Telesales Channel is being heavily in use for marketing since the last few years. I am sure all of us would have received enough and more number of calls from Credit Card and Mobile phone operators and cursed out wits out for individual privacy abuse.

These days, customers’ privacy is being handled with uttermost care. Regulators have deployed rules/mechanisms to handle consumer privacy violations – it includes mandatory DND registrations on web pages, choosing an “No marketing communication” field in application forms etc. As a result, there is a considerable amount of effort that has started going into designing effective customer interaction strategies. Tranforming service-based incoming calls to sales-calls is a key item in the agenda as the call is initiated by the consumer and not by the organization. So, there is no violation of privacy and almost no cost for communication.

Leading organizations have provided the facility of a Toll free number to ensure the consumer do not think twice to make a call. However, from the organization’s perspective any such initiative that leads them to bear the cost should be leveraged in an optimal fashion. One way to handle this is transforming the incoming service calls to sales calls. But to ensure success, firstly, the consumer should get served well on his service request in a best possible way.

In the following entry, I present one of the ways that could play a vital role in ensuring customer satisfaction in an inbound service call scenario.

Currently, organizations have segmented the customers and ensured the call routing time and the executive differs from segment to segment i.e., if you are a high-value customer, the likelihood of you staying on call-hold is relatively lower than a normal customer and the executive you will be talking to will not be a rookie.

To take a step-ahead, for high-value-segment customers, IVR and Call Routing system should register a few preferences set by the customer in IVR system (language preference for example) and the following list of information in its database to ensure the customer calling for the second time with in a stipulated duration get to talk to the same executive he had spoken with in the previous call, this will faciliate dialogue consistency and reduced AHT.

Items to be registered

• Originating telephone number
• Segment you belong to and associated score
• Options pressed in IVR
• Terminal address of the executive to whom the call was diverted
• Duration of the call

When you call your service provider to understand something or seeking a solution to a particular issue, you would need to spend sometime explaining to the executive your requirement/problem. Basis your inputs and explanation, the executive is going to provide you a right solution and directions to get the same done.

Now, after you hung up, if you have another question associated to the same subject, you rather speak to the same executive instead of starting from scratch with a new one – In today’s scenario, it does not happen. And, leads to serious irritation as he has to repeat the whole story once again. Even worse, if he had to call a multiple times.. (I have called my cell phone service provider a few weeks ago and said the same thing at least 20 times, in one day)

In the suggested model..

Should the customer call once again; the system refers to the above information (refer bulleted list) and tries to route you to the same executive without having to press too many options in IVR. If the particular executive is not available or busy on another call, a recorded message states that he/she is on another call and it would take “Y” number of minutes (basis buffered AHT index) to connect, or optionally you can speak to another executive.

If this model is executed well by thoroughly considering all the facets, it will have a positive impact on customer satisfaction index. That would translate to increased share-of-wallet by transforming inbound service-calls to sales-calls.