Is poor communication affecting your productivity?

It’s been widely reported that the UK is one of the most unproductive countries in Europe (BBC), and experts point the finger at three main causes: limited investment in technology, an uneducated workforce, and poor staff management.

Addressing poor staff management, one of the most effective ways that managers can increase employee engagement is through clear and effective internal communications (Rapidbi).

There are a ton of statistics to back this statement up. 91% of companies with internal communication problems tend to find motivation at low level (MaxComm). Less motivated employees are usually less engaged, and studies show that companies with less engaged employees are 43% less productive than businesses with them (BrandonGaille).

Employees who feel more connected with the company they work for are 20-25% more productive (Enplug), and companies described as highly effective communicators achieved a 47% higher return compared to those considered the least effective communicators (Watson).

Despite this, 50% of employees feel their companies are not investing heavily enough in the right communication channels with them (TheSocialWorkplace).

What’s being used now?

Most businesses rely on email as a channel to transfer information, but what happens when  the information being communicated is mission critical or requires an instant response? Relying on email alone could leave many requests with a late response or left completely unanswered due to the low open and response rates email suffers from, and in urgent circumstances that can cause big problems.

How could you communicate better?

Nearly 70% of employees think their organisation should use text messaging to communicate with them, while 86% state it shouldn’t just be reserved for customer communications (Vitiello). Personalisation of messages to staff also plays a huge role in increasing their engagement, a great way to maintain motivation).

As a quick and easy way to contact staff, SMS benefits from open rates of 98% and an average response time of 90 seconds (Digital Marketing). SMS messages are as easy to tailor to an individual as they are to send to the whole workforce, perfect for critical communications.

Give your employees a voice with SMS Surveys, enabling your business to gain feedback and valuable insights to help motivation. Employees are twice as likely to be disengaged if they feel they’re being ignored (Hubspot), so SMS Surveys is a great way to show your staff how much you value their opinions.

For more information on using our product suite to enhance your communication with and among staff then please do not hesitate to contact a member of our team on 0345 356 5758.

5 common mistakes to avoid with Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

Call centres are conquering more territory than ever in various verticals, having grown from customer care gateway to being implemented in feedback, payment processing and even promotion.

With the main task of serving the customer, through sales, support or market research departments, it is essential that good contact centres are able to handle large, simultaneous call volumes allowing them to be responsive to the customer’s needs, while being adaptable to changing budgets and in turn lowering costs.

By intelligently automating the way that your business greets, communicates and supports its customers, you can better understand what your callers need all before they reach a live agent.

But what mistakes should you avoid when implementing your Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system?

1. Too much information

As the starting point for your customers, your IVR should provide your caller with the information or solution they require, quickly. The human memory can often run out of the capacity to listen after more than 5 options (Customer Think) which is why providing unnecessary ones will only confuse the caller and leave them frustrated.

Your customers are looking for an immediate response and will likely abandon their call if they don’t get one. Is your IVR customer-centric and user-friendly?

2. Limited hours

IVRs are designed to assist operational efficiency and service. The everyday consumer now expects to access information via the internet 24/7 and they are gradually expecting the same of businesses too (Customer Think). Not providing an out-of-hours service misses this opportunity. Fill the void that is missing outside of the typical 9-5 by providing a basic self-serve option for more routine queries with the option for a call back.

3. No self-service option

In the case of payments, collections or balance enquiries the absence of personalised systems can often lead to frustrations in the way a customer’s call is handled. Is it time to upgrade your existing IVR system? Can your current system pull through personalised information to enable them to be redirected to a more applicable set of options?

Automating and implementing a self-service Interactive Voice solution should enable the customer to get the information and response they require in an effortless manner without the need for agent contact.  

4. Avoiding dynamic menus

Ensure that your menus are designed with the customer’s time in mind. Providing every caller with identical menu sets that ignores the previous engagements of the customer is frustrating. Improve your caller experiences by delivering more personal options based on previous interactions, routing the call appropriately.

5. No call-back option

The most important aspect of an IVR is to never waste a customer’s time. While an IVR cannot resolve every customer query it can offer a solution to get them solved quicker. This is when placing them in a virtual queue is not the solution. Always provide the option to request a call-back or speak with an agent. Where this is not an option for your business, consider our Voice Callback solution.

For further IVR or Voice service guidance, or to discuss your business communication needs contact our team on 0345 356 5758.

Automate customer contact with Esendex Voice

While many consumers are looking to save money at the start of a new year, so too are businesses, and in the midst of the financial year, big savings are always welcomed. Whether your customers are looking to save money by switching utility providers, renew membership packages or repaying debts accrued over Christmas, before interest hits – communication with them is key.

Introducing an automated Voice solution to your business could be a potential fix to your existing contact strategy. Cutting the amount of time your contact center staff spend on the phone and in turn the amount of money your business spends on wasted minutes, all while improving processes.

Integrating our Voice Broadcasting platform to your existing system is simple using pre-recorded message options from a real person rather than a computer processed voice. With the option to include several numbers in each of your customer’s records, you can prioritise the time of day certain numbers are attempted for maximum effect. Use to increase your customer’s satisfaction, by serving gentle reminders about renewals, offers or even payments which are overdue, all without the embarrassment of having to speak to contact centre staff about private information or unnecessary lengths in conversations.

Where contract or membership renewals are due offer a gentle, well-timed reminder in the form of a voice callback, sent by SMS, with a dedicated call handler on the other end or through an interactive voice messaging solution. This provides the customer with various options including contact where an agent’s assistance is required. Perfect for handling large call volumes and collecting more payments or processing more renewals at a time of year when they often decrease.

Voice can also be used to reward frequent customers by promoting various loyalty scheme events or offers through simple automation.  Consider integrating Voice Broadcasts or Interactive Voice with SMS, email and even web to create multi-channel campaigns.

Customers can receive a text message detailing their account and prompting a response, to which they can schedule calls for times convenient to them, avoiding queues and premium rates which all encourage them to keep their account or custom with you.

For more information on the various Voice services or other products that we offer to help automate your contact strategy this year, please contact the team on 0345 356 5758.

3 reasons to love Esendex

Here at Esendex we’re passionate about making business communication better. Our customers large and small love our solutions and the results our services help them to achieve. To help you decide on a business communication provider that goes the extra mile, we’ve put together an infographic illustrating 3 of the many reasons to love Esendex:

Copy and paste the code to embed this image on your website or blog

<a href='https://www.esendex.co.uk' 
title='Digital transformation'>
<img src='https://www.esendex.co.uk/blog/3-reasons-to-love-esendex.jpg'
title='Digital transformation - Are local government ready?'
alt='Digital transformation infographic' /></a>

Never miss a conversation with voice callbacks

Nowadays we’re constantly on the move, whether that’s at work, shopping, exercising or on the school run, it’s becoming more difficult for businesses to have meaningful conversations with their customers.

Businesses are generally faced with two options, either call their customers at a time that may not be convenient, or customers can call in and wait to connect to an agent – when time is so valuable, neither option is effective.

Voice callbacks are transforming this process. Customers can reply to a text message or text a shortcode to receive an instant or scheduled callback. Not only is it more convenient, but calling when you know they’re available leads to more valuable conversations.

This communication tool is versatile and can be used across a variety of industries to make it easier for your customers to get in touch, from debt collection and financial services to public sector and retail. Whether they need to make a payment or have a query on a housing or loan application, voice callbacks help you to become more efficient.

In order to truly keep your customers happy you need to make interacting easy with a variety of touchpoints available. Take a look at our SMS, voice, web and multichannel solutions today for inspiration.