Disclaimer: Call management involves methods and tools for dealing with inbound calls to improve key performance indicators and increase productivity.

Do you run a business that implies much interaction with clients? Do your customers call you to find out the details first and then to make an appointment in the office or online? Do you provide phone consultations for your clients?

If you’ve answered “Yes” at least once, your business needs a call management system, as it is likely to benefit from it. Such business industries as health care, insurance, automotive service, cleaning service, etc., foster their customers’ loyalty through communication. Therefore, phone conversation skills as well as perfect organizational abilities in combination with powerful tools provide businesses with high levels of customer satisfaction and result in increased profit.

Learn more about the possibilities of call tracking for various industries in our blog.

What is a call management system?

A call management system is a combination of tools and methods that your business, call center, or contact center uses to process inbound calls and store the received data for further analysis. Your company may use routing possibilities to handle calls or implement an IVR menu to automate part of the tasks. Those solutions are part of your corporate call management system. Any call tracking software that marketers use to monitor the results of pay per call advertising campaigns is also included in this system. If you run a call center, call management involves staff training and opportunities for increasing general productivity. The way you transfer calls to different departments for the callers to reach a competent expert faster is also designed within a call management strategy. Therefore, a call management system helps businesses receive results from their interactions with customers over the phone.

What are the benefits of a call management system for businesses?

1. Customers are happy with the service: No one likes being put on hold. Long waiting periods make your callers feel disappointed and force them to hang up and never call back. Conversely, if you apply a smart routing plan or a well-designed IVR menu, your customers will reach a required expert faster. If your organization provides several types of services, you can easily transfer calls among several departments. This way, your employees will know what to expect from the next call, and customers will avoid long explanations of the reason for their call. Implementing a powerful call management system ensures all the details about the calls are kept safely in one place and can easily be accessed at any time. Besides, there will be no missed calls, so marketers will operate real figures about the lead generation capacity.
2. Your business saves money: Long pauses lead not only to unsatisfied customers but also to extra minutes spent on the phone. The more time your agents use, the more money your business spends. Therefore, fast and effective call transferring allows you to save money. IVR and automated routing create a positive impression on clients and enable companies to boost productivity with limited staff and automated tasks.
3. Employees master their skills: Call management implies conducting call recordings. Therefore, managers can listen to the conversations and assess their employees’ performance. Furthermore, call recordings can be used as case studies for training purposes. As a result, call management allows any company to operate as a connected unit, assessing and improving processes iteratively.
4. Success attends your business: It is no surprise that if your business manages to satisfy customers’ expectations, if the employees are motivated, and if you know the costs and possibilities, commercial success will not take long. It means that your business will gradually improve performance and receive positive feedback from customers. Call management software is able to accelerate this process and assist with your business tasks.

How does call management software work?

Call management software includes handling inbound calls, analyzing the data received from them, monitoring the performance of the current advertising campaigns, and routing options.

Typically, a business employs several online and offline advertising campaigns. Allocating them with virtual phone numbers allows marketers to track their performance. When customers call, analytics reflect the number of generated leads, the location of the callers, and costs per lead. Besides, call recordings provide advertisers with relevant keywords that can be used in the ads to attract more of the similar customers. The data from the analytics is used for optimizing campaigns and training staff. Further solutions regarding the implementation of the routing options can be taken to improve the performance and automate the most typical requests.

All of the above mentioned processes are included in the call management strategy that can be implemented either by the experts of the team or with the help of special programs and software.

Main features of call management system

1. Call analytics: When a customer calls you, you wish to make a conversion. You are interested in selling your product or service, first of all. You are focused on the process of a phone talk and the aim of it. Thus, you are unlikely to ask additional questions to find out the details that are important for you as a marketer but may seem irritating to your interlocutor. That’s why analytical data about inbound calls is so crucial. Analytics provide marketers with details about a target consumer, their geographical location, and the ad that generated a call. If you have used a dynamic number insertion method while setting up the campaigns, you will also see the customer journey from the Google request and through the pages of your website. All this data enables you to optimize the campaigns and expect them to bring more leads.
2. Call recording: This is a logical and simple way to get insights from conversations with customers. Listen for the calls several times. First, you will hear the keywords your target customers use. Second, you will understand if your agents need additional training. Check out the rules and regulations regarding recording sensitive and personal data in your country. This is especially important for the health care and banking industries. In most cases, you are allowed to record calls if you notify your callers about the process and mention the reason for it. Customers’ feedback is gold for business owners, so talk to them and try to find out what they think. But avoid being too pushy, though. Try talking to them as to your acquaintances and read between the lines.
3. IVR: Interactive voice response systems are often used by huge corporations that receive hundreds of inbound calls each day. With the help of IVR, they direct calls to relevant departments or automate the most typical requests. This is handy for banking services, for instance, when a person calls to find out the balance or to block the card.However, small and medium-sized businesses can also benefit from implementing an IVR menu. The automated help of a virtual assistant is useful, and there is no need to pay a salary. Besides, callers can request a call back, and your business will never miss leads. If you have international clients, a multilingual IVR will add a point. In general, an IVR menu contributes to the image of a reliable organization.
4. Call routing: If your agents work in shifts, call routing is a convenient way to assign the calls. If one of the agents is unavailable, the call is forwarded to another person. The transfer is reflected in the analytics. Therefore, it is always clear who interacted with the caller and what the outcome was. Repeated calls are also visible in the call log. Call routing enables setting limits on the number of calls or the working hours. It may be useful if some of the agents work part time or if you have a trainee among the staff.
5. CRM integration: Any call management system should be seamlessly integrated into a corporate CRM system. As a result, experts will be able to easily manage all processes, monitor lead generation and campaign performance, as well as keep track of existing customers and accompany them through the sales funnel. Every new member of the team should be able to quickly get into the working process and figure out how everything is arranged. This situation is possible only with reliable software applied by the company and its careful maintenance. In this post, we have compiled a list of tools and programs that complement each other perfectly. It includes both open-source solutions and commercial projects.

Examples of call management software

Nextiva: Nextiva is a call management system that allows a business to handle 525 calls in the line. The software helps to improve the performance of the agents and to complement the staff with virtual assistants. Nextiva is a cloud-based solution, which is why the capacity of inbound calls is huge and the team members can work remotely. Besides, the analytical data is immediately available to all the parties involved. Interactions with clients can be performed through any channel. The features include:

• IVR
• Call queueing
• Automated call routing
• Analytics dashboard

Aircall: Aircall claims to have 8,500 satisfied customers. Aircall is a cloud-based solution ideal for support and sales teams. The software is easily integrated with all modern CRM systems, such as Salesforce, Zoho, HubSpot, Zendesk, and others. Aircall creates conditions for fast and easy growth and team extension. The analytical data allows marketers to monitor both individual affiliates and whole teams of experts. The features are:

• Real-time analytical data
• IVR
• Routing
• Coaching
• Click-to-dial

Dialpad: Dialpad is a complete platform to organize productive communication among team members and clients. It exploits artificial intelligence for recognizing speech and language processing. Dilapad offers useful opportunities to improve interaction with customers for businesses of all sizes and from various industries. The functionality includes tools for video conferencing, business communication, contact center, and sales department. The features are:

• Built-in analytics
• Call routing
• IVR
• Automated follow-up messaging
• VoIP services
• Power Dialer

How can Dialics help?

Dialics is a call tracking and analytics software. Our customers are call centers, sole affiliates, marketing agencies, small and medium-sized businesses, and enterprises. Dialics is a software designed specifically for tracking the results of pay per call campaigns. We offer four types of virtual phone numbers (local, mobile, toll-free, and international) that advertisers can assign to their ads. Instant analytics reflect the results and enable immediate optimization. The data about the calls is kept in the call log, so contact details of the callers as well as call recordings can be used for further purposes.

Dialics encompasses the functionality of a complete call management system. Available features are:

• IVR
• Automated routing
• Dynamic number insertion
• Integration with any popular CRM system
• Spam blocking
• Setting international campaigns
• Agents management

A free trial period allows exploration of the functionality in detail and without restrictions. Please feel free to request a demo. Our technical staff will be pleased to show you around and answer any questions.

Conclusion

The digital world we live in provides us with various means of communication. Businesses have to adapt to make sure they offer customers their favorite channels of interaction. Phone calls, messengers, SMS, email, social media, live chats, and other possibilities should be available. All of them need decent maintenance to not miss a single lead and to cater to customer expectations.

Call management systems are able to guarantee omnichannel support for businesses of all kinds. The success of a business, as well as the conversion rates, highly depends on the quality of communication with the clientele. Therefore, it is important to carefully study the requirements, set the aims, and finally choose appropriate and reliable software to achieve success.