Firstly, as opposed to chat and email, a
call needs to be answered when the phone is ringing. Wait for too long, and you have an angry customer on the line or a missed call with no context. Given the nature of customer demand with its peaks and troughs, having a phone means a larger team compared to text-exclusive support, where you can answer the query later.
Secondly,
Voice is harder to document and analyse compared to text. This is an expensive issue for a number of reasons:
- Quality assurance becomes more time-consuming because a manager needs to listen to conversations rather than read and search through them.
- It is harder to analyse customer feedback and get actionable insights to improve your product and processes.
- Advisors spend time summarising calls so that the next person knows the context.
And on top of that, it’s
hard to get a full view of customer interactions. Only about 5% of the companies we spoke to used the same tool for their phone and email / chat communication. Phone support software is a different beast compared to chat and email, and companies tend to choose the best tool for the job.
This gap between different communication channels means customers have to repeat themselves, leading to longer, more expensive conversations and less than ideal customer experience.
At
Cordless, we’re on a mission to enable more companies to offer phone support. So here are a few tips on making it more affordable and ensuring that your customers are still having a good experience even if you can’t pick up.