Follow up those forms with a phone call!

DestinationCRM.com reports that a simple phone number on the webform can increase customer contact where good "follow on" leads to sales. So, either put your number on them there forms, or follow on with a phone call over times certain forms get filled out. You could lift your sales by circa 10% (apparently). The key thing is you have to make this contact happen within the first 30 minutes. response rates are much better in that time frame because people are still thinking about that issue and willing to engage. From elsewhere on the web last week someone asked "what's the number one predicator of bad customer service?" Ans: "They don't put their phone number on the website".

InsideARM point us towards an Aberdeen Research report that says the best performing collections agencies focus on  shift scheduling processes to that you can adjust staffing levels to meet actual demand. It makes sense, but the question is of course how do you manage demand as well? Outbound Interactive Voice Messaging can be used to completely eliminate many different types of inbound call, and can also be used to dramatically (yes, we have numbers to validate this!) improve your agent productivity vis-a-vis a regular auto-dialer. The rest of the points were as follows:

Focus on Training is also important: Agent training and coaching provides agents with the necessary skills and support system to properly utilize new product releases, tools and practices. More than half of best-in-class firms use e-learning to improve agent performance; another 39 percent employ periodic agent testing; 36 percent use issue resolution workshops; and 36 percent employ self-paced training.

Knowledge Management: Analytics is a key component of any workforce optimization suite because it provides the cornerstone to understanding the current and historical state of contact center activities.

Updated Technology: To optimize workforce utilization, a contact center needs integrated technology with multiple components. Forty-one percent of best-in-class companies have implemented workforce optimization suites.

Performance Management: Best-in-class companies that use workforce optimization solutions see increases in key performance management. Performance management solutions help companies improve sales or improve collections on outstanding invoices, according to the report.