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Different Call Handling Techniques

Guest post by: Nicolas DAlleva

Article Overview: The secret to a successful call center is knowing proper call handling techniques. These techniques are the key to making an answering service run smoothly.

Different Call Handling Techniques

There is so much thought and planning that goes into many aspects of a business. Sales teams meet and discuss goals. The financial status of the company is always a front burner issue. Memos fly and minds get together to try to trim the budget. Human resources often spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours creating employee policies. Advertising and marketing is constantly working to gain a competitive edged in the marketplace. But, what is often overlooked is the call handling techniques of a company. What to do when the phones ring is, in many companies, taken for granted. How hard can it be? The phone rings and you answer it. What more is there to it than that? Hello. Can I Help You?

When the phone rings in your office it is "go time". The goal of every company is sales. The phone call is the front door into your office. So much planning and meeting goes into the process of making the phone call ring. Yet, a mishandled telephone call can have disastrous results. This is why it is extremely important that a business has properly mapped out a plan for call handling techniques. Failing to plan how each call should be handled is like setting a plan to fail. With the proper planning, training and implementation, call handling techniques can be smoothly integrated into any business model to ensure success.

In House Call Handling Techniques

Some companies can handle their telephone calls in house, or right there within their office space. This technique is something that allows on site supervision and, if done properly, can be extremely effective. In house call answering allows the employees of the company to field phone calls, address inquiries and troubleshoot problems. Accounts payable and receivable can be handled seamlessly and the caller can have almost any need met during the phone call. While this method works well, it can often times be costly. Employing telephone staff, receptionists and secretaries is a costly undertaking. Businesses that sustain a steady call volume are usually the most likely to utilize in house call handling. These companies can get their monies worth by keeping the staff busy.

Outsourced Call Handling Techniques

Companies that do not have enough call volume to sustain a telephone staff, or in house call center; will often choose to outsource their call handling techniques. These companies will utilize and answering service, a call center or contact center to help maintain their telephone calls. While this is a cost effective method, there is often subtleties of the business relationship that are lost when the calls are no longer taken in house. While these call centers have access to the very same data and information that one has in the office, the interpersonal relationship between the business and the client is often severed. Answering Services and call center are becoming more commonplace in these equations, which allows for more continuity in dealing with the clients and becoming the face of the company.

Often time's companies will choose the best of both worlds, opting for a combination of in house and outsourced call handling techniques. The answering service, call center and contact center works in tandem with each office sharing the load of calls, and utilizing each other's skills to create the ideal solution. This method, if implemented properly can provide cost savings along with optimal efficiency of call handling. This hybrid relationship can work differently based on the time of day or change of call volume.

Regardless of how a company chooses to handle their telephone calls, a plan must be in place to do so. Call handling techniques may seem to be obvious, but attention is needed for every detail. Techniques can be constantly altered based on thorough review of each and every situation. A company's telephone strategy should always be evolving and progressing. Companies must look within and without to find answers, methods and strategies for call handling techniques.

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Article Tags: answering service, call center, call handling, phone answering



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Re: Bad SEO techniques? - There are few more techniques which also known as the Bad SEO Techniques or Black Hat SEO Techniques. Such as: - Relying on keyword metatags - Purchase Links (From Spamming or blacklisted sites or doing purchase links on high level for site marketing) - Horde Page Rank: This is one of my favorites, because it's one that most webmasters don't understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites "leaks page rank" from your site. However, the world has changed. - Swap Links: Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It's a waste of your time - Implement duplicate content - Use Session IDs on your URLs - Use lots of Javascript - Implement your site in Flash
Re: Bad SEO techniques? - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":1jr37kqx]There are few more techniques which also known as the Bad SEO Techniques or Black Hat SEO Techniques. Such as: - Relying on keyword metatags - Purchase Links (From Spamming or blacklisted sites or doing purchase links on high level for site marketing) - Horde Page Rank: This is one of my favorites, because it's one that most webmasters don't understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites "leaks page rank" from your site. However, the world has changed. - Swap Links: Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It's a waste of your time - Implement duplicate content - Use Session IDs on your URLs - Use lots of Javascript - Implement your site in Flash[/quote:1jr37kqx] Hi Jeff, Thanks for adding to the list. I have one question, though. How would one implement Session IDs for a URL, and what benefit would come from doing so?
Re: Bad SEO techniques? - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":1a8vvwse]There are few more techniques which also known as the Bad SEO Techniques or Black Hat SEO Techniques. Such as: - Relying on keyword metatags - Purchase Links (From Spamming or blacklisted sites or doing purchase links on high level for site marketing) - Horde Page Rank: This is one of my favorites, because it's one that most webmasters don't understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites "leaks page rank" from your site. However, the world has changed. - Swap Links: Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It's a waste of your time - Implement duplicate content - Use Session IDs on your URLs - Use lots of Javascript - Implement your site in Flash[/quote:1a8vvwse] I wouldn't think of "relying on keyword metatags", "using lots of javascript", and "implementing your site in Flash" as bad/black hat...just ineffective. The search engines don't pay much attention to keyword metatags, and using javascript/flash just means the search engines can't "read" it (so if your menu is javascript, for instance, the search engine won't see any keywords you might have in there.)
Hiring the best people for the job - One of the hardest things I had to do as an entrepreneur was to give up control over a project to someone else. Currently, I am having a professional design my website for me. Sure I can do it myself, or hire someone to do it how I tell them, but what would I learn? Handling the technological side of the business is not my strong suit, so i had to find someone who knew more about the subject than I did and also has done what I want to do before. It has been a learning experience, and the great thing about it is it frees me up to do what I do best in my business, and letting someone else do what they do best. I have been brought up with the mindset that [i:vazquuoz]if you want it done right you [/i:vazquuoz][i:vazquuoz]have to do it yourself[/i:vazquuoz]. I am slowly but surely weening myself away from that mindset and learning how to delegate more effectively. Now I am extremely selective on who I hire, and my goal is to surround myself around people who are smarter than myself in their area of expertise.
Re: need pricing help please - I agree that allowing customers to choose digital or physical product delivery is a good idea. If you are handling large volumes of orders then outsourcing the process is an excellent idea. Handling physical orders yourself is a demanding occupation, as I know from experience, but on the other hand, if you are doing it on a small scale it also gives you some good opportunities to personalize your service with hand written compliment notes and so forth. Also, you can learn a lot from your customers if you deal with them through every part of the sales process. Once sales volume picks up, outsource the operation - you'll probably save money as well as time. DH


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