Making and answering calls is at the heart of business success, since customer service is one of the biggest drivers of your company’s growth. From outbound sales to inbound help lines, the ability to quickly and efficiently communicate with your customer base is imperative. To fulfill this need, companies often implement automated calling systems that can handle large volumes of calls.
Automation has enabled business owners like you to connect with prospective and existing customers at scale, enhancing overall efficiency and effectiveness. These calling systems have wide-reaching uses across industries, including telemarketing, debt collection, and claims processing. Accessing automated call systems through a strategic call center partner can help you refine your business operations and transform your customer interactions.
What Are Automated Calling Systems?
Automated calling systems are software programs that contact your prospective and existing customers from a list of numbers and guide them through a phone call using prompts without human intervention. Call centers leverage automation to complement and support their outbound teams.
Sometimes, the call will start by playing a pre-recorded message, then connect the recipient to a human representative once they respond to a prompt. Automated calling systems can also independently guide customers through certain processes without any human input at all. Finally, they can deliver pre-recorded messages without requiring any further engagement from the call recipient.
For example, a company may use automation in accounting and collections, such as to contact customers with outstanding balances. The system could use a variety of phone-based prompts to look up the customer account, update payment information, and send a payment confirmation. If the customer needed assistance at any point, they could push a button or say a specific phrase to be transferred to an actual representative. Or the system could simply confirm that the customer is on the line and then connect them to a human rep immediately.
The Importance of Automated Phone Calls for Businesses
Leveraging automation allows companies like yours to save significant amounts of time on customer outreach. By letting these systems make first contact, human representatives are able to use their time wisely. With a call center or nearshore contact center that combines automation with knowledgeable representatives, your business can improve its outreach, enhance its marketing, and handle its administrative duties more effectively.
Key Use Cases for Automated Outbound Calls
There are many ways to use automated calling to reach more customers and make your business more efficient. Businesses in several industries, such as finance, real estate, and healthcare, use automatic calling to manage their customer interactions. Here are just a few of the functions that this type of technology can support.
Appointment Setting
Automated calling is a helpful tool for scheduling and managing appointments. Customers can go through a set of prompts to set up an appointment or confirm their attendance. Businesses can also schedule outgoing calls to remind customers of an upcoming appointment automatically. This is particularly common for companies in the healthcare industry, as healthcare providers need to set several appointments each day. Automated appointment-setting calls are also common in the real estate industry for coordinating showings and walk-throughs.
Lead Generation
Your business can use automated calls for lead generation to make first contact with prospective clients. Lead generation is all about confirming a potential customer’s interest and guiding them through the sales pipeline. By automating telemarketing calls and lead generation messages, companies can build lists of qualified leads, which they can then pass on to sales representatives.
Debt Collection
Automated calling is a critical tool when it comes to managing customer payments. Banks, financial institutions, and debt collectors rely on these calling systems to remind customers of payments and collect outstanding payments. Automated debt collection calls and payment processing messages help keep customers updated about their financial obligations without requiring your company to spend valuable time chasing down every unpaid invoice.
Gathering Feedback
Companies can use automated calling systems to reach out to customers and seek feedback about their experiences. By sending pre-recorded surveys over the phone, they can keep customers engaged and collect valuable data about their products and services. Then, they can aggregate the customer responses to look for areas of improvement.
How to Use Automated Calls to Grow Your Business
Follow these steps to implement the power of automated calling in your business:
1. Research Call Centers
Automated call systems are typically a part of larger call center systems. By outsourcing your customer contact to a call center, you can get immediate access to their in-depth automation systems. They’ll have flows and structures in place to help route calls, guide customers through each interaction, and provide your business with the results of the calls as needed.
Research different call center solutions and look for an option with strong automation tools and a robust team of representatives. Look for providers with experience in your industry so you can leverage their expertise when introducing this strategy to your business.
2. Discuss Your Automation Needs
As you get started with call center outsourcing, communicate with your call center provider about the level of automation you’re seeking. Outline which situations require human assistance and which ones could rely fully on automation. Your provider can provide expert guidance on the best way to handle different processes for your business, depending on standards in your field.
3. Create Custom Prompts
When first partnering with a call center, you’ll need to provide them with key information about your operations so they can develop the right automated calling system for you. This can involve writing custom prompts and pre-recorded call center scripts to keep customers engaged with your brand, even when working through a third-party business process outsourcing partner.
Leveraging Call Centers for Automated Calling
Implementing automated calling in your business is easy when you work with the right call center. Confie BPO has extensive expertise that spans multiple industries and business functions, so we can work with you to develop calling systems across your entire enterprise.
Contact a Confie BPO call center expert at 800-684-2276 or contact us online to learn more about how our business process outsourcing services can streamline your operations.
