However, AI adoption is still in its early stages. Industry experts believe that only 30% of companies have moved from experimentation to strategic implementation. Despite its low implementation, industry use cases vary everywhere. Sectors like BFSI and healthcare use it for call handling, implementation of no-hold policies, and Know Your Business (KYB) verification processes. 

Let’s explore a few practical AI applications that are effective, profitable, and can be leveraged for multiple industries.

1. AI-Powered Virtual Agents

This is one of the most popular use cases of AI. If you currently handle or are looking to manage customer support through your website, AI-driven virtual agents are your best bet. They can handle routine customer inquiries and provide tailored real-time responses without human intervention. According to a 2024 Deloitte report, using AI-powered voice assistants can help you save 30% of customer service costs. 

How to implement virtual agents?

UCaaS providers integrate AI-powered virtual assistants with business phone systems to handle FAQs, schedule callbacks, etc. This helps them improve response times and customer satisfaction. 

Other than that, virtual bots are also being used in healthcare to schedule appointments, predict no-shows, and optimize revenue cycle management. AI-based scheduling ensures that patient preferences and availability are factored in. This way, there are no unnecessary appointment gaps.

2. AI-Enhanced Call Routing & No-Hold Policies

Call routing ensures that all your incoming calls are directed to the most suitable agent. It is one of the most important call management tools and is currently offered by every UCaaS provider. So where does AI come in? — Process refinement.  AI helps you analyze customer history, sentiment, and urgency faster, reducing unnecessary transfers and enhancing first-call resolution rates.  

How does AI-based call routing work? 

• Customer Identification: AI analyzes caller ID, past interactions, and account details. 

• Agent Matching: Routes the call to the most suitable agent based on expertise, availability, and priority. 

• Intent Recognition: During the call, it detects customer needs using speech analysis and sentiment detection. 

• Real-Time Assistance: Provides live prompts and call transcripts to agents. 

• Continuous Learning: Refines routing algorithms based on historical data and call outcomes. 

 3. Predictive Analytics for Proactive Customer Support

Predictive analytics helps you anticipate issues and fix them before they affect customers. With the help of AI, you can analyze call patterns, network performance, and interactions to find problems early. 

If a problem is likely, AI can also automatically take actions like rerouting calls, sending alerts, or allocating resources. 

This helps you reduce downtime, keep your services reliable, improve conversation quality, boost customer trust, and increase retention.

How is predictive analytics being used in real life? 

Telecom providers across the globe are using AI’s predictive analytics ability to identify suspicious call patterns and flag potential scams. One prominent example is Airtel, a leading telco in the Indian market. They have launched a network-based, AI-powered spam detection solution. It aims to alert customers in real-time to all suspected spam calls and SMSs. Here’s how their MD and CEO described the spam detection tool:

Couple it with the services of a UCaaS solution provider like Acefone and you have yourself a failure-proof communication ecosystem.

4. AI-Powered Analysis for Better Call Handling

AI can scan calls, reviews, and tickets to understand customer sentiment. It detects frustration in real time, suggests responses, and adjusts scripts automatically based on customer history and tone. It also routes complex queries correctly… These capabilities underpin advanced contact center management systems that reduce abandonment, improve agent decision-making, and raise overall satisfaction.

How modern contact centers are leveraging this? 

Contact centers use AI-driven sentiment analysis to detect frustrated customers in real-time, prompting agents with appropriate response suggestions and escalation options. According to a recent PWC study, companies use AI in customer service to improve satisfaction, reduce handling time, and minimize call abandonment. AI agents are taking over routine tasks, allowing human employees to focus on higher-value work. 

Some businesses start with front-office applications like call center software, while others implement AI in back-office functions such as finance and IT. High-performing companies treat AI and cloud as strategic assets, using them to drive efficiency, extract value from data, and gain a competitive edge. 

5. IVR and AI

AI-driven self-service portals help customers solve issues on their own, reducing workload for call center agents. This improves customer experience and speeds up resolutions. 

How is AI enhancing IVR?

LLM-powered voice agents excel at managing repetitive inquiries like password resets, account balance checks, and shipping updates. These AI-driven systems efficiently and accurately resolve common issues without human intervention. By automating such interactions, you can lower average handling times (AHT) and allow human agents to focus on complex issues or high-value tasks. To effectively deploy and manage these AI-driven voice agents at scale, LLMOps provides the tools and frameworks necessary for monitoring performance, updating models, and ensuring reliable, compliant operation across all customer interactions.

Conclusion 

AI is not just enhancing customer experience — it’s making it more profitable. Businesses that integrate AI into their communication strategy see improved efficiency, increased customer loyalty, and higher revenues. Whether through AI-powered virtual agents, predictive analytics, fraud detection, or sentiment analysis, AI is reshaping how you can manage customer interactions. 

As AI technology continues to evolve, leveraging it strategically will help you stay ahead of your competitors. Staying ahead also means keeping up with regulations, ensuring AI implementations are secure, responsible, and aligned with compliance requirements. This is where tech-forward, compliant service providers like Acefone come into play. 

With Acefone,get ready to integrate with top auto dialer service companies and transform your customer experience strategy? Connect with our experts to explore tailored solutions now. you get a highly flexible UCaaS solution with advanced functionality for call management, secure cloud servers, 300+ features, instant integrations, and more. 

Are you ready to build an AI-driven communication strategy? 

The post How AI Can Elevate Customer Experience—And Your Bottom Line appeared first on Blog | Acefone.

We are delighted to announce that starting today 13′ Feb 2025, Servetel has rebranded to Acefone. As part of this shift, the Servetel website now redirects to our new online home at Acefone.  

While Servetel product portals (customer.servetel.in) will continue to operate as usual for the time being, you will notice a refreshed logo:

Read ahead to learn more.

Servetel’s Legacy of Excellence 

Servetel has been a pioneer in the business communication industry for several years.  

Our story began in 2004 with our parent company “Real Time Data Services”, offering state-of-the-art cloud hosting solutions during the worldwide tech boom. After that, 2018 marked the launch of Servetel, bringing these services to India. 

With our comprehensive solutions, Servetel has played a key role in keeping businesses connected, fostering personalized connections across industries. Our communication systems have empowered more than 2000+ global companies like Uber, SAP, Cipla, Cars24, RadioCity, Godrej, Manyavar, Honda and OLA. 

This strong foundation has paved the way for Servetel’s evolution into Acefone. While the name may change, our commitment to provide exceptional communication solutions remains the same. 

How does Servetel Rebranding Impact You? 

Website Redirection: All traffic from www.servetel.in has been redirected to www.acefone.com. You don’t need to take any action; all the necessary formalities have been completed. 

Product Portals: Our existing product portals (customer.servetel.in) will continue to function as they currently do. Your access and usage will remain uninterrupted. 

Brand New Look: Expect to see our new logo, “Servetel (by Acefone),” and fresh themes reflecting our refreshed brand identity. 

Contact Options: Our existing contact points will continue to function without interruption for now. However, please reach out to the following if you face any issues: 

Why the Change? 

This rebranding initiative is driven by three key objectives: 

To Build a Unified Brand Presence Worldwide  

Transitioning from the .in domain to .com signifies our expansion and commitment to serving a global audience. The new www.acefone.com domain reflects our international presence and ambition, positioning us as a leading player in the global market. 

To Create a Consistent Brand Image 

We have rebranded Servetel to Acefone to ensure that our identity is unified across all platforms and communications, globally. This alignment should help us deliver a more consistent brand experience to our customers, making it easier for you to recognize and trust our services. 

To Streamline Access Through a Central Hub 

By consolidating our services under Acefone, we aim to enhance your experience with a more streamlined and efficient unified portal. This integration should allow us to offer improved features, better support, and a more cohesive user experience. 

Introducing Acefone   

Acefone is a tech-forward and innovation-driven VoIP phone service provider. Our feature-rich platform enables steady and high-quality communications across multiple channels (i.e. Voice, SMS, Video & WhatsApp). Catering to a rising cloud telephony market in the UK and US, we have received recognition for our outstanding customer experiences.  

Acefone Offers You:

Interactions Hub:

Acefone’s interactions hub is a single platform that unifies all your communication channels – voice calls, WhatsApp, video conferencing, and more – into one easy-to-use interface. This way, you can streamline your team’s work by putting everything they need on one screen.

Contact Center Studio:

Contact center studio is a powerful tool to help you manage inbound and outbound customer communication seamlessly. You can handle high incoming call volumes, speed-up customer outreach, manage queues, prioritize leads, and track call outcomes, all from one platform.

API Connect:

Our API Connect solution is a bridge that connects different communication systems in your organization. With its easy-to-use features, both developers and non-technical users can securely create, deploy, and monitor APIs across your entire ecosystem. This way, your organization can innovate faster and get multiple systems to work coherently. 

Campaigns:

Campaigns is your one-stop shop for planning, running, and optimizing your marketing efforts. This comprehensive solution allows you to target specific audiences, create personalized content, and track results in real time.

Onward and Upward! 

Now that Acefone has become the new home for Servetel, we are excited for the future. Our freshly revamped solutions will enable stronger connections among businesses and provide a seamless and wholesome experience.  

As we begin this journey, we would like to sincerely thank our customers whose continued support has fueled our growth. We promise to continue striving to build a world where innovative VoIP telephony solutions empower businesses of all shapes and sizes. 

The post Servetel is Rebranding to Acefone appeared first on Blog | Acefone.

Over time, offerings of business phones have improved tremendously. From being a measly phone box, crawling its wires across the office floors, business phone lines are now taking the advantages of cloud communications. 

Transitioning to VoIP based services, business phone lines are now more equipped to handle business communication. They now have a plethora of features that enable them to route calls automatically, integrate with smart IVR systems, manage callers through an auto-attendant or virtual receptionist, or even enable automatic calls through different types of auto-diallers. 

However, when it comes to making a decision, an overflow of information on the types of business phones may often confuse business leaders. Every type of phone system has its pros and cons, but it is up to the requirements of a business to identify which of the features suit them the most. 

In this article, we will talk about three different types of phone systems that you can choose from. We will list out what each of them offers their benefits and their shortcomings. Let us dive straight in. 

Dedicated VoIP phones

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is, simply put, a method to communicate voice through the Internet. One can look at it as a method to place and receive phone calls through the Internet. Behind the obvious, of course, is a group of technologies that capture, transmit and receive voice across two or more users who are connected to the Internet. 

Voice over IP converts voice into a digital signal, compresses it, and then sends it over the Internet. A VoIP service provider sets up the call between all intended participants. On the receiving end, the digital data is then uncompressed and converted back into the voice. At both ends, necessary are devices that have a microphone and a speaker.

In usage, VoIP phones look similar to regular desk phones. Apart from the regular earpiece or speaker for calls, they also have a small screen to display information along with a variety of buttons for specific functions. They are available in a wide variety at different price points. The more expensive ones usually provide colour and touch-sensitive screens, better quality hardware and support HD voice for better clarity.

Advantages of VoIP

There are many benefits to using VoIP phone system, or IP telephony if you prefer to use the nomenclature, for business. Here are the top four:

• Direct cost savings

With IP telephony, you pay only for your Internet connection. All calls between people using VoIP are free, even international calls made over long distances. 

• Features

Current IP telephony implementations are feature rich. From call forwarding, call blocking, caller ID, voicemail, to remote management, automatic call distribution and Interactive Voice Response, the list runs long and deep. These features not only make communication efficient but also drive down total costs of ownership.

• Collaborative working

With seamless integration of VoIP with other systems, IP telephony implementation enables individuals and teams to collaborate through voice, video, web conferencing or instant messaging—all from a single user interface.

• Higher productivity

Employees can use the communication system flexibly and remotely, whenever and wherever. And at the same time, they have access to data that they need to remain productive.  

Potential risks to VoIP implementation

While it is well established that IP telephony is more efficient, more flexible and available at lower costs than traditional phone systems, it is pertinent to know the potential risks and problems with a plan in place to mitigate them. The top four are:

• Bandwidth dependence

IP telephony runs on your Internet connection. Any outage of your Internet connection will also bring down your communications. Even insufficient bandwidth can cause quality-related issues with your implementation. Hence it is imperative to have a fail-safe Internet connection. 

• Quality of audio 

Beyond the bandwidth of your broadband connections, other related hardware and services, if insufficient, may cause latency, noise or echo in voice or video communication. It is important to plan accordingly.

• Security 

It is certainly a major consideration with IP telephony implementations. Usual Internet-related threats like phishing, identity theft, malware, spamming, call tampering are all relevant here as well. You need to continue to invest in Infrastructure and cloud security. The good part is that the enterprise-wide security implementations all become effective on IP telephony implementations as well. Regular security audits and correctives that you run for your organisation work here. 

• Extra costs

If you use VoIP to call someone without VoIP capabilities, you may incur additional costs. Hence it is important to plan accordingly.

Softphones

Softphones are nothing but a software implementation to VoIP.  It is based on IP protocols that allow you to call someone using just software. You do not need a telephone system to make and receive VoIP calls.

Many service providers offer dedicated software that your employees can install on their laptops, tablets or mobile phones. Applications are available that work with any VoIP service. These applications are usually called softphones to distinguish and differentiate them from the hardware you would normally use for calling.

Ready to streamline your outbound calls? Explore softphone solutions today and empower your Outbound Call Center with flexible, cost-effective communication tools.

Advantages of softphones

One of the biggest advantages of softphones is flexibility and portability. You can install the software on any device you use. Your employees can then communicate with your customers, colleagues and team wherever and wherever. 

Other benefits include: 

• Works on all existing devices

Softphones, like mentioned above, are just software implementation of VoIP services. They are similar to applications that your computer runs. Thus, this makes it possible to add a softphone to your existing hardware, without revamping your entire network of systems. 

• Doesn’t need a dedicated phone line

Based on VoIP, softphones use the Internet to carry data packets. This negates the need to install a brand-new phone line connection, saving your business immense costs in the installation and maintenance of these phone lines. 

• Stay up to date

Having your phone system run like an application gives you the benefit of instant upgrades, anytime and anywhere. All you need is an Internet connection, and your phone system will update to the newest software, adding many additional features to improve your business communications. 

Potential risks to softphone implementation

Since they are technically built on the same technology, softphones will have similar issues that a business would face if they used a dedicated VoIP system. 

Additionally, in the modern age of cloud telephony, with businesses increasingly promoting remote working capabilities, cloud providers are taking notice. They are now combining the benefits of both dedicated VoIP systems and softphones—selling them as one combined package. This, while may seem like the best of both worlds, often implores businesses to pay a larger subscription fee. 

Mobile devices with VoIP

If you see it in isolation, turning your mobile device into your business phone is filled with benefits. With almost a worldwide spread of mobile phones, with increasing rates of smartphone and Internet penetration, mobile devices allow connections with almost every individual, across the world. However, diving a little deep, you begin to see why large-scale businesses do not rely on this novice idea. 

Advantages of mobile devices

With smartphones rising in numbers and becoming more capable than ever, our mobile devices can do a whole lot more than traditional business phone systems. Some of the advantages include: 

• Easy access

Business leaders can access all company material right from their mobile devices. With mobile devices coming in all shapes and sizes, and with most of them being equipped with the Internet, gone are the days of tiny keys and screens to reply and read texts. 

• Always present

When was the last time you stepped out of your house without your phone? Exactly! Businesses can be connected with each other, their employees, and their customers, across the world, at any time of the day. 

• Better mobility

With a mobile device, employees are not restricted to one place or location. Working at home, as popularised by the pandemic, is a much simpler task if your business communication system can fit inside your pocket, wherever you go. 

Potential risks with using mobile devices as business phones

While it may seem like a dream to have your work in your pocket, using your mobile device as a business phone may lead to many different issues:

• Compromise a work-life balance

With your mobile device always on your person, you can lose track of the distinction between work hours and personal time. Constant phone calls—even after work hours, replying to emails as and when they are received, may not be the best use of your phone. 

• Decreases focus

All of our personal lives are stored in our phones. This means that you may be easily distracted while working from unnecessary phone calls or texts that can eat into your productivity. 

• Security

While phone devices are increasingly getting more secure, there still is room for improvement. Moving your business communications on unsecured platforms may risk the loss of data, hacks, or even drown you in legal disputes over customer privacy. 

Dedicated VoIP phones, Softphones or mobiles with VoIP solution

The answer to this is: “it depends.” They all have their benefits and come at different costs as well. The final decision lies with the actual needs of an organisation. 

In a nutshell, while large enterprises may have a need for a hybrid implementation of VoIP phones and softphones, most small and medium businesses can opt for softphones and yet have access to the benefits of a cloud transformation.

The post Which VoIP Phone is Right for You? IP, Softphone, or Mobile? appeared first on Blog | Acefone.

Can you imagine walking into a physical store and putting items in your shopping basket only to realise you don’t need these things in the first place? No, right?

But this is a normal consumer habit in the world of online shopping. 

E-marketers lose around $2-$4 trillion every year due to shopping cart abandonment. 

While such a situation is quite unlikely to happen in a physical store, in the comfort of homes and with several devices to browse online catalogues, shoppers are more prone to add products to carts they never intend to purchase. 

This has become a great concern for e-commerce market shares as it means a significant loss in sales and economic impact too.

What is shopping cart abandonment?

The process wherein a potential customer adds items to a shopping cart but does not complete the purchase is referred to as shopping cart abandonment. It is used to calculate the percentage of users who begin the journey with purchase intent but end up buying nothing. Understanding factors like unclear pricing, complicated checkout steps, or confusion around terms such as order shipped meaning can help reduce abandonment rates nd improve conversions.

Shopping cart abandonment rates are an important measure to track the performance of an eCommerce business since a greater abandonment rate may signal a bad experience. An experienced ecommerce SEO agency can help identify and resolve these friction points to boost conversions

Reducing cart abandonment rates leads to increased sales and profit revenue. Thus, streamlining the checkout flow should be a top priority for online merchants.

Here’s how to calculate shopping cart abandonment rates

An e-commerce company needs to be aware of its cart abandonment rate as it helps them gain an understanding of its website’s performance, user experience, and total revenue loss. 

To calculate the same, divide the total number of shopping transactions completed by the total number of shopping carts created. Subtract one from that number and multiply it by 100. This will provide you with the percentage of customers who abandon their shopping carts.

Total No. of shopping transactions completed     — 1 x 100

        Total No. of shopping carts created

How to reduce shopping cart abandonment rates and optimise checkout?

Shopping cart abandonment can be caused by several factors.

You can employ the following methods to address some of these issues and decrease cart abandonment rates- 

1. Provide real-time assistance to the customer

Introducing live chat can boost your sales significantly. It’s a fantastic way to improve engagement rates and increase ROI. Live chat tools allow customers to interact with agents in real-time and receive quick responses, facilitating speedy buyer decisions. 

Reports suggest that 63% of the customers are more likely to return to a website that offers live chat than the one that does not.

Among all the mediums that businesses look to for proactive communications, live chat is one of the most preferred. 

The tool also offers real-time analytics so you can target visitors more effectively. You’re able to send personalised triggered messages in a timely manner to your audiences. 

These can be product recommendations and discount coupons to increase chances of conversion and enhance experiences. For AliExpress Dropshipping businesses, live chat adds a layer of trust and responsiveness that can help convert hesitant shoppers and reduce cart abandonment.

Thus, using live chat in your digital consumer engagement strategy can help you reduce cart abandonment significantly.

2. Optimise website speed

If your website performance is slow, it will not dampen your prospect’s experience and they may not want to come back. A quick checkout procedure can make a world of difference to the user experience your business delivers. Investing in powerful web hosting ensures your site loads quickly and reliably, which is essential for keeping users engaged through to checkout.

Some factors you can pay attention to, include the cart page loading speed, the number of pages leasing to checkout, the number of page objects, and so forth.  

Customers will be more likely to buy things from you in the future if your checkout page is optimised and designed as a high-converting landing page, making the process seamless and user-friendly.

3. Offer multiple payment options to your customers

Another simple solution that could help you achieve better conversions is to offer various payment methods. Make sure to offer as many payment options as possible so that customers can select the one most convenient for them. 

When you prioritise their comfort, they feel cared for and you gain greater credibility.

To earn your clients’ trust, make sure to display security badges or logos as close as possible to transaction forms. Customers will be uneasy about entering personal information and credit card numbers into a Web form that lacks trustworthiness.

You may also read: How to Enhance Post Purchase Experiences for customers?

4. Install the SSL certificate

Shoppers place a lot of trust in the e-retailer while making a purchase, providing personal and financial information. With the rising threat of hacks and frauds, it is your responsibility to ensure that they feel safe. 

If you aren’t able to do so, buyers may feel uneasy and avoid placing orders at the last minute.

Installing an SSL certificate and offering private secure connections on your business site is the greatest way to eliminate this fear. This will advise customers that your network is safe, resulting in a more trustworthy process. 

An SSL certificate is one of the most important tools that any e-commerce website can have. With an SSL certificate and other recognised badges, customers trust you even if there is an issue while completing the purchase. 

It lowers the shopping cart abandonment that takes place owing to trust issues. 

5. Re-target your lost customers

When you initiate retargeting, you are bringing eligible leads back to your online store. This is improved with personalised retargeting. 

Instead of using generic adverts, try retargeting prospects with the products they last viewed or added to their carts. With the right retargeting practices, you can reclaim at least some of your lost customers.

According to a study conducted by 99firms, retargeting clients who have abandoned their carts can increase chances of conversions from 8% to 26%.

Final thoughts

In a perfect world, every customer interaction with your brand would be completed. However, this is not a perfect world. 

While customers differ in various aspects, many have common behaviours, interests, and routines when it comes to shopping online. If you pay attention to these, you’ll be one step ahead of your competition in terms of conversions. 

Additionally, businesses must always make sure that their product information is complete, updated, and consistent across all channels to avoid cart abandonment.  

Incorporate these quick and reliable strategies into your plan to turn reluctant browsers into eager customers.

At Acefone, we deliver catered solutions to boost your customer experience and improve engagement rates. 

The post 5 Practical Ways to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment Rates appeared first on Blog | Acefone.

However, finding the right job for them is rare.

The proliferation of remote work in the post-pandemic world has suddenly opened up a plethora of opportunities in roles that were earlier seen as unsuitable for people with disabilities. 

In this article, we will look at the opening up of a wider range of opportunities in general and a career opportunity, particularly in the new age contact centers. 

But first, let us address a few questions.

The top three frequently asked questions

On a basic level, the following are questions that worry anyone who has grown with some form of disability:

• I am a person with a physical disability. Do I have stable career options?

The short and straight answer is yes. Today, there are many options that exist for persons with limited disabilities. 

The fact is that companies are focused on hiring and developing the right talent, irrespective of disabilities. The inhibitions and restrictions of the past do not exist anymore.

With enabling tools and resources made available by companies, the options are no longer restricted to a narrow band. 

• Where and how do I begin my search for a suitable opportunity?

In the post-pandemic world, remote working has expanded aggressively. Therefore, a larger number of jobs that are eminently suitable for persons who may have physical limitations have become available.

The easiest starting point is to look for roles that allow work from home. Here, it is important to identify opportunities that are suitable for the type and extent of disability that one may have. One can always rest assured that companies now have tools and resources that make remote working simple for all employees, allowing them to achieve optimum performance levels.

One can always rest assured that companies now have tools and resources that make remote working simple for all employees, allowing them to achieve optimum performance levels.

• What type of jobs can be done from home by people with disabilities?

The straight answer here is again ‘many’. The roles are diverse and across the spectrum. So are the growth opportunities today.

Let us look at the variety of employment opportunities that are evolving and can be aimed for.

Variety of job options for people with disabilities

The good news is that a large variety of employers, from the government and private organisations to not-for-profit institutions, have stated policies and objectives to hire talent without any biases. 

The trend is real, and companies are continuously evolving the enabling mechanisms. As a result, there is a growing variety of employment and career opportunities that exist today for people with disabilities. 

Many of them have few physical requirements. And some are good-paying options as well. It is important to know one’s options and work towards moving in the right direction.

Here is an indicative list of career options that can be explored by people with disabilities: 

• Marketing

This career primarily revolves around developing and executing strategies for the favourable positioning of products and services of a company. 

• Information systems security

This is a great option for the technically qualified and is also suitable for people with some physical disabilities.

• Human resources

For people with relevant qualifications, this is another great career option. The suitable roles here could range from administrative, staffing, training and development to general human resource management.

• Education

From teaching to designing curriculums, the options are plenty in the space of education.

• Design or Art

For the creatively inclined, there are a variety of opportunities like graphic and digital design, fashion design, multimedia, animation, etc. They may also be supported by funds and grants for artists and designers with disabilities as well. 

Apart from the above, there is a new door that has opened in customer service—operating a virtual call center (read working from home). 

Let us dive deeper into this evolving space of virtual call centers and explore the career opportunities here.

What is a virtual contact center?

It is common knowledge that a contact center engages with customers to address their queries and resolve their grievances. Such contact centers have agents who lead customer engagements through phones, emails, chats or even video. 

These agents typically operate from a big office facility that has all the required tools and resources.

With the advent and wide adoption of cloud computing and the hosting of infrastructure in the cloud, agents are no longer needed to operate from a physical office. 

They work from a remote facility, or even from home. Such new-age centers are called virtual contact centers.

These centers open up great opportunities for people with disabilities who may find it hard to travel to the office or work continuously for a full shift. 

Let us look at how the work environment at such centers enables more inclusive career opportunities.

Virtual call centers: A great career opportunity

Virtual call centers provide an excellent chance to work from home by creating an environment that blends the benefits of working from an office and from home. 

Traditionally, employees were required to commute to work for specific hours. This was often an impediment for people with disabilities seeking employment opportunities. 

These new-age contact centers remove this need to commute to the office every day. 

They provide a lucrative opportunity to people who would rather work from home at hours that are suitable to them. 

To put this opportunity in perspective for potential candidates, here is a brief outline of the role of an agent in a virtual call center and the skills needed for it.

About the role and required skills

Just like agents in a traditional contact center, agents in a virtual contact center handle inbound and outbound customer contact through phone, email or chat. 

So, people with specific disabilities, for instance, speech, may opt to work only in engagements like chat or email support. This gives great flexibility to match skills and capabilities with job functions. 

Typically, an agent performs the following tasks:

1. Respond to inbound phone calls from customers
2. Respond to inbound emails from customers
3. Chat online with customers to address their queries or to resolve their grievances
4. Operate from an equipped home office

All tools, equipment, training and resources are provided by the company to facilitate better performance. At the same time, for an employee to perform well and grow, a few skills are needed. 

The good news is that none of these skills come in the way of disabilities and can be honed further through training.

• Interpersonal skills

Whether engaging with customers over the phone, chat or email, communication skills play a big role. The first step to great customer service lies in the ability to respond appropriately.

• Problem-solving skills

When it comes to grievances, customer engagements are often unpredictable. An ability to think, analyse and articulate an appropriate way forward for the customer is an important skill.

• Empathy

Customers at times can be irate and difficult. Empathy and virtue as a skill come in handy while working through resolutions for customers.

So, for people who have the above skills, irrespective of the restrictions of a physical disability, this career opportunity is worth exploring and opting for. 

Apart from being lucrative, there are other benefits to this opportunity that are of value to people with disabilities.

Benefits of working in a virtual contact center

As captured earlier, this is a lucrative opportunity in the space of customer service with opportunities to develop skills and grow further. Here are some other key benefits: 

• Freedom from commute

Travelling to the office is often arduous, even with private vehicles. Public transport is even more stressful. Hence, most people with disabilities prefer telecommuting over working from physical offices. 

• Higher productivity

Working from home is less stressful for people with disabilities. Lower stress is often directly linked to better productivity in employees. 

• Better work-life balance

Time saved on travel, coupled with flexible hours, allows employees with disabilities to receive better care from their families. This is simply the most important perk of working at a virtual contact center. 

In addition, the flexibility in work hours lets them schedule their medical appointments and other treatments with ease.

Want a more efficient remote contact center? Learn how to reduce call center shrinkage with smart scheduling, technology support, and flexible work tools.

In conclusion

The surge in remote working in the post-pandemic world has opened up newer opportunities that were previously not pursued by people with disabilities. 

Technological advancements have made such opportunities more accessible. Some of these, like working at a virtual contact center, are not just employment opportunities but are good and lucrative career options.

The post How Different Virtual Contact Centre Jobs Provide Opportunities for Candidates with Disabilities appeared first on Blog | Acefone.

It is not just large businesses that are threatened by such attacks. Unfortunately, whether an organisation is big or small, the vulnerability exists. And it is important to be cognizant of disruptions that such attacks can bring about. 

This is certainly an important topic for both—your enterprise cloud phone system as well as your overall business.   

Read on as you build your strategy against DDoS attacks.

What is a DDoS attack and what are its symptoms?

DDoS stands for Distributed Denial of Service. In simpler terms, DDoS refers to a digital attack that renders a service unavailable for users. 

In cyberattacks, this happens when a system on the Internet begins to send a targeted overload of requests or malware to a web server.

When such malware or malicious requests come in from multiple systems connected on the Internet, we call it Distributed Denial of Service or DDoS. 

The modus operandi of attackers is simple—swarm a web server with an extraordinarily large number of requests for a page or a barrage of queries to a database. 

In both cases, attackers choke either the bandwidth or resources of the web server like CPU or the available RAM.  

Invariably, there are initial symptoms such as a possible break in the network or just a server going down. Only an analysis of the traffic gives real insights into the severity of the attack. 

Now, the drop in services can happen due to the unavailability of either or some of the following:

1. Servers 
2. Attached devices
3. Applications
4. Networks
5. Certain types of transactions in applications 

When a web server comes under such an attack, the disturbance may range from a denial of service for a short period of time to something as severe as the whole system crashing. 

Types of DDoS attacks

While such attacks can come camouflaged in a multitude of ways, they all have the same underlying objective—to choke the resources to a point where access becomes extremely slow or completely unavailable. 

These attacks can broadly be classified into three key types:

• Volume attacks

Measured in bits per second, or BPS, such attacks happen through huge volumes of malicious traffic targeting a web server or a particular website 

• Attacks on network layer

Network layer attacks are measured in packets per second or PPS. They involve an extraordinarily large number of packets sent to the targeted infrastructure. The points of such attacks are the network management tools and/or the network infrastructure itself

• Attacks on application layer

Measured in requests per second, or RPS, these attacks are created with malicious intent and send a flood of requests targeting a specific application

Key tips for mitigating DDoS attacks

DDoS attacks have been around for almost two decades now and have evolved over time. They are now sharper, more incisive and, as we have seen, come in different forms. 

Let us review some tips that will help you minimise the impact of such attacks. These are relevant for all aspects of your business, starting with your cloud system.

• Plan ahead

From the different types of attacks listed above, we know that primary vulnerabilities show up in the network infrastructure, connected devices, and applications.

This step is all about accepting the fact that an attack is inevitable, sooner or later. And thus, planning a suitable response in advance.  

In other words, the first step, and possibly the most important one, is to create a plan that an organisation can put into action almost immediately to fight the attack. 

Such plans are usually referred to as emergency responses. One should identify points of vulnerability in all three components, seek expert advice and document the plan during the initial set-up itself. 

Following need to be part of the plan for appropriate mitigation:

1. A disaster recovery plan (DRP) including fail-over networks in case the DDoS attack actually takes over the entire system
2. Infrastructure diversity—both in the type of components used in infrastructure and their geographical deployment
3. Using a combination of private and public cloud systems
4. For enterprises, it makes sense to integrate their network and application teams for a cohesive plan, with suitable escalation mechanisms that kick in when the attack actually occurs  

An effective way that is used by enterprises is to have a larger number of wide-area network (WAN) entry points. They also enlist cloud scrubbing service providers in order to re-route such attacks to scrubbers.

We will talk about such service providers further in the article. 

• Refinements and adjustments

Attackers with obvious malicious intent are getting smarter and more innovative. They are now able to modify attacks based on the responses of companies. 

In real-time, they are able to attack from a different IP, a different port, or even a different protocol. It is thus important to continuously adjust and refine the response to such attacks.

• Agreements with mitigation and protection service providers

There is a lot that companies can do themselves to establish an operational response plan. However, to augment their efforts, it is advisable to take help from service providers in this domain. 

On one hand, a business gets the benefit of advice from domain experts; their services are also more affordable than putting it all together. Leading platforms that specialise in filtering malicious traffic, such as the cloud-based DDoS mitigation platform, can absorb volumetric surges before they ever reach your network. The other benefit is that these service providers also collaborate within themselves and are, thus, ahead on the knowledge curve.

Even if you’re signing up for external service providers, you can still monitor everything in-house to ensure alertness in case of abnormal traffic. 

• Onsite devices are never enough

However powerful or secure onsite devices like firewalls, load balancers or even systems for prevention of intrusion may be, the fact is that they may not be able to block off all types of attacks. 

While these tools are extremely crucial in setting up defensive measures, there are certain inherent vulnerabilities that attackers can target despite these protections. 

The key here is to handle such attacks before they land on your on-site devices. Services offered by third party providers come in handy while diverting the attacks away from the main site. 

• On-site actions for application layer

For the application layer, network mitigations may not be successful as targeted attacks on certain applications can still go through on-site protection devices. 

For these applications, you will need tools for web protection in your data center. 

Such tools enable you to conduct deep inspections at packet levels to view the application layer. These are possibly the best mitigation tips for attacks on individual applications.

Another approach is to deploy application redundancy through multiple cloud systems. This way, in the event of an attack on the application, you can always switch to another cloud network.

• Collaborate

It will be helpful to share information and mitigation plans with companies in the same industry or domain. 

Collaboration on a topic like this, with mutual sharing of knowledge and information, will be immensely helpful to all participants. Your telecom service providers are the other party that you can collaborate with as you plan and refine your responses to DDoS attacks.

• Remain vigilant, especially for secondary attacks

Another trend that is becoming more common is a more targeted or sustained attack following an initial DDoS attack. In other words, the first attack may just be a distraction to something bigger. 

DDoS attacks may just be deployed to create a panic situation, while a backdoor application gets targeted to extract more valuable data.

Conclusion

Attackers do not just target large enterprises. They can target all types of businesses, whether large or small. 

Your cloud phone system, or even upstream providers like telecom, are equally vulnerable. In certain instances, attackers have also taken an indirect route to target a particular company’s information.  

We have reviewed the different types of attacks and how they may be multi-pronged, increasing the scale of their impact. 

Planning for mitigation is simpler than it may seem. There are domain experts that can offer invaluable advice to keep you and your data secure.

The bottom line is to plan, review, refine, and evolve. And this needs to keep pace with the evolution of sophisticated attackers. 

The post DDoS Attacks: What are They and How to Secure your Systems Against One appeared first on Blog | Acefone.

However, this isn’t the case!

If you don’t offer any post-purchase service, you could be at risk of losing a potentially loyal customer. Some customers may also be dissatisfied with the care they receive after the sale, making them return the product, and you losing the sale. 

The post-purchase experience is integral for keeping your customers happy and ensuring they make repeat purchases with your brand. 

This article will explore how you can enhance post-purchase experiences and their effects on your sales and customer satisfaction rates.

Automated emails to enhance the post-purchase experience

Automated emails are a great way to enhance your customer’s post-purchase experience. You can trigger emails to be sent at different intervals and make sure that you remain on your customer’s minds whenever they need your service. 

There are a few different ways to use automated emails to keep customers informed and build trust: 

Order confirmation emails

Once customers have made a purchase, they want an immediate response confirming their order. Without this, customers might think that their order has not been processed correctly and may either purchase the product again or go elsewhere.

Order confirmation emails serve a few different purposes. While they tell a customer their order has been successfully placed, they also inform the customer of the next steps. You can detail the whole delivery and dispatch process in this email so as to be transparent and manage customer expectations. 

These emails enhance post-purchase experiences by providing customers with all the information they need about their order. Moreover, they also provide an opportunity for you to introduce other offerings of your business to the customer.

While thanking customers for their business in these emails, you can also direct them to similar products and encourage them to purchase again. You can even include incentives such as discount codes for their next order. 

Whatever you may choose, you shouldn’t miss this opportunity to start building a rapport with your customer. 

Shipping notification emails

Shipping is the period where a majority of customer complaints arise. Therefore, sending notification emails ensures that the customer is kept informed about the status of their order. 

These notifications provide timely updates on the progress of their delivery and help reduce the number of customers reaching out for updates. 

You can also add different support options in your emails to further enhance the post-purchase experience and ensure customers see you as a trustworthy and transparent business. 

Add links to different support options and connect customers directly to your agents from their email. If you have a hosted phone system, you can ensure that customers are always responded to, regardless of the channels they use. 

With a hosted phone system connected to your CRM, you can pull order status and share this with the customer. This saves your agents time and makes customer service run more smoothly.  

Delivery confirmation emails

Upon successful delivery, you can trigger automated emails to check in with the customer and gain their feedback on the delivery process or offer further support. These can include how-to videos for their purchased product. 

Such emails show initiative from a business to reach out to the customer with more information about the product. It also helps to reduce the number of calls about common queries. The customer will see this as a testament to your service offerings and feel that you care about their experience with your product.

By gaining feedback from the customer while the order is fresh in their minds, you can gain highly actionable insights on your delivery process. This can help inform future developments and benefit future customers to

Follow up emails

Once the customer has had a few weeks with their purchase, you can trigger a follow-up email to check in with them. This follow-up can include complimentary items that the customer may want to purchase with their current product or suggestions on new products that may interest them. For follow-up emails, custom coded email templates offer several benefits that go beyond what drag-and-drop or generic templates can deliver, and ensure every follow-up email reflects your brand exactly.

By using gentle reminder emails, you ensure that you keep in touch with each customer and stay at the top of their mind when they are out for their next purchase.

Automated calls to follow up with customers

Another way to follow up with customers is to use automated calls. These calls can be used to suggest new products, check if the customer has any questions, or simply to build a relationship.

Follow-up calls can be scheduled right from your hosted phone system, and auto-dialers make this process easier than ever. Without the need for manual dialling customers, your agents can use automatic dialers and get connected. Hosted phone systems also allow them to see all the relevant information about that customer.

Automated calls create goodwill with your customers and show that your business is willing to put in the time and effort to deliver to them a great experience. These calls build up trust and ensure that your sales agents are more accessible to customers, making it easier for them to make repeat purchases.

Naturally, when customers are speaking to your sales or customer service team more often, there is more opportunity for sales to be made. This ease allows customers to become familiar with a brand, creating a satisfied customer who is more likely to make repeat purchases. 

When combined with emails, automated calls can make a fantastic addition to your post-purchase strategy.

Enhance your post-purchase experience with automation

It is easy to enhance your post-purchase customer experience when using automation. By sending simple emails or making follow-up sales calls, you can build strong relationships with customers and increase your sales output!

Your hosted phone system is fitted with all the necessary tools to make this a reality. With it, you can schedule messages, make calls, note important information and so much more.

The post Enhance Post Purchase Experiences for Customers with Automated Emails and Calls appeared first on Blog | Acefone.

One successful strategy to keep service levels high is by improving your customer response times. Doing so helps you resolve customer queries speedily and efficiently, effectively allowing you to win and retain more customers than your competitors.

This article will delve into how your business can use modern technologies, like hosted phone systems, to exceed customer service expectations and deliver results in a prompt manner. 

Use free phone numbers to encourage inbound calls

Businesses must make themselves easily accessible. This can be achieved by establishing a contact center. Without this, your customers might have to resort to a whole range of independent communication methods to reach you—SMS, emails, calls and the likes. 

A cloud contact center platform combines these disparate mediums into a unified platform for easy access to information. 

One way you can encourage inbound calls is by using toll free numbers. These numbers are free to call, giving customers an incentive to reach out to your business.  

Having a free phone number attached to your hosted phone system makes your business appear more professional and service focused. However, the solution will only work well if you have the staff to deal with the volume of inbound calls your free phone number will bring in.

Transition to a hosted contact center

Hosted contact centers are a great way to ensure you offer optimum service to inbound callers. With minimal set-up costs, cloud contact centers enable your agents to connect with customers from anywhere in the world. 

Hosting your contact center also lets you hire talent from across the globe. Since your operations are not limited to just one geographical location, it will help to have team members from different time zones and countries. Your contact center can then serve callers 24×7. 

A hosted contact center facilitates quick support delivery, as callers can be transferred to the right agent without any delays or errors. This cuts out all the long email threads and enhances the client’s experience with your brand. 

And the benefits don’t end there. 

A sophisticated contact center software lends agents the ability to access interaction history and deal with concerns contextually. Thus, reps don’t have to repeatedly ask the same questions. They’re also able to update records as and when the interaction progresses so that the next agent is equally prepared to handle the matter. 

Managers too are able to ensure top-notch performance with tools such as scheduled reports, and call monitoring, recording and whispering. And metrics such as average handling time, CSAT and first call resolution help improve the efficiency and productivity of the entire team. It’s not just calls that can be monitored in real-time, though—managers can also monitor social media and live chat feeds.

Incorporate chatbots and live chats

The benefits of live chats are two-fold—they improve your response time by giving customers quick responses and increase the time a customer spends on your website, giving them an opportunity to learn more about your offerings.

Live chats can be managed right within your hosted phone system, so your staff don’t need to switch between programmes and risk missing a message. Having everything in one place is not only convenient for them but also ensures clients receive consistent messaging across platforms. 

Offering an additional medium for query resolution also helps you keep incoming call volumes at a manageable level and also enhances the customer experience. There is nothing worse for clients than waiting in a queue on the phone when they could have got an answer online.

Use hosted phone system features to improve customer response times

Hosted phone systems offer customers and agents a range of modern features that enable easy connections and speedy resolutions. 

One such feature is the IVR (Interactive Voice Response). An IVR system allows businesses to record messages that help customers navigate through the different service offerings and choose the right department. Thus, businesses are able to enhance response times and first call resolution.

Hosted phone systems can integrate seamlessly with many CRM systems too. CRM and third-party integrations help agents record customer preferences and share them in real-time.

Other team members will be able to access this information and use it to better support customers in the future.

With such features available to help make customer communications quick and easy, it is no wonder that many businesses are turning to hosted phone systems.

Enhance customer response times and win more customers

The range of features available in a hosted contact center set-up greatly improves agent efficiency and business performance. By using your cloud phone system cleverly, you can enhance customer response times and deliver great customer service with every call. With everything they need at their fingertips, your team can work together from anywhere in the world and provide seamless customer experiences.

The post Keep the Conversation Going: How Improving Customer Response Time Can Win You Customers appeared first on Blog | Acefone.

A remarkable customer experience keeps your customers coming back while promoting your services to others. Businesses with excellent customer experience reported higher customer referrals and customer satisfaction are key to a successful business.

Indeed, to be able to deliver unparalleled experiences, you must equip your employees with the requisite resources and authority. Train your employees to provide quick and effective solutions to resolve customer issues. 

Speaking with us today is Ingrid Lindberg, the first-ever CXO (Chief Experience Officer) in the USA. Lindberg is a certified CX professional, CX specialist and founder of Chief Customer. In continuation to our ‘Expert Opinion’ series, we discuss the finer details of a superlative customer journey with the virtuoso who has over 20 years of unbeatable experience in the industry.

1. What made you choose a career in customer experience?

I truly fell into the field of customer experience. I worked in financial services, placing trades for people when we started to bring the ability to place trades online for the public—the beginning of financial services on the web! I had ideas about making it easier. MY CIO (Chief Information Officer) encouraged me to learn how to design web pages so people could easily use them.

That indeed was the beginning. 

I had ideas, and education in sociology, studying people, and curiosity. I was lucky enough to get formal training and then the opportunity, not just to design web pages but pieces of paper. Then came contact center interaction design. The next thing I knew, I was doing multichannel designs with strategies behind them. And that became the customer experience field. 

2. What do you think is a criterion for a successful customer experience expert? 

In my experience, there is no such thing as a CX expert. Customer experience is too big of a bucket for one person to be an expert on the whole thing! 

There are expert journey mappers; experts at designing interactions; experts at building strategies; experts in research and creating the voice of customer programs and the likes. It is like any other industry—you must declare your major. 

I am an expert at developing strategies and designing company transformations. I am not great at building Voice of Customer programs. I’ve led people who have done that work, but I am not a market researcher.  

3. Have you ever successfully motivated a business to achieve demanding performance standards during an uncertain time? If so, how?

One of the most significant transformations that I designed and led was at Cigna during the recession. We were facing tremendous pressures and a rock-bottom stock price. The motivation for that transformation was indeed a burning platform—change or die. 

And we changed that company completely—and they continue to thrive on the platform of customer-centric decision making. 

4. How do you feel after becoming the first person in the USA to hold the title of CXO?

It is such a weird thing. I downplay it all the time because I cannot believe it. 

I did not choose the title; my CEO and CMO did. They had read about the need for a CXO in a Harvard Business Review article and decided that the company needed one. I have been told repeatedly that I am the first to have held it, but I had no idea what it was! 

I remember going to LinkedIn when I was offered the job in 2007. I searched for CXO. There were no results. So, I had to make a lot of it up as I went along. We had to create job descriptions for Voice of Customer leaders and Customer Experience Architects. Every step was an exhilarating battle because there were no best practices. So, we learned a lot. 

I love to say that we built an aeroplane in the sky, successfully flew it worldwide and safely landed it. 

5. You have worked in CX for around two decades now. What were the most challenging situations while advising businesses?

Customer experience should not be such a tricky thing, should it? 

We consistently see pushback on whether or not it works, what the ROI is, whether it should be funded. The most challenging situation I have found myself in as I advise businesses is coming in after they have already spent a ton of money on CX and have not seen any results. 

So often, a company will buy a piece of software to manage customers’ voices or map journeys and then they do not see any results. Spending money without a clear strategy and plan is pointless. It creates so much dissonance and dissolves trust between CX activities and executive teams. 

I implore the leaders out there to just say no to CX efforts until you have three things in place: 

• CEO support 
• A strategy 
• A plan 

6. What, according to you, works best to ensure a seamless customer experience?

I don’t think there is such a thing as a seamless customer experience. The thing about customer experience is that humans deliver it. Humans build websites and apps. Humans program AI. Humans create letters and emails. 

And we aren’t seamless. 

I have learned that you have to bring all the parties together with a shared set of goals and a clear strategy. You have to define the expectations for orchestration and the outcomes. And then you must support them to ensure they get what they need to make it all happen. You must make apologising to your customers an okay thing. We all are human. There will be mistakes. Apologise when it goes wrong, and then fix it.  

7. Would you like to tell us some CX elements that are usually missing in startups and businesses?

I find, especially when working with startups, that all the focus is on the product. A fabulous product is built, and it is beautifully designed and does exactly what you want it to. But way too many start-ups have never asked a customer about whether they want it, if they would use it and if it works for them. 

Start with your idea, yes, but quickly intertwine your customer into your build. 

8. Lastly, how do you think technology affects customer service? How does it influence CX?

I think that technology is simply an enabler for customer service professionals. We spend way too much time in the CX industry talking about customer service. 

In the industries I have spent the most time in (telco, finance, healthcare), we have learned that customer service only accounts for between 6-10% of the experience. Products, processes, and communications are often so much more important. Customer service is there for when something goes wrong with your product, processes, or communications. Focus on those first.  

Wrapping up

Our conversation with Ingrid Lindberg has not only given us meaningful insights into the importance of a customer-centric culture but also helps us understand how businesses can embed the same in their day-to-day operations.

By implementing her advice, organisations will surely notice a significant rise in their customer base, organic marketing, and thereby, their performance.

The post Expert Opinion: The Key To Winning New Customers Is To Retain The Existing Ones appeared first on Blog | Acefone.

Everyone, irrespective of age or economic status, uses social media these days. Its power is such that it can help your brand rise and fall almost instantly.

So, why leave this medium of communication unexplored? Businesses have begun to utilise social channels to build trust among their target audience and deliver seamless service.

The first thing customers expect is spontaneity when it comes to support. Social media is the way to go, since it is totally real-time and keeps you on your toes.

What is social media customer service?

As the name suggests, customer service delivered through social media channels like Facebook, YouTube or LinkedIn to name a few, is called social media customer service. This medium helps you reach out to a larger audience and strike the right chord with them.

How is social media customer service executed?

According to a Smart Insights report, simply responding to a social media complaint can increase customer advocacy by 35% and brand loyalty by 65%.

However, like any other marketing strategy, social media customer service demands a systematic implementation. This is not an overnight process. For example, you may consider dedicating a workforce to social media service or just dovetail it with pre-existing teams. 

Here are some points to keep in mind:

• Decide what channels you will be focussing on. 
• Zero down on the type of messages you’ll use for this purpose. 
• You may choose from infographics, blog posts, videos, or podcasts to feed your target audience with relevant information. 
• Take care not to provide an overdose of information to viewers. 
• Share updates about your product or services with clients periodically.

With this brief idea, let us see how to use social media customer service to win over customers in 2021!

1. Begin with active brand monitoring

The first step to kickstart your social media customer service is proactive monitoring. Track social media for any mentions of your brand or keywords related to your offerings—closely and consistently. 

You also need to determine the various channels your customers usually use or prefer engaging with. This monitoring system will help you identify negative and positive reviews of your business.

For example, say a customer buys something from your e-store and comments about the delay in delivery without tagging your brand. If you have a monitoring system in place, you will be easily able to identify this comment and reply. 

You can explain the situation, apologise, and assure them that this will not repeat—or even offer a special discount as compensation. This proactive move will leave the customer happier, along with showcasing strong brand presence on your social media channel.

2. Shortlist the type of comments getting responses

All your comments may not get responses—and some may even attract negative replies. Your team should be well equipped to handle such situations. It is important to identify and filter the comments that are most important and need to be responded to immediately. 

It’s also worth noting that social media channels are not dedicated customer support platforms. They may attract different types of comments. Given the Internet culture of this day, beware of feeding trolls. Also, make sure to set strict guidelines, pick critical issues that need attention, and manage problematic comments with care.

3. Let no comment go answered

Social media channels are open to the public. Though this unrestricted access is advantageous, it comes with its own set of challenges. Customers are closely watching you—free to comment about your brand in public. This can include feedback, reviews, complaints, or trolls. 

Your teams need to be able to handle any scenario diplomatically. Moreover, you should remain transparent and deliver the necessary message professionally. 

Let’s take an example. A customer bought your product online, but damaged it during unboxing. They demand a refund because of the sheer speed of the damage. However, your refund policy only allows for manufacturing defects—not user mishandling. 

As much as you may want to oblige the customer, you can’t change set policies based on these encounters. So, it’s important for your agents to be able to convey the message reasonably and with minimal conflict.  

4. Maintain a dedicated support channel

There are several customer service channels these days, including phone support, email, chat support and many more. However, social media channels need a higher level of monitoring and tracking capability. 

This method demands spontaneity and caution when it comes to the type of responses provided. This is because a phone call or email message is between your representative and the customer whereas a conversation on social media is open for the public to witness.

You should make sure to specifically train a set of astute representatives to handle your social media customer service division with utmost diligence.

5. Separate the public and the private

Your interactions with customers will be mixed. Some may end up being pleasant, others quite decidedly not so. You need to identify conversations that must be directed to a private engagement.

For example, interactions that need personal customer information should be directed to a private chat. Or agitated customers who are tough to handle can be invited to privately resolve the matter. These moves will avoid public altercations and also facilitate open discussions between the customer and your team. 

6. Avoid defensive reactions

Over time, you’ll surely face tough situations wherein the customer is inconsolable and uncompromising. You should ensure that these issues are properly escalated and taken care of immediately. The last thing your business needs is for agents to indulge in defensive reactions like deleting a negative comment, blocking a user, or not responding at all.

Train your team to offer mutually beneficial solutions. Seek the help of superiors if required. Take extra care to avoid an argument online with customers. These precautions will save your brand from dealing with negativity.

7. Track and measure your efforts

Like any other marketing strategy, social media customer service also requires appropriate tracking and measurement of metrics. The more data you collect from your social media channels, the more effective your tracking and your service will be. 

Monitor any techniques that you may have used to handle customers. Check on different types of comments and responses on your forums. Most importantly, check your key performance indicators like first contact resolution, rate of customer satisfaction, customer retention, and rate of issues resolved.

Furthermore, you may consider customer survey responses to determine the level of customer satisfaction. This kind of tracking system not only helps you analyse your marketing strategy, but also allows you to identify staffing requirements for peak times when you may need additional workforce. 

For example, there may be a time of the year when your audience seems proactive on social media channels. Identifying this period will help you launch specific campaigns on social media best-suited for your target audience.

Parting words

Humans are social beings—and social media gives us the platform to connect with them on a large scale. As we enter a work culture where the lines between formal and informal are starting to blur, social media acts as an effective way to connect consumers and businesses. 

It takes just a single comment to build or spoil your online reputation. Hopefully, the above-mentioned points will throw light on the importance of social media customer service and a few ways about how businesses should incorporate it into their marketing strategy this 2021.

The post A 2021 Guide to Winning at Social Media Customer Service appeared first on Blog | Acefone.