subject: 24-hour Call Centers Answer Customers Need For Immediate Response [print this page] Texting, tweeting and blogging are all the rage these days, personally and professionally. Much of the attraction is the immediate response that goes along with them. You can instantly comment on someones blog post, quietly text someone from a meeting or keep minute-by-minute tabs on your favorite tweeter. Its part of a growing trend. People dont want to wait for answers. Thats what makes 24-hour call centers increasingly popular. Businesses that move to this service find out a lot about what goes on in their office -- and what business they lose -- when voice mail is a caller's only option.
Call center services and hours vary from company to company so be sure to choose one thats a 24-hour call center. And dont under estimate the after-hours activity your business might get. Just because you don't deal with emergency calls doesn't mean you aren't missing business opportunities. Many people dont have time to place calls until they get home from work or get the kids to bed. By then, normal business hours have ended. A 24-hour call center makes sure there's a live person callers can talk to instead of only being able to leave a voice mail message.
Remember that while customer service hours may end at 6 p.m. Eastern Time, California customers may still be calling for another three hours. A 24-hour call center can provide customer support, handle catalog and online orders, screen leads and deliver them to sales personnel, and schedule appointments during your busy season or when you offer a promotion. And since it's important to know what your customers think about the products and services you offer, you can choose to have inbound or outbound surveys done so you can adjust your products, services and customer support to meet client needs. The agents at a 24-hour call center also can help connect your customers to the closest representative from your company based on either an area match or query match.
If business is booming and you need additional staff, a 24-hour call center can do an initial job hotline screening to provide a group of qualified candidates to you for review. Agents can pre-screen inbound calls and follow-up with outbound calls to narrow the candidate pool and ensure potential employees meet your job requirements.
Be sure to ask if the 24-hour call center you're interested in has any references you can speak to and if their agents have received any industry awards for their call handling. Industry awards are a good way to know how professional and efficient the 24-hour call center is.
Be smart and check into the cost and flexibility of the plan you think you'll use. Make sure to ask if you'll have to sign a contract and whether or not you have the flexibility to change your plan once you start your service with that 24-hour call center.
If you're interested in boosting your business by using a 24-hour call center, make sure the center is equipped with the necessary technology to stay on the job 24/7. There should be backup systems to ensure a power failure or system malfunction doesn't put the center offline.
Give your customers what they want on the first call -- a 24-hour call center so they can talk to a live person. It's a great way to start off your relationship with them. Who knows? They may even text someone about the great experience they had.
