Switchboard
The Switchboard Service has all the features of our Live Call Answering general reception service, but offers additional lookup facilities to meet the needs of companies that have more than 20 nominated staff on the service, or want calls directed to numerous branches, departments or franchises.
Some clients literally have calls for more than a thousand outlets coming to us under the one screen account with this service. With database development you can also centrally track your sales or service enquiries going to multiple locations as well as the performance of concurrent marketing campaigns. It all depends on how your service is devised – so much is possible.
While we charge to set up your service and any IT development that we undertake for you, there are still no ongoing contracts required for this service.
Standard features include:
- We work to your scripts and protocols and log each call as it is taken;
- We can answer FAQs and will actively seek out the information that you ask us to collect with courtesy and tact;
- We can announce the caller’s details and conference the call to an individual, department, branch or franchise, as required;
- We can send you messages by email, SMS, fax or pager;
- You can post messages for the operators handling your calls via your Client Portal;
- Self-service reporting is available so that you can export your call logs as Excel files at any time;
- Portable 1300 and 1800 numbers are available;
- You can send any number of lines to the one screen account provided that the greeting is the same and the call handling is in place to answer these calls;
- Your choice of service delivery – 24x7 in Australia or high quality yet lower cost options offshore.
Store Locator
This service can support your marketing campaigns. We can use your website facility to look up the nearest outlet to the caller, or we can develop a database application for your service.
Often these are map or postcode-based programs, and ideally they provide key information about the outlet such as their hours, specialties, service area and contact details.
Depending on what you find useful, we could:
- Direct the caller of the nearest outlet;
- Log their enquiry to your database or website;
- Use a sales enquiry template to take a message and send this to your head office and/or branch; or
- Conference the call through to your sales people during business hours.
Reception Support
Under the Switchboard Service you can outsource all your reception for a company or division; outsource a particular function (for example, sales enquiries); or use us to provide overflow and after hours support for your internal contact centre.
Many companies find it cheaper to staff for average call volumes and then outsource their after hours calls and call overflows at the busiest times during business hours’ than to employ additional staff to take these calls.
Other ways you can use this service:
- Divert your calls to us when everyone is in a staff meeting;
- As a convenient alternative to employing a temp when your receptionist is away – your protocols are already in place so you can divert your calls to us at any time; and
- As a backup for when your systems are down.
Value Added Services
In addition to IT development to customise your service, the following other service options are available:
Back Office Outbound
Irrespective of the service level you select, supplementary back office support is available to all our clients for routine tasks or project work.
This is undertaken by senior staff at our Customer Service Centre in Manila, and can include:
- Customer service or debtor follow up;
- Market research or database cleansing project work;
- Generation of simple quotes;
- Live Chat and website enquiry response support.
Order taking and Webassist Services
General reception work can include answering FAQs, but under these service levels, we can also log into your system and undertake Level 1 customer service support.
Tasks may include:
- Logging an order to your website or answering more detailed product questions;
- Logging a service request on your system;
- We can also custom develop complete job allocation systems under this service level.
Escalation Support
If some service requests require trades or technical call out of staff or contractors, we can handle this under this service level.
Hosted Solutions
You also have the option of moving to a hosted solution whereby we employ, train and manage dedicated staff trained in your systems.
This can be cheaper and more effective when you have high call volumes and require greater depth of knowledge to handle your enquiries.
