The new Callout Application designed by On-Line Communications, ensures your callers reach important out-of-hours support staff in your organisation. Instead of forwarding calls to a mobile, using this Callout Application, you can forward calls to a pilot number which then keeps routing the call to further numbers until it’s answered.
This avoids important calls going to voicemail because this is where major business deals can be lost. Research has shown that one missed call could be costing your business up to $60,000 a year. Sure, the value may not be that high in every case but a missed call is still potential lost revenue for any business.
So this is why this new Callout Application from On-Line Communications will help your business. When you’re choosing what number to route your calls to initially, you can choose a work extension, a 1300, 1800 or a 13 number. If you don’t have these types of numbers, On-Line Communications can set one up for you.
The Callout Application ensures that an incoming call is routed to multiple numbers in a sequence and this ensures that a real person answers the call. Voicemail and announcements that a number is not reachable are ignored – the Callout Application simply tries the next number in the list, until the call is answered. .
Each call generates a full email which outlines where the call was routed to and where it was answered. These emails can be set up to be sent to multiple users.
What’s wrong with forwarding calls to a mobile?
There are lots of reasons why forwarding a call to conventional call groups or mobiles won’t work correctly and this is when potential business is lost. The reasons forwarding to a mobile doesn’t work are:
- If the mobile is unreachable – this means the user’s voicemail will capture the call and it will play a personal greeting or a carrier message. Research shows people don’t leave messages usually so the call will be lost. If the phone’s gone flat, then the call will go straight to voicemail as well.
- If the contact’s mobile is unanswered – again, the phone will capture the call and play a personal voicemail greeting. Once again, the call will not be answered and potential business will be lost.
- If the contact’s mobile is busy – the mobile will capture the call and play a personal voicemail greeting. Once again, the call will not be answered by service staff and business will be lost.
How do we overcome these problems?
The Callout Application ensures a real person answers the call and not a machine. When someone is called using the application, the user is asked to:
- Accept the call by dialling 1
- Reject the call by dialling 0
- If the call is rejected by dialling 0 or there is no response, the next person in the contact list will be called.
Customisation
The Callout Application can be customised depending on your requirements. However, the goal is to make this easily configurable by the user and/or the manager.
In some circumstances, your existing company after hours service or voice menu would handle the initial call and then route the call to the pilot number for the Callout Application so the callout list is implemented.
Web Pages
Each company has a phone number and web site, so the application can be customised using these.
Your company will have a URL to manage the application.
Contact page
This page contains the people who will be called and how long each contact will be called for. Numbers are currently limited to Australia and New Zealand.
Email page
This is the list of the people who will receive the emails regarding the result of each call:
Messages Page
These are the messages which the caller will hear. A text-to-speech engine will convert the text-to-speech.
Language and playback speed can be adjusted depending on your preference.
The messages are:
- Initial greeting.
- Message if the caller ID is presented or a message if the caller ID is suppressed.
For more from On-Line Communications about phone systems and applications, visit here.