Jola Cloud Solutions' Blog

Why do you need to improve your internal call handling?

According to a recent American Express survey, 78% of customers have terminated a purchase they were going to make because of poor customer service. 96% of customers won’t report bad service, choosing to buy from someone else instead. On average loyal customers are worth up to 10 times their original purchase and a key factor in keeping a customer loyal is their satisfaction when they contact you. These statistics raise the important of effective call handling to help retain and build loyal customers. With this in mind we have compiled 5 ways to improve business call handling as follows:

1. Set a target for answering calls – of course it would be easy to answer all calls within two rings just by hiring more staff but this is probably not commercially feasible. The industry standard target for business to business call centres is 80% of calls answered within 20 seconds with the best performing above 90%. Balance what your customers expect against what is affordable and make sure everyone understands these targets.

Buying a telephone system used to be a headache for businesses that needed more functionality, expected to grow or had spikes in demand.

Higher specification systems that could do things like CRM integration, call recording, advanced statistics, intelligent call routing and advanced call handling were designed for large Enterprises and came with a large Enterprise price tag. For growing or seasonal organisations the dilemma was also what size of system to go for. Do they pay through the nose for a system now that will accommodate their needs during peaks in demand (e.g. Christmas) or for the number of staff they might have in 12 months time? Or do they go through the disruption and expense of upgrading nearer the time? What if they had to scale back, move office or simply didn’t grow as quickly as they had anticipated? Then they were stuck with an overhead they just didn’t need and probably couldn't afford. Also SMEs want to spend their capital on acquiring and growing customers, not on infrastructure. What if there were a reliable alternative where they could get everything they needed CAPEX-free and only pay for what they use? Now there is.

It is Christmas week. Many of us are packing up our suitcases and getting ready for a well-earned Christmas break. Those running their own businesses will pack their laptop and keep an eye on their emails often with the odd complaint from a family member.

The capabilities of wireless IP phones have advanced since the first DECT standards were introduced by ETSI in 1992. IP DECT phones enable you to take advantage of VoIP technology with the added ability to roam from a single location. They are ideal for those constantly on the move from their desk such as warehouse operatives. We review the Yealink W52P DECT phone solution below.

Summary
The VVX310 and VVX410 Polycom VoiP phones are easy to use and solid workhorses for employees in any kind of business. The VVX500 model is a higher-end phone in the line-up and represents the latest in VoIP phone technology. These phones are sharp looking, high-tech and are reflective of Polycom's leadership in the marketplace. This series of Polycom phones will serve businesses well and take advantage of everything business VoIP has to offer.

If you are looking for the best Premium Broadsoft bundles in the marketplace you may want to consider Jola. Jola has recently launched three new bundles which include a Premium licence and a leading Polycom handset.

There are over 5000 scaffolding companies registered in the UK employing over 30,000 people according to IBISWorld’s Scaffolding Services market research report, conducted in December last year. The report suggests market revenues of over £3bn with no companies having a dominent market share. Why are so many switching to hosted voice?

There are over 20,000 nursing homes in the UK providing residential care to older people, with an average of 40 residents per home. Qualified nurses provide care to residents, some of whom are eligible for NHS funding with the rest being privately funded.

Quality of care is a primary focus and some nursing homes are introducing IT to help improve communication.

One of Jola's Partners recently installed fibre broadband into a nursing home with four sites in Reading. They replaced the existing phone lines and installed four phones into each site. They also provided staff with tablets loaded with appropriate software to log medical notes. The care homes are now all on one phone system and key nursing staff use their mobiles as a desk extension to make and receive calls on the go.

Have you ever had a customer ring you up in a panic needing a phone system double quick?

It happens more often that you might think. Moving offices can be as stressful as moving house and with so much to think about telephony often falls through the cracks. Growing businesses with new starters and nowhere to seat them, often need to find premises quickly and be up and running in days. 

A recent SIR report revealed that in the majority of cases SMEs are asking their IT support company for advice when considering hosted solutions. This is probably because after a voice reseller supplies a PBX they often have little to do with the SME except to supply new handsets and fix the occasional issue. The data company on the other hand is often ‘embedded’ with their customers; patching servers, installing software and supporting their desktop hardware and applications. Most SMEs would not dare run anything (like hosted telephony) over their LAN without first consulting with their IT support company. Another channel to watch out for is mobile. These guys often have thousands of SME end users and, in a saturated and competitive market, they are keen to find something else to sell them. With teams of well trained and hungry sales people and with no legacy base of ‘tin’ to protect they are quickly building large bases of hosted telephony seats.