Inbound Call Centers vs. Outbound Call centers provided clear communication advantages for your customers, however, are they truly enabled to deliver a Customer-Centric organization.  Customer Success teams are relying more on Contact Center Agents & Call to help extend their journey mapping.  CSRs and Customer Success Managers (CSM) have a huge opportunity in 2021 to change the course of customer communications using inbound and outbound call centers

Inbound call center overview

Many think of Customer Service and Support as the primary description of inbound call centers are used for. Organizations who understand not all customers want to interact with the digital economy online have taken advantage of old-school support. Traditional inbound calling focuses on:

1.Order Updates
2.Bill Pay
3.Account information
4.Placing additional orders

In 2021 with more omni-channel support, inbound calling continues to support the and has moved into perfecting the customer success strategy for companies.

Technical Support on Products

Changing account information such as payment, billing address and password refreshes are just a few items inbound call centers support.  As organizations shift to a Contact Center design, agents can solve additional issues such as product complaints, response to product specials and more.  This change to CCaaS affords the agent to go deeper into the customer experience by opening support tickets, updating information real-time into the CRM and more.

Payment and order processing

How many credit cards are breached yearly, and users are unsure how they were targeted?  This is one of the big reasons some customers opt to pay for products/services over an inbound call.  CSRs can process the support request and provide an old school option for ordering.

Renewal/Cancel/Upgrade inquiries

SaaS-based organizations can leverage inbound contact centers to support potential churning customers for example.  If the contract or ability to cancel service requires a verbal conversation, this allows the service provider one last effort to retain a customer.  Agents can engage the Customer Success Manager on the account in real-time through a call transfer or they can bridge them on to solve a real-world subscription issue.

Subscription-based businesses such as subscription boxes or SaaS companies may receive calls from customers who want to expand their current plan. In this case, inbound call agents should be trained to either upgrade shoppers’ plans themselves or redirect the call to a sales agent who can process the plan expansion.

Outbound call center services

We polled many of our customers to define Outbound call centers and the first thing that came to mind was the Telemarker scene in Seinfeld.  However, this couldn’t be further from the truth (unless you are building a telemarketing company).  Many contact centers are filled with Sales Development Representatives (SDRs) who are actively working business development with prospective clients.  Outbound calling here is great for inbound demand gen situations where a someone requests more information after opting in on the website.  Other great options for outbound CCaaS environments.

Lead generation

Outbound call center agents can help salespeople generate and qualify leads. Cold outreach is used to identify opportunities and collecting information over the phone can help identify if those leads are qualified to purchase (i.e., is it the right timing, and does the lead have the budget?).

Telesales

Yes, you can use outbound for telesales, but we prefer this with agents who have a customer who opted into your company.  Utilizing CRM APIs into your contact center environment, you’ll be able to work with leads to close new or upsell existing clients.  This is a great option to measure touchpoints with customers and who is successful based on closed conversations.  Remember the Whisper/Barge earlier, if your agent is struggling or needs help to complete a sale, this feature works equally well.

Market research

A great opportunity to understand your product and competition is outbound reach to your existing base of clients.  Product Development would love gobs of data on process or sku improvement and how they can compete better in the market.  Results can be shared with a customer as well so they can see their influence compared to their peers.

NPS Surveys

Net Promoter Score is typically associated with a quick email survey to understand customer loyalty.  Outbound calling to customers especially any detractor scores would allow an organization real-time feedback outside the NPS to understand the root of the problem.  If you think about how a NPS is static, a phone call from an agent or CSM provides the ability to drill into any issues.

Tips to improve Customer Success with Call Centers

Asynchronous messaging

A contact center agent can offer the customer on the phone the ability to utilize asynchronous messaging after the call is over.  This is a great option to provide the client self-service empowerment at their leisure while reducing inbound calls for easy updates/answers online.  Messaging channels such as Facebook Messenger, SMS Text, WhatsApp, Drift, and others are great first steps in enterprise chat.

Whisper/Barge

This is a great feature for managers/supervisors in the call center to listen into a live agent call and provide real-time coaching to support improving the CX of your business.  This feature is standard in Contact Center environments and can be used on inbound and outbound call setups.  The Barge feature is live the manager of the agent can provide instructions and support without the customer hearing the “whisper”.

Call Recording

Call Recording is a great way to capture training opportunities, customer needs and trends.  However, depending upon state laws in the United States for example.  If you can add recording into the calls for both inbound and outbound, you can do a few things:

1. Record for compliance
2. Add a dictation API to capture all calling into text which is then loaded into CRM or AI tools for additional metrics.
3. Training – When a manager can’t be live on a Whisper/Barge scenario

Contact Center Gamification

There is one final option if you are a manager of Contact Centers in the form of Gamification.  Gamification of tasks and milestones obviously fosters competition, but can also be structure to promote collaboration, celebrate achievement, and generate numerous opportunities for recognition.  Along the way, gamification will build positive habits while ensuring that KPIs are continuously in focus using Performance Dashboards that can be on-line and pushed to wallboard screens.

Custom Avatars are a fun feature that will enable employees to express themselves, even across long distances.  Rewards often include achieving badges, coins, and other types of currency that can be redeemed at in internal marketplace.

We agree no matter which tech you are using; traditional Call Centers or Contact Centers as a Service outbound and inbound functionality will propel your business.  Without it, you must rely purely on one-dimensional communication online.