With companies striving to stand out in today's fast-paced business environment, ensuring seamless customer communication is indispensable. Enterprises nowadays are relentlessly focused on delivering a good customer experience so that they can uplift their brand image and drive better profits. In fact, 84% of customers believe that the experience a business offers is equally important as its products and services. However, a majority of companies face an uphill battle when it comes to improving the quality of their customer service.
This is where virtual numbers can come in handy for simplifying the business communication process. Deemed a technological boon, a virtual number is simply a phone number that is not directly linked to any particular telephone line. On the contrary, it is connected to a single server and powered by cloud telephony. Virtual numbers can make it possible for organizations to build a strong local presence even without having any physical premises. Here are the top 6 ways businesses can enhance their customer service with the help of virtual numbers.
1. Safeguard customers' privacy with number masking technology
There is no denying that safeguarding customers' privacy is a top-of-mind concern for companies of all sizes. However, we live in an age where data breaches are rapidly increasing and confidential details of clients are at a higher risk of disclosure than ever. Whenever customers transact online, they are required to enter their phone number for communication purposes. Since the internet is a big place and the numbers have to be shared on different levels, clients' privacy can get compromised.
This is why businesses must take the necessary measures to keep clients' contact information from falling into the wrong hands. Leveraging a virtual number is the easiest way companies can protect customers' privacy and win their trust. Virtual numbers boast the number masking mechanism using which businesses can hide the identity of their clients and facilitate data protection. In certain business spheres like logistics and e-commerce, customers have to get in touch with the vendor, delivery person etc.
In the process of communication between company executives and clients, mobile numbers are bound to get exchanged. But the good news is that the identity of both parties can be masked with number masking. Instead of directly connecting customers to company executives, number masking technology uses a virtual number for the fulfillment of the same purpose. Temporary virtual numbers are dynamically assigned to both the agent and customer so that their actual mobile numbers do not get revealed.
Virtual numbers are programmed to connect the client to the right executive based on caller profile and other relevant factors. Once the interaction between the executive and customer is over, they cannot connect with each other via the same virtual number. This is how number masking allows businesses to prevent misuse of sensitive data and give privacy protection to their customers.
When you buy a virtual number for your business communication needs, you get to enjoy a plethora of advanced features like call forwarding and IVR (Interactive Voice Response). The virtual numbers offered by Vumber come equipped with an inbuilt voicemail system which facilitates call forwarding to either the same or different numbers. Since clients nowadays are short on time, businesses must strive to deliver quality solutions quickly. Whenever your clients need a solution for a specific query, it is crucial that they get connected to the right departments at the earliest.
Given that multiple numbers are mapped behind a virtual number, the calls can easily be forwarded to the right agents. This is made possible by the IVR system that captures the input of customers via the touch keypad on their mobile. Once the input is successfully captured, the call is routed to the appropriate recipient. Such seamless call forwarding facilities save the valuable time of customers and give companies an edge over their competitors.
In case there is no agent available to handle a conversation, the caller on the other end will hear a pre-recorded greeting. If the customer chooses to leave a voice message, it will be sent to your company's email and you can listen to it afterwards via the provider's web portal. Your business can also choose to have an all-in-one virtual customer care number to make things more convenient for clients. This could help avoid mismanagement and provide a smooth customer experience.
Call recordings can prove to be useful for organizing call history and keeping a check on the performance of your team. The best part is that almost all leading virtual number providers offer call recording as a standard feature. With a virtual number at their disposal, businesses achieve the ability to record both incoming and outgoing calls around the clock. Moreover, all the call recordings are saved in a high quality MP3 audio format and they can be accessed within seconds via the web portal. Businesses can even download all the calls that are recorded and save them in their company archive for easy accessibility.
The call recordings can later be analyzed to resolve any potential customer disputes that may arise in the near future. Reviewing recorded conversations can also help companies identify flaws in customer service and train their support agents more effectively. If a client ever complains about an unsatisfactory customer experience, you can always go through the call recordings to figure out what went wrong and how it can be rectified.
Infamous for degrading the quality of customer experience, spam calls are undoubtedly the biggest source of annoyance to clients. Since spam calls tend to be irritating, they can drive profitable clients away from your business. Companies looking to uplift customer experience must put in efforts to save their clients from getting targeted by an endless stream of unwanted calls. When clients reach out to a vendor or company executive via their real mobile number, chances are their contact details might get captured by online scammers. Uninformed customers who are unable to recognize spam calls end up becoming victims of fraud in some unfortunate cases.
But there is no need to be concerned as businesses can rely on virtual numbers to safeguard clients and keep spam calls at bay. Instead of making the actual number of clients known to agencies, businesses can share virtual numbers that would be valid only for the duration of interaction. After the interaction comes to an end, the virtual number which was previously assigned would get deallocated. This will allow you to keep the contact details of your clients confidential, hence making them less vulnerable to spam calls.
Brand recall plays a pivotal role in increasing sales and customer loyalty towards your company. A majority of business leaders unitedly agree that delivering exceptional customer service is a sure shot way to boost brand recall. Without a doubt, numbers that are difficult to remember never appeal to customers. Therefore, it is always better to employ vanity numbers to facilitate quick brand recall among customers. In simple words, vanity numbers are basically virtual numbers that have a unique sequence which makes them easy to remember.
The nicest thing is that vanity numbers can be customized as per your business requirements. Since vanity numbers boast easily rememberable numeric sequences, they can extensively enhance customer experience. Once you get a vanity number for your business, customers will find it a lot easier to reach out to you. As a result, your brand will be on the top of their mind and profits will increase by a wide margin.
Another favorable aspect of virtual mobile numbers is that they boast the "call tracking" feature which can prove pretty advantageous for businesses. With a call tracking solution, you can monitor calls in real time and gather insightful data to make smarter business decisions. The data collected by tracking calls can also help businesses identify prospective leads as well as the best performing marketing channels in a short time span. Metrics such as call volumes, caller information, duration of calls etc., can be used for evaluating the performance of your marketing campaigns.
You could even use the aforementioned metrics to measure the overall effectiveness of customer experience that your business is delivering. If utilized correctly, advanced call analytics would enable you to spot communication inefficiencies. After you have identified inefficacies in the communication process, you can implement the necessary changes and ensure better customer satisfaction.
It can be seen that companies worldwide have begun realizing the value of high quality customer experience. No matter the industry, customer experience is vital for the long-term success of any business. Quality customer service can not only help businesses land lucrative clients but can also boost revenue to a great extent. Therefore, make sure you get a virtual mobile number from Vumber to strengthen customer relationships and take your business to greater heights in less time.
