it is different from IVR.
With “Canario”, you don’t have to listen to long guidance and make choices.
When the other party speaks the name of the person in charge, AI recognizes it and can transfer the call to the mobile phone of the person in charge .
“Canario” is an ideal system that blocks sales calls and improves customer convenience at the same time.
Article Summary
Automatic voice response can sort incoming calls by subject, and is also effective for blocking sales calls.
However, listening to long automated voice guidance may be one of the disadvantages for customers.
With NEC Networks & System Integration’s “Canario,” it is possible to automatically forward calls from existing customers simply by specifying the name of the person in charge, while blocking sales calls with automated voice.
It enables smooth connection to the person in charge and shuts out only unnecessary sales calls and nuisance calls without lowering customer satisfaction.
“Canario” is also available for a one-month trial. If you are interested, please feel free to contact us.