Consumers are used to being offered 1-800 numbers to dial. Because these phone numbers are toll free for the caller they are appealing to customers. 1-800 numbers are an effective for any remote sales businesses to get people to call them.
Toll free numbers are set up to charge the called party, not the calling party, for the placed call. This added cost of the phone call is offset by the benefits of toll free telephone numbers, especially if the business has some way to directly monetize incoming calls.
Using one or more toll free numbers increases company visibility, and encourages customers to call. This benefit is one of the most obvious returns to establish such a number. Toll free numbers can also increase company efficiency, and there are numerous telephony software solutions that have been designed to help remote sales teams to do this.
One such software solution is a lead management CRM. By linking inbound toll free calls to the CRM, relevant, real time information on the caller will automatically be captured and updated in the CRM’s database. These leads can be saved as future prospects for phone or email campaigns.
Another piece of telephony software that helps sales reps capitalize on toll free numbers is inbound-outbound call blending telephony. With this, sales reps may make outbound calls while they wait to receive an inbound call. The use of a CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) system blending can additionally enhance call blending. These CTI solutions often involve pop-ups or pop-screens, windows that open automatically when the inbound call is answered. This immediately displays all relevant information and allows the sales rep to easy update the contacts data in the CRM.
Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) is another business solution that increases the effectiveness of toll free calls. ACD software is known as call routing software, and it automatically forwards incoming calls to the best available agent. Individual agents can be specified as the primary agent for individual toll free numbers or geographic locations. If preferred agents are not available, incoming calls can then be routed to a designated fail-over destination. This could be the company’s general telephone line, an internal messaging system, or a private cell phone.
The implementation of a toll free number can be the added incentive a potential customer needs to call a business they have not contacted before. These telephony pieces of telephony software gives sales representatives the tools they need to make these calls even more profitable.
Dec 18, 2009
Toll Free Numbers
Aug 11, 2009
Why do I need software to do telemarketing?
Businesses that practice remote sales need to use telemarketing software in order to be productive. Telemarketing is now used by many retail businesses, and these remote call centers should be organized, efficient, customer service oriented, and above all—profitable. Telemarketing software has been developed to help the growing number of businesses reach these goals. The use of telemarketing software provides a competitive edge in this market by allowing companies to get more done.
The auto dialer is a type of telemarketing software. Dialers call through a list of leads or contacts. In between calls the sales representative stays logged into the dialer system and the dialer continues to calls leads for him. This allows the dialer to immediately route new calls to the sales person. Over the course of a typical work day each sales agent is able to make more calls and spend more of their day selling. Compared to dialing manually sales agents are able to make as many as four times the amount of sales calls when using a dialer.
Contacts can be uploaded directly from a CRM and many dialers have the ability to integrate with the top CRMs. CRMs (customer relationship managers) also track all of the processes associated with remote sales. From the information screens within the CRM calls can be made instantly to contacts and clients. With this click-to-call technology a single mouse click will connect a sales agent to the specified contact.
Email messaging is an important feature available with telemarketing software. Remote sales professionals spend up to a third of their day following up on the calls they made that day. This involves sending emails with additional information on products or promotions. Email messaging technology cuts this time drastically by automating the process. Email templates are designed before the sales calls even take place and can be tested to see what email best achieves the desired action. When an email needs to be sent, it can be done during the actual phone call from within the CRM. By cutting out the time it takes to follow–up, sales agents can spend more time on the phone making calls and closing sales.
The investment in these software programs is worth it to any organization that expects to compete in the remote sales market.
Jul 14, 2009
Explore your options in Telephony Software
In telecommunications, when the term telephony is used it encompasses the general use of equipment and software to link two or more telephones. The goal is to allow individuals to communicate over great distances. Telesales has moved telephony software outside of the realm of simply allowing two people to talk. Today, many different telephony software solutions have been developed to aid sales agents through the entire sales process.
A key advancement in telephony software is known as CTI. This stands for Computer Telephony Integration. This technology allows telephones and computers to interact with each other and to share information. Here is an example of CTI in action: when an incoming phone call is received by a sales agent the computer automatically recognizes that phone number, finds that number within its database, and displays on the computer screen of the sales rep all of the information stored on that individual. With this automatic data retrieval the sales agent is prepared to have a profitable interaction with the caller.
The database that makes this possible is called a CRM (Customer Relationship Management). In addition to storing information on each contact, this piece of telephony software organizes, calendars, and tracks all of the processes that are done as part of inside sales. A customer relationship management system is most useful when another telephony software solution is utilized, the power dialer.
One of the most basic tasks for a sales representative is placing a call. He or she can make three times their previous volume of calls per day by switching from manual dialing to using a power dialer. A power dialer is programmed with an uploaded list of phone numbers, and then automatically dials those numbers one at a time for the sales agent. When a call is answered it is instantly routed through to the agent. This telephony software solution capitalizes on the incredible data management capabilities of a CRM.
A myriad of additional telephony software can be incorporated with the CRM and power dialer pairing. Web form callback technology allows leads to be created with in the CRM every time a web form is submitted on the company website. Voice message broadcasting technology allows sales representatives to automatically send prerecorded messages to an entire list of leads. Automatic call distribution technology removes the need for an operator to route incoming calls through to the appropriate agent.
These are just a few of the different telephony software tools available to inside sales departments today. Look for a company that offers a variety of software solutions that are already fully integrated with their CRM and power dialer.
May 28, 2009
Don’t give up on leads! How you can get a conversion from every contact
Your team of sales professionals works hard, day after day, to convert new leads into paying clients. Power dialers, CRM, and other telephony tools aid sales people in qualifying leads, placing calls, and closing sales, but even if they are the best group of sales agents in your field they undoubtedly still encounter prospective clients who do not convert. With the same power dialer suite they use to make calls they can also use to lead those contacts to conversion in the near future. This process is called lead nurturing.
The idea behind lead nurturing is that your product or service is so great that everyone will want it at some time. By keeping the mindset that every lead will convert at some point, leads are never automatically dumped into a “not interested” category where they are never thought of again. After all, your marketing department has gone through a lot of hard work to get those leads for the sales team.
Lead nurturing works like this; after the power dialer connects the sales rep to the contact the sales person makes sure he or she gathers a few important pieces of information. This would include name, company name, phone number, email address, and permission to email them in the future. All of this information should be saved with in the CRM (which stands for customer relationship management). If your lead was generated from a form filled out on the company website, it is still a good idea to verify both the information and whether the prospect has given permission to be emailed. With this information your sales team is prepared to help that lead move along the path to conversion even if they initially decide not to purchase your product.
After gathering these crucial data points the contact can be assigned to an enrollment campaign, which can be done right from the power dialer software. These campaigns are a series of tasks that you design to help your contacts build up a bank of positive impressions of your company. What works best is a combination of emails and phone calls. Each task is automatically scheduled by the CRM. Emails are sent at predetermined intervals, and calls are scheduled for your sales agents. The enrollment campaign solution built into the CRM saves time for your sales team, and the small time commitment they do have to give towards these leads pays off in dividends as they convert into valuable customers over time.
May 19, 2009
Automatic Call Distribution and what it can do for your business
Inside sales operations spend a most of their time calling people, at least that’s what they should be doing. These outbound calls are often what receive the single greatest amount of a sales representative’s time. Inbound calls are usually more valuable than the individual outbound calls because they can represent existing clients or those contacts who are actively seeking out a company’s product or service.
There are telephony software solutions that increase the efficiency of receiving these inbound calls regardless of whether an inside sales business uses in-house agents or if those agents work remotely. One of these solutions is ACD, or Automatic Call Distribution. The purpose of this telephony tool is not only to allow sales agents to receive inbound calls, but also to route those calls to the right personnel automatically.
ACD call routing works well in combination with toll free phone numbers. Managers of the system can establish which toll free numbers should be answered by which sales representatives. This can be determined by which geographic location the toll free number is advertised in, by which department that toll free number is associated with, or any other delineation. By automatically routing calls based on which sales agents can best responds instantly improves customer relations. In the event that there are no designated sales reps that call is not dropped. Instead, the Automatic Call Distribution system can be directed to route that incoming call to a fail–over number. This fail-over number could be anything from the general office line to voice messaging systems. ACD could even route the call through to one of the agents’ personal cell phones. There is no need for any inbound call to be unanswered or dropped when using ACD call routing.
This telephony solution often offers many quality control features. Usually this includes the option to record calls being completed. These recordings can be stored along with every other bit of data associated with a particular caller. These calls can be retrieved and played back if ever the need arises.
All of this makes it faster and easier to connect incoming calls to the right people. By decreasing customer wait time ACD raises customer satisfaction. When this is linked to an outbound dialer all agents that receive inbound calls can also be actively making outbound calls. ACD removes the slow, down times that can occur in a business day, generating the greatest amount of calls made and sales closed.
Dialer Software that meets the Demands of Inside Sales
Several problems are faced by inside sales teams. Those problems may include—what can be done to increase productivity by making more calls and closing more sales? How is a high level of quality and customer care going to be assured? What measures are going to be taken to ensure that all promises made to contacts will be fulfilled? There are probably numerous answers for each of these problems, but to remain efficient a sales team needs to use one simple and effective solution to meet all of these needs. Power dialer software is such a solution.
Power dialer software, in its simplest form, is a program that automatically dials phone numbers from a contact list for a sales agent. This alone decreases the amount of time spent on each individual call and increase the volume of calls each sales person is able to make in a typical work day. Power dialers are designed to help a sales representative to make three hundred dials in a day, compared to a manual dialing average that is around seventy five.
Phone dialer software increases productivity further when that dialer is integrated with email or voice messaging solutions. From the dialer software previously composed emails and voice messages can automatically be sent. This frees the sales agent from using valuable calling time waiting to leave messages himself on voice mail systems or sending various different emails to many different customers at the end of his or her work day. A typical sales person spends only five or six hours of their day making phone calls and upwards of three hours sending emails or other messages to those contacts. Phone dialer software cuts this time down to a fraction of what it commonly takes, all with only a couple of mouse clicks.
Using carefully constructed emails and voice messages is also one of the steps dialer software takes to ensuring quality control. Instead of fumbling over their messages sales agents can record one in their own voice that says exactly what they and their employers want said. An additional way phone dialers assure quality from a sales team’s performance is with optional call recording. By recording and monitoring sales calls training can be planned to strengthen the sales agents and help them be more efficient in their job.
Each of these functions of well designed dialer software works together to create an easy to use system that meets the demands of inside sales.
May 8, 2009
Complex Sales require the Power Dialer
An outbound phone dialer is a kind of telephony software that automatically calls through a list of phone numbers for a sales agent. Power dialers are one specific kind of dialer that is particularly effective. A sales representative who switches from dialing manually to using an outbound power dialer can expect a large increase in the volume of sales calls they can make in a business day. Research has shown it is not uncommon for this increase to be as much as four times the previous call volume. Some sales reps report that they are able to make three hundred to upwards of three hundred and fifty calls using a power dialer. That is equivalent to doing eight hours worth of work in only two or three
Outbound dialers work by loading a telephone number list of contacts or leads and then dialing them one at a time for the sales agent. The agent receives a phone call, from the dialer. When he or she answers the call, the dialer automatically patches through the phone call with the lead. After the call the sales representative stays on the line, and the dialer automatically patches through another call. This continues for as long as the agent stays on the line.
Power dialers call through this list one number at a time. Other outbound dialers that call a group of leads simultaneously are called ratio or predictive dialers. This allows these other dialers to call more leads, but only one of those calls can be routed through to the sales agent at a time. If more than one lead answers during each round of calling those extra calls are dropped, cutting off the other contacts who answer their phones. Additionally, it takes a moment for the outbound dialer to recognize when one of the many calls they are making is answered. This small time is referred to as a telemarketer pause, and often annoys leads being contacted.
Power dialers eliminate both the problems of the telemarketer pause and dropped calls. This makes the power dialer especially suited for complex sales processes, including B2B (business to business) sales. Since B2B sales often involves speaking to secretaries before a decision maker, and since they also tend to be high stakes sales, it is especially important to give each contact a personalized and streamlined approach. Other types of dialers just cannot do this.
Four telephony software solutions that increase lead management
Proper lead generation and response management requires a whole collection of complementary communication and telephony software tools. These lead management solutions work to better the sales experience during the entire sales process.
A power dialer helps you reach more leads quicker. Dialing manually sales agents generally average thirty to fifty calls in a standard work day. With a power dialer sales representatives can contact one to two hundred leads in a workday. In addition, when a power dialer is integrated in other telephony software such as an online CRM, the dialer is able to organize, guide, and prompt the sales agents using it to follow a pre-defined sales process.
Generally, a sales rep who spends five or six hours a day on the phone will need to spend two or three hours off the phone fulfilling promises to provide proposals, faxes and emails. Email or fax messaging telephony software provides a sales team with templates for all of these collateral processes. Sales agents are then able to fulfill these tasks while they are still on the phone with a lead. Sales team members can then spend a full day contacting newly generated lead, and all without sacrificing any customer service.
The addition of inbound outbound call blending to a telephony software suite allows sales reps to address customer needs even further. With this software solution every sales agent can be actively calling newly generated leads. These lists of leads are programmed into the dialer, and they are automatically routed through to the sales agent. With inbound outbound call blending, these outbound dialing sales reps can also receive calls. When an inbound call is received the dialer patches that call through to the sales agent instead of dialing a new lead for them. This ensures that every existing customer is adequately taken care of without sacrificing important time reaching out to prospective clients.
Voice messaging is another important piece of telephony software. It is not rare for sales agents to sit through many voice mail messages while dialing leads. With a voice messaging system this wasted time is eliminated. In order to work a message needs to be recorded by the sales rep. This message is then saved in the voice messaging system. When the agent gets a lead’s voice mail system, the sales agent can simply direct the dialer to continue to another call automatically, and leave that prerecorded message. While the telephony software completes this task the sales agent can continue on to another call.
This is not an exhausting list of telephony software solutions. There are many different tools available for the sales professional that sells remotely.
Great Telemarketing Software Options
Telemarketing, or telesales, is a form of direct marketing, where individual sales agents contact leads and solicit the prospective client to buy their products or services. It is a form of remote, or inside sales, which means the lead interacts with the company over the phone and not in person. To support this industry a wide range of useful telemarketing software has been developed. Telemarketing software solutions offer different usability to sales teams, and not all solutions are necessary to create a functioning sales operation.
A Customer Relationship Manager (CRM) is one of the most useful forms of telemarketing software. The CRM stores and tracks all of the data and processes associated with the sales process. A CRM allows many of the needed tasks associated with taking care of current or prospective clients to be automated.
A telephone dialer is another one of the most basic and useful telemarketing software. A phone dialer takes a list of phone numbers and automatically makes those calls for sales agents. It then patches those calls through to the available sales rep. Dialers are able to retrieve phone lists from a customer relationship manager, or it can be programmed in some other way.
Email or fax marketing software is another option. These give many options to a remote sales team. For example, a number that is not reached may be sent an email or fax message instead, ensuring that the lead receives some sort of contact. Also, a sales rep on the phone with a customer can instantly send an email or fax when they ask for more information. The agent is able to immediately follow up on his offer and not waste time fulfilling it later or potentially forget about it.
Another useful example of telemarketing software is web form callback. This software solution is intended to make sure that new leads generated by web forms from the company’s site are contacted within minutes of that form being submitted. This works by automatically creating a lead from a submitted web form, creating a task in the CRM for that lead to be contacted, and instructing the dialer to complete that task as soon as it can. With this tool an agent can be calling that prospective client back in minutes.
These are only a few of the many different telemarketing software solutions that have been designed for the expanding industry of inside sales. Each serves to improve the sales processes, and give more customer satisfaction.
May 5, 2009
Customer Relationship Managers are powerful, but they need a supporting cast
Customer Relationship Managers are powerful players in the remote or inside sales world. These software databases record and store all of the important data on each lead and client for a company. They also track and enable all of the processes used to contact those leads, close sales, and keep their clients.
Customer Relationship Manager is often abbreviated to CRM. A company that is only using a Customer Relationship Manager but is not utilizing other telephony software tools is failing to get all it can out of its CRM. Many different telephony software solutions are able to integrate perfectly with a Customer Relationship Manager. Adding a telephony solution will help each sales agent make more contacts, close more sales, and increase revenue.
While there are many kinds of helpful software, the telephone dialer is the flagship of these telephone tools that support a CRM. Phone dialers are available in several variations, though most work on the same principles. Dialers call through a list of lead information automatically and route those calls through to a sales agent. Dialers pull this phone list from the CRM, which is able to generate these lists of leads automatically from forms submitted by the customer on the company’s website or from spreadsheets containing contact information that had been created previously. Without a dialer sales agents would be forced to call through each individual number in the CRM manually. They also would have to suffer through the long list of wrong numbers and busy signals that a dialer would simply avoid routing through to a sales rep.
These two telephony solutions, the CRM and the phone dialer, benefit from other tools available, such as a voice messaging system. This would allow a sales agent to leave prerecorded messages on voicemail machines. Instead of waiting to leave a message of his own he can then move on to the next call while the dialer and CRM continue to leave the message. Email messaging, inbound/outbound call blending, and up to date call analytics are other examples.
When using these software tools to instantly capture leads, route the calls to the agents, and provide the additional features to allow sales agents be more effective at following up more leads are contacted, more sales and closed, and more revenue is produced.
Apr 23, 2009
Use telephony software to make remote sales profitable
Telephony software grants the ability to effectively accomplish many of the different tasks within a business that sales remotely. By combining the different telephony software solutions out there any company can dramatically improve how they accomplish sales tasks.
All sorts of good telephony software and solutions are used for lead management. This includes: power or predictive dialers, blended inbound call routing, voice messaging, faxing and emailing. A suite of these tools is able to fully track the metrics and analytics involved in tracking contacts, qualifying leads, and all the other tasks associated with sales lead tracking. Above and beyond simply tracking sales, these telephony tools increases the number of calls, contacts, faxes, emails, leads, follow-ups, proposals, and closes. These tools help you increase sales.
The reason telephony software solutions are able to increase sales is because they increase the number of quality interactions a lead has with the company.
Beginning with lead generation, potential clients are given a unique experience when a company is utilizing telephony lead management solutions. Any web form submitted by an interested lead automatically gets converted into a lead. This lead is then qualified, and routed through to the telephone dialer. Within minutes of that lead first submitting the request online a live sales agent is on the phone with them. In addition to the speed of this routing, new leads are assigned to the sales agent that has been identified as the best one for those types of calls. This assignment may be based on such things as which web form is submitted, or the area or zip code of the new lead.
This automatic call routing is designed to blend perfectly with outbound calling. The newly created lead will be held until the current outbound call is complete, and then be pushed through to the sales rep. This allows sales professionals to be engaged in outbound calling while waiting for new leads to generate and not to worry that new leads will be missed or current calls will be interrupted. Also, inbound calls are routed to these same sales reps allowing sales professionals the ability to use their time as effectively as possible.
Once a call is answered, the sales agent has many telephone software solutions at his disposal. Email and faxes can be sent instantly from the dialer interface. Often sales agents spend 5 or 6 hours a day on the phone, and a huge 2 to 3 hours following through on those calls by sending emails or faxes with additional information. Email or fax software solutions shorten those 2 to 3 hours to minutes.
Telephony software solutions continue to aid in the sales process on through closing the deal and following up with repeat customers in the future. With so many different business tools available it is worth the time and attention to research the options.
Apr 16, 2009
These Software Solutions will Increase your Lead Nurturing Success
Lead generation practices can produce a large volume of leads for a sales team agent to contact. Even with the best of sales reps not every lead contacted becomes a conversion. But not every lead that does not convert is a lost cause. Lead nurturing is the process of preparing contacted, but unconverted leads, into profitable sources of revenue in the future. Unconverted leads become not-yet-converted leads when lead nurturing is implemented.
A potential client needs to think and feel several things about a company before they will purchase their product or service. The lead needs to be familiar with the company and what it does. He or she needs to perceive the company as a group of experts in their field. The lead needs to feel like his or her specific problems are understood. Lastly, the company needs to be well liked enough for the lead to consider doing business with it.
This gradual changing of a lead’s feelings or attitudes cannot be accomplished by a monthly phone call asking if he or she was interested in the product yet. Instead, the lead needs to become comfortable with the organization and the employees there. Much computer telephone integration (CTI) software has been designed to manage the consistent and meaningful communication during the lead nurturing time. These telephony software solutions also incorporate several media formats to be used in the process.
Task management systems, such as an electronic labor force (ELF), manages lead nurturing from one source. These integrate with customer relationship managers (CRMs) to keep track of callbacks, events, and other tasks. These systems also control the various marketing solutions: email, voice broadcast, fax messaging, direct mail, and others.
Fax or email messaging campaigns can be particularly useful during lead nurturing. Faxes or emails can be designed previous to their sending, and cover topics that the majority of leads would be interested in. Many fax or email messaging systems also contain templates made by the host company to help in lead nurturing campaigns. These messages can then be automatically distributed to individual leads that are being nurtured periodically throughout the process. In addition, these emails, or original ones, may be sent by using the straightforward features of the ELF. The interspersion of these text based messages between phone calls from sales reps fosters a feeling of trust with the lead.
These are only a few of the software solutions available to aid the remote sales team to increase sales and customer loyalty through lead nurturing. Sales marketing tactics become more effective and more leads become conversions as lead nurturing becomes an important part of the sales process.
Apr 14, 2009
Which sales tools will help your company perform best?
A company’s Customer Relationship Management System (CRM) tracks all of the information a sales team needs to capture about prospective and current clients, but there is more to being a successful salesperson than keeping track of numbers and reports. Vendors that develop and distribute sales automation software have provided many sales tools to enhance the productivity of a CRM and the sales agents using it.
Telephony sales tools vary widely in their functions. Some provide ways to perform the tasks associated with remote sales easily, while others can drastically reduce the amount of paperwork and form filing an agent has to do.
Voice messaging systems are one example of a sales automation tool that speeds up the job of sales professionals. Instead of forcing each agent to wait through long answering machines and leaving their own voice messages – mistakes and all – a voice messaging system allows an agent to leave a pre-recorded message with a simple click of a button. Voicemails then become sales tools. Individual agents are not wasting time that could be used to contact a live lead, but their messages sound more professional since they were recorded (and possibly rerecorded several times) without the pressure of having to get it right the first time. Additionally those messages are still left in their own voices, bringing a personal feel to the automated responses.
An important sales tool to include in a CRM is a permission marketing tracking system. This allows an organization to be in complete compliance with anti-spam and “Do Not Fax” regulations without increasing the workload of their sales department. Permission marketing tracking systems automatically include at the bottom of each fax and email the date and time that permission to send the message was given.
Other sales tools that work in conjunction with the permission marketing tracking system are Do Not Call Maintenance systems. These record “do not call” or “do not contact” requests from contacts directly into the CRM, and records the time and date the request was made.
The most powerful of sales automation tools that incorporate with a CRM are power dialers. These drastically increase the call per hour rate for phone sales professionals by automatically providing leads for them to contact. After uploading a phone list of leads or contacts into the power dialer from the CRM, the power dialer cycles through the list allowing the salesperson to call the next lead with a single click.
Sales tools enhance the already useful and powerful CRM. Many different telephony tools are offered in the industry. They give an organization of any size the resources to be successful.
Apr 9, 2009
How can the use of Toll Free Numbers help telesales?
800 telephone numbers have become a staple in the business world. An 800 number is a toll free phone number, meaning the called party is charged for the call instead of the calling party. This allows customers to call the businesses and organizations they do business with without being charged extra for the communication. Businesses should consider the implementation of toll free numbers when they make a profit from the call in other ways. These profits include collecting fees for technical support, making a sale during the call, or seeing an enhancement in sales because of the implementation of the toll free number.
Including one or more toll free telephone numbers increases company visibility and productivity. There are numerous telephony software solutions that have been designed to help remote sales teams use tool free numbers most effectively.
By linking inbound toll free calls to a lead management CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) incoming calls can be captured. This means that the most relevant, real time information on the caller will immediately and automatically be updated into the CRM. These leads are saved as future prospects for call or email campaigns.
Inbound/outbound call blending telephony software allows sales agents to “double up” on both duties. These sales reps may make outbound calls while they wait to receive an inbound call. This call blending can be additionally enhanced by the use of a CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) system. These solutions often involve pop-ups or pop-screens, windows that open automatically when the inbound call is answered. This immediately displays all relevant information and allows the sales rep to easy update the contacts data in the CRM.
Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) is another business solution that increases the effectiveness of toll free calls. ACD software is known as call routing software, and it automatically forwards incoming calls to the best available agent. Individual agents can be specified as the primary agent for individual toll free numbers or geographic locations. If preferred agents are not available, incoming calls can then be routed to a designated fail-over destination. This could be the company’s general telephone line, an internal messaging system, or a private cell phone.
With the analytic capabilities of an industry standard CRM, an added toll free number can be used to quickly track the progress of a new marketing strategy. The amount of time each call is left on hold and the length of each call can also be monitored and be used to create service standards for inbound calls. Toll free telephony software creates many opportunities to increase customer satisfaction and sales.
Mar 12, 2009
What is Telephony and Why should you use it?
Telephony is the use of equipment to allow people to verbally communicate with each other across large distances. Telephones are the standard for telephony tools, but can be upgraded by telephony software. Telephony software is any software that is used to increase the productivity of phone calls.
A salespersons success is linked to the number of phone calls he or she can make in a day. The more calls a salesperson can make, the more goods or services they will be able to sell. Well designed telephony software can quadruple the number of calls an individual salesperson can make in a day. Logic would say that the same salesperson would also quadruple his or her sales. Telephony software provides all the incentive a business owner needs to install it – a bigger bottom line!
One example of telephony software is a power dialer. A power dialer is a software that automatically selects leads for any individual salesperson to call. They will then make that call. Power dialers can make phone calls significantly faster than manual dialers. Because of this they are one of the great ways telephony software can increase your organizations number of outbound calls upwards of four times each day.
Well designed power dialers will be integrated into a company's Customer Relationship Management System, or CRM. This will display to each agent the information your company has already gathered on any individual customer that the power dialer selects to call. This will allow the salesperson making the call to instantly see how often their leads have been contacted in the past, when last contacted, and what the results of all of those contacts were. This telephony software interface with the power dialer eliminates much of the mundane note taking and busy work of the sales world by automatically recording information about the call and providing clear places to type in the information that the system still needs from any particular client.
Telephony software can also recognize answering machines, busy signals, and wrong numbers, and prevent those calls from being patched through to your available agents. This frees up your employees to be dealing with decision makers that will purchase your services. This also avoids burnout among your sales team that may be caused by the routine of manually calling leads only to be greeted by machine generated beeps and answering machines.
Telephony software can amplify any sales team or organization that routinely contacts many people by the phone each day. Search for a provider that will host the service, and will download their computer telephony software into your own system. By going with an established provider of this service you will save yourself the time and stress of recreating what has already been done for you by another company.
