We’ve covered a lot in the last year, from the Importance of Bilingual Call Centers, to new Speech Analytics Technology, all with the goal of helping you streamline your operations and grow your business. So, let’s look at the top five takeaways from 2022:

1. Be Bilingual

With over 40 million Spanish speakers in the United States today, offering customers the ability to communicate in their native language through bilingual call answering enables call centers to gain an immediate competitive edge. Not only does your call center’s capacity for bilingual communication increase the size of the market, but the overall customer experience is also significantly enhanced. With all the choices we have in today’s modern world for communicating, humans still often misunderstand each other. The more you understand your customers, the more you strengthen your relationship, and your business with them.

2. Use Technology

Employing speech analytics technology can add up to major timesavings for a business like a call center. By parsing out opinion statements like, “I want” and “I need,” from customer satisfaction keywords such as “cancelling” or “closing,” the technology enables your team to zero in on a problem in a fraction of the time it would take a human. And artificial intelligence such as speech analytics isn’t subject to stereotyping, as their human counterparts inherently are.

3. Know Where You Stand

Ever wonder how your customers feel about you? Then why not ask them! With plug-and-go customer service surveys such as Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT), or Net Promoter Score (NPS), there’s no excuse not to know how you’re doing in your customers’ eyes. The results from these kinds of surveys can be invaluable, offering insight on metrics which are otherwise difficult to determine, like customer loyalty and potential for repeat business.

4. Get Creative

Although the workplace has forever changed since the pandemic, open positions still need to be filled. Consider tactics such as hiring within to “fill the gap.” Paying existing employees for referrals or creating a paid intern program may seem like less traditional recruitment strategies but could be well worth the effort if they help land qualified talent.

5. Understand Your Needs

Before you can select the right service solution, you need to understand what needs you’re trying to fulfill. Your call volume, how you want calls handled (including the urgent ones), and when you plan to have calls forwarded are all factors to consider in determining whether your needs warrant an answering service or a call center service. And yes, there is a difference between the two. There’s a lot to consider based on the high-tech options that call centers and answering services have to offer today. Your decision will depend on what gives you the most flexibility and your customers the best experience.

 

We hope these five takeaways from 2022 are helpful to you and your team as you set goals for the New Year. If you have any questions or would like to discuss how answering or call center services can help you improve customer service, loyalty, and revenue, please reach out. And, in the meantime, we invite you to discover how missed calls could be holding your business back in 2023.