10 Essential Ways Your Business Phone System Can Improve Your Customers’ Experience

In today’s competitive business environment, customer expectations are at an all-time high. They demand swift responses, top-tier care, and consistent professionalism. Consequently, organizations need to ensure their business phone system is up to the task, delivering a seamless experience both internally and externally.

Are you confident that your business phone system meets today’s customer expectations and elevates your customer experience? Use the following checklist to determine if your business communications give your customers and prospects the experience they expect:

Customer Experience – Accessibility and Professionalism

1. Intelligent Call Routing: Customers should reach your team anywhere, anytime. With smart call queues and multi-channel routing, avoid sending calls straight to voicemail and keep personal cell numbers private.
2. Configurable Caller ID: Ensure outbound calls display your company’s main number, even when made from personal devices, fostering trust and professionalism while keeping your employee’s personal cell phone number private.
3. CRM Integration and AI Automated Call Transcription: Linking your phone system with your CRM aids in automatic call transcription and records customer interactions, keeping a consistent communication history.
4. Multiple Contact Avenues: Allow customers to choose their preferred method of communication, be it SMS text, phone call, or others.
5. Effortless Call Escalation: Quickly turn phone conversations into a more comprehensive interaction using platforms like Zoom or Teams with video and desktop sharing.
6. Chatbot Support: Provide immediate answers using a website chatbot, helping with straightforward self-service queries or channeling more complex issues to human support.
7. Feedback Mechanism: Integrated survey tools to consistently gather and analyze customer feedback.

Employee Features

1. Hybrid Work Flexibility: Empower employees to manage calls and texts from any location on any device.
2. Comprehensive Call Records: Access call histories, listen to or read voicemail transcriptions, and manage return calls on any device.
3. Simplified Internal Communications: An integrated directory facilitates quick connections within the team.
4. Collaborative Tools: Boost team synergy with integrated team chat channels, voice/video calls, and screen sharing.
5. Seamless Call Transfers: Swiftly switch calls between various devices without disruptions.
6. Calendar Integration: Sync your phone system with popular calendars like Outlook or Gmail.
7. Integration with External Apps: Seamlessly blend third-party applications into the system. For instance, a real estate firm could integrate Docusign to facilitate immediate contract signatures during engagements.

Management Tools

1. User-Friendly Set-Up: Enable quick and hassle-free setup for users in any location without specialized IT knowledge.
2. AI-Powered Transcriptions: Use voice-to-text technology to auto-fill CRM notes.
3. Employee Activity Insights: Monitor employee phone activities on both their desk and mobile phones in real-time, providing comprehensive data on call metrics (number of inbound calls, outbound calls, completed calls, missed calls, call time, etc.).
4. Training and Quality Control:

• • The ability to listen, whisper, barge, or take over an active engagement is critical with managing and training a hybrid workforce.
  • AI conversation analytics to help provide feedback and coaching and ensure adherence to company policies. For example, track talking speed, talk-listen ratio, questions asked, sentiment score, engagement score, and the average number of filler words (um, ah).

5. Robust Compliance Tools: Set protocols for downloading or deleting call recordings, ensuring security and policy adherence.

These are merely the foundational business phone features essential for today’s consumers and hybrid workforce, with numerous specialized functions tailored for sectors such as healthcare, financial services, retail, manufacturing, hospitality, real estate, transportation, and utilities.

In conclusion, a superior business phone system isn’t just about making and receiving calls; it’s about fostering connections, building trust, and ensuring streamlined operations for optimal customer experience.

If your current phone system offers fewer than eight of these features, it’s time to consider an upgrade. The return on investment will be substantial. Ensuring your customers and prospects can reach you on their terms is crucial; otherwise, you risk losing them to your competitors.