On The Phone

OnBrand Audio have been designing and improving the pre-agent telephone experience for our clients for over 10 years and we are bringing a new mobile solution the market which provides greater opportunity for customer and operational benefits than telephone IVR alone.

Experience tells us that call abandonment is a common problem when customers interact with IVR systems. If your customers are having difficulty listening & navigating through multiple options, and repeating information, your company is at risk from losing vital business due to a poor customer experience.

However, using visual IVR which works alongside your traditional telephone IVR provides your customers with a guided menu interface which can be launched from any mobile device, tablet or PC. Customers are now demanding mobile customer service and visual IVR delivers that experience, while creating cost saving opportunities.

Since you have invested time and money in your IVR, it’s easy to implement visual IVR with your current technology without interrupting your current customer service systems.  Customers simply launch a mobile app or web page to access your visual IVR system. Instead of listening to what are sometimes lengthy call trees, your customers can scan their smart phone screens, and click the option that best suits them.

Visual IVR reuses your current IVR scripts to provide a visual menu driven interface of your IVR on smart phones and tablets. Whether your system runs on VXML scripts or proprietary code, a visual IVR solution works with most IVR formats to map your IVR technology onto mobile devices, complete with all its features.

Go visual for instant ROI

1. Customers solve their problems on their own – they can see and touch their way to what or who they need without having to listen to multiple options, repeat information, or speak to the operator.

2.  Reduced calls to the call centre – By enhancing self-service, your customers spend less to no time in the IVR, taking the load off your call centre while lowering your telephony and IVR costs.

3.  Shorter call times– when choosing to connect to the call centre, all information entered by the customer is visible to the agent so average handle time is significantly reduced.

4.  Lower call abandonment- IVR frustrations of navigating through multiple options and being forced to repeat information often cause the customer to simply- hang up.  This creates an immediate loss of revenue to the organization. Visual IVR decreases call abandonment significantly.

5. Boost your IVR investment – a Visual IVR solution will work seamlessly with your current IVR technology, so you preserve and reap your original IVR investment. This means that the time spent in developing an IVR script, is now utilised in two locations instead of one.

A visual IVR solution increases self-service to take the load off a call centre, minimize zeroing out due to better routing, and significantly lowers IVR and telephony costs as less time is spent in the IVR. Adopting a visual IVR solution will help an organisation provide customers with accurate real-time information and advanced self-service capabilities.

That’s true mobile customer service, & at no added costs to your original IVR investment.

With an increasing amount of research telling us customers will go elsewhere after a bad telephone experience – or stay loyal after a good one – we’re often asked whether the focus should be on reducing customer effort, increasing customer experience or driving operational efficiency.

The good news is they’re all linked, and using OnBrand’s design methodology, you can achieve all three.

Time is becoming increasingly short as people juggle their work and family life, and people become quickly irritated when a poor choice of options present themselves on the phone; even more so if their call is misdirected, leading to further on hold times.

Also, if callers hear a voice that doesn’t “sound like” the brand, or if the audio quality is poor, or worse still – are the menu options are so complex that it’s hard to choose the right option – the callers are far more likely to become frustrated, choose the wrong option, and end up having to be transferred. This has two negative impacts that are detrimental to your business:

• The customer needs to put in a great deal of effort, leading to a negative experience. This is likely to damage the brand relationship.
• The call agent has to deal with the caller’s frustration. It’s not nice to be vented at, and imagine how this can affect the agent’s mood before they speak to the next customer.
• Operationally, misdirected calls are more expensive to handle, presenting the business with an immediate cost, and the potential to lose countless customers.

However, if the caller’s attention is captured with a positive welcome, and they’re spoken to in a personal way using language they understand, the caller will be happy. If they’re presented with a few short and simple options leading them to the right place at the first attempt, they will reach the agent in a positive frame of mind.

The result? The call will be more pleasant – for the customer and the agent – and your brand will be remembered fondly, and held in a positive light when customers and staff discuss you with their family and friends.

At OnBrand we have over 15 years’ experience in improving customer journeys. We take time to understand our customers’ brands, learning what they do, who their customers are and what we want customers to do when they call. We then design and produce new caller experiences to achieve the joint goals of reducing customer effort, increasing caller experience and driving operational efficiency.

Give us a call on 03333 22 00 22 or sayhello@onbrandgroup.co.uk to find out how we can help your business.

Contact centres and the professionals who work in, and run them, do not get enough credit. Either from their own organisations who often complain about costs and service levels or,  the media who choose to feature perceived negatives over the many positive contributions that the industry makes. This is why recognition from professional bodies such as, The UK Contact Centre Forum is so important.

www.uk-ccf.co.uk

Managing and handling customer contacts are crucial to any organisation and if this fails, the business fails. We were delighted to be involved with the London and South East Contact Centre Awards this year at the Radisson Blu Heathrow Hotel. OnBrand Audio are proud to be part of celebrating the achievements of the contact centre industry.

Many congratulations to everyone who entered, all that were shortlisted and those who won their category on the night. It is clear to see the constant improvements being made across a wide variety of organisations from housing associations and councils to private sector brands. All of them service providers, and all with a passion for delivering the best service for their customers.

The nomination process itself is time well spent for those who enter as it allows opportunity for reflection, measurement of success and also planning how to take the next step forward. Entrants receive feedback from experienced judges from a variety of related backgrounds which adds to the learning.

The exciting part however, is of course the awards themselves and OnBrand Audio sponsored the ‘Technology Partnership of the Year’ category because we love to see innovation in action using technology to boost service and efficiency. (Just as our Visual IVR solution does)

Huge congratulations to IP Integration and The Caravan Club who won this award. A great achievement indeed.

We’ll look forward to next year’s awards, seeing the improvements and outstanding customer service that I know will be taking place over the next 12 months.