Healthcare Call Center Services for State Government Health Benefit Exchanges and “Navigators”

Healthcare Call Center Services for Exchange Navigators

With all the changes occurring with national healthcare and the healthcare law, insurers and state governments are more focused than ever on delivering cost effective coverage options, broad availability to healthcare insurance coverage, and enhancing member services. Recent healthcare reform has prompted several changes within our healthcare system that will change how business is done. State governments or the Federal government, will be offering some form of Health Benefit Exchange (HBE) to support this changing healthcare landscape. The HBEs will be a marketplace for healthcare insurance benefits to their employees. HBEs will change access to health insurance and the way insurance is purchased for millions of Americans.

All constituents involved with the HBEs (insurers, healthcare providers, government agencies, the insured) will need a simple and easy way to navigate the HBE’s eligibility requirements and guidelines. Of course there will be a website nevertheless, as with any new complex program; there will be lots of questions and some confusion. There will be millions of enrollees, perhaps several dozen of insurance providers, government agencies, insurance representatives, healthcare providers, and others involved with the HBE.

How can some of this complexity be managed from a constituent support point-of-view? Community organizations that have relationships with broad segments of people in their state, may be eligible for grants to facilitate the education and enrollments.The community organizations, and in some cases, nonprofit organizations supported by universities, will serve as healthcare “Navigators” to help inform and enroll. This could be a daunting task for even the largest organizations to respond to the demands of citizens needing member services with a brand new healthcare program.

Part of the solution is a partnership with a healthcare call center that offers a comprehensive set of services and one that has healthcare experience and certifying their employees in HIPAA which can is a key component in the healthcare field.

In regards to delivering services for a Health Benefits Exchange, an experienced healthcare call center will:

• Become your focal point for the required Navigator program (Section 1311(i)) of Affordable Care Act
• Answer questions regarding eligibility and program parameters
• Answer premium and payment questions
• Process complaints and forward to appropriate agencies or departments
• Process appeals
• Handle USPS mail requests
• Provide information that’s culturally and linguistically accurate
• Record every communication and store every transaction – phone, email, audio, video
• Provide member surveys – capture the voice of your healthcare consumers
• Enroll HBE participants – businesses and individuals
• Support the certifications and renewals of insurers
• Provide reports and feedback on HBE performance
• Provide reports on the Navigator’s performance
• Integrate with the State’s HBE applications
• Support HBE website communications
• Support multilingual and TTY communication services – phone, email, website response, direct mail, chat
• Provide a secure environment for data
• Provide redundancy for clients in the event of a disaster

This probably isn’t a comprehensive list but it’ll get you started on thinking about the communications your state can be expected to deliver when the HBE goes into effect.

Benefit of a HBE Call Center Approach:

• 24/7/365 level of coverage if requested – especially at the beginning of the process
• Coverage of the languages important to a state – ongoing support
• Consistent delivery of constituent services – enrollment, member services, issues resolution
• Program metrics useful for measuring HBE and Navigator success – for continuous process improvement
• HIPAA compliance – partner that understands healthcare and its processes
• Consistency in the level of customer services

Having an outsourced HBE and Navigator call center could be a very effective way to quickly adapt to the changes that will happen in healthcare over the next few years. The idea of having to outsource your call service might seem a bit daunting, but keeping your outsourced call center in the USA makes the transition much smoother. Ultimately, your healthcare call center should not only be your partner but should be a seamless extension of you!

Multi Channel Customer Support From Ansafone Contact Centers

Attracting new customers is a critical task for brands. It’s more competitive than ever to bring on new customers and turn them into your champion. Have you noticed how customer expectations have steadily increased over the years? Faster service, no errors, flawless quality, and instant product fixes are just a few expectations. It’s competitive to find good customers and it requires outstanding customer service while providing client service support services giving them full transparency into the service you are providing.

The Internet has empowered consumers in ways that have a direct impact on a brand’s ability to keep customers engaged and attract new ones. Think about the impact of social media on consumer buying decisions. There are companies out there that solely provide rating, review, and personal testimonials about about other’s brand and services. Have you read reviews before staying at a hotel, eating at a restaurant, or purchasing repair services for your home? With Rating, Testimonial, and Review Sites, Blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, a company’s image can be quickly tarnished by negative customer service experiences. And add to this the possibility that a negative experience can instantly go viral – I think you get the point!

It’s more important than ever to engage your customers across a variety of touchpoints in order to build genuine relationships, join their conversations on the social web so they have a voice, build brand loyalty, by interacting with them you are giving them relevant and genuine reasons to remain loyal.

How Ansafone Supports Multi-channel Customer Engagement

Ansafone is built on a business foundation of delivering best in class customer retention and outsourced customer service options. Just as a negative customer service experience can go viral and impact a brand, a positive experience can also go viral in very positive ways. Relevant engagement and positive customer service experiences can be the catalyst to building long-term brand loyaly. Through the use of a multi-channel communication approach that includes call services, email, live chat, direct response, website response, and social web engagement, Ansafone provides customer service touchpoints designed for relevant engagement with your customers.

Ansafone Gets You There With Multi-channel Engagement

Here is what we do to help delight your current customers and perhaps attract new ones:

• Toll free phone complaint resolution delivered with the proper level of empathy
• Email responses for rapid and accurate outreach and replies
• Live Chat – engagement at the very moment your customer is engaged with you
• Web interactions – rapid responses expected by customers online
• Social media – join the conversation
• Customer surveys – learn customer preferences
• Special offers and loyalty program support
• Customer issues resolution
• Upselling and cross-selling programs relevant to your customers
• Special promotions based on customer preferences

Customer Touch Points Across Multiple Customer Support Channels

From a customer support standpoint Ansafone becomes “a seamless extension of you”. All processes from the training of our agents to the development of project plans for the delivery of tailored services on your behalf have the goal of returning maximum returns on your investment.

On a daily basis our performance is accessed against our client’s goals and expectations. Our continuous improvement model helps us to be proactive on behalf of our clients. As an example, through data gathering on customer analytics, we are able to provide our clients with crucial data on customer perception and feedback which improves the customer experience. Ansafone account management continually monitors the performance of agents, scripts, and technology. Our teams work diligently to support our clients and make it easier to attract new customers.

Using a proprietary suite of CRM applications and web scripts, every customer interaction is captured and indexed allowing our agents to quickly access customer details in a single location with a few key strokes.

Ansafone’s services are available 24/7/365. Our customer touch points are varied and are designed to deliver positive customer service experiences. We provide multi-channel customer service options for our clients with the objective of delighting their customers and assisting clients in building their brand!

Online Technical Support – An Ansafone Contact Centers Service

If you sell technical products that require intricate installation procedures and configuration steps with accompanying precise calibrations, or products like computer software, hardware, peripheral devices, home entertainment systems, networking systems, or products that require assembly, you know customers can become a little confused and frustrated when trying to follow directions. You include written instructions and diagrams but…!

Acquiring new customer is competitive enough and few companies can afford to leave their customers hanging when it comes to getting started with their products. With today’s online ratings and reviews that can influence buyers to make a purchase in your favor or look for alternative products and services, it’s vitally important to provide excellent support experiences for customers. Delivering a solid and rapid response will help prevent negative online ratings, dissatisfied customers, and the expense of product returns.

Here is an approach that Ansafone uses to support several hi-tech clients with our call center services.

Our tech clients typically employ both mid-level and senior-level technical support teams organized to respond to customer inquiries. The more experienced support technicians are reserved for the most challenging customer support demands.

Ansafone Supports Technology Clients

Ansafone provides a Pre-Support service where customers needing help are quickly engaged to determine the correct level of support needed. Our Tier 1 Support team follows a customer support protocol that’s jointly developed by our clients and Ansafone’s Tier 1 Support team. The response protocol includes questions that summarize the customer’s issues, product numbers, serial numbers, when and where purchased, what steps the customer has already taken, etc.

Often after the initial Phone discussion or Email Response or Live Chat or Social Media engagement, our agent and the person having the support issue might conclude the guidance provided by Ansafone’s Tier 1Support team solves their problems.

If the Ansafone’s initial engagement does not solve the customer issue our agents, inform customers that their issues will be immediately escalated to a Tier 2 or 3 support level. All details will be forwarded to the higher support level so the customer does not need to repeat every detail again.

In many cases, customer support calls do not require complex support levels, and in many of these cases, Ansafone’s team can provide the proper level of response. This is a cost-effective way of providing an effective first level engagement that allows our clients to concentrate on more complex customer support issues.

Ansafone becomes an extension of you! We work as consultants with our clients to tailor call center customer support programs that:

• Reflect our clients’ customer support expectations – initial engagements
• Trains and develops agents specific to our clients’ needs
• Creates an at your fingertip’s availability of responses designed to support customers quickly and effectively
• Provide 24/7/365 coverage
• Provide bilingual Spanish and English support – other languages as required
• Support Telephone, Live Chat, Email Response, Social Media Response

Why Add Ansafone As A Member Of Your Technical Support Team?

• Cost effective – why pay large salaries to deliver Tier 1 support
• Using Ansafone allows you to only pay for the minutes you actually use
• Agent responses based on your training, response strategies, tools, and branding
• Consistent, rapid, and predictable responses that lead to high levels of customer satisfaction
• Rapid responses 24/7/365
• Multilingual agent support
• Flexible staffing assuring peak times are covered – slow periods are not over staffed
• Thorough reporting on all customer support interactions
• Potentially lowered support costs – senior support staff only respond to the more complex support issues
• Calls, Live Chats, Email, Social Media site responses quickly escalated as required
• Perhaps create up-selling and cross-selling opportunities – our agents can sell!

Contact Ansafone for a no obligation consultation regarding your Technical Support needs, (800) 510-0514. Learn how we can become an extension of you.

Agent Preparation And Desktop Tools Availability – A Real Plus For Clients

Ansafone uses comprehensive and continuous training and development processes to ensure top- performance by our call center agents. Applying rigorous agent preparation methods combined with ongoing professional development aligns agent skills development with client requirements. Ansafone’s agents become seamless extensions of our client brands. Our call center agents are trained to meet and exceed client expectations. Some agents become vertical industry specialist in markets like medical practice, medical supply, law office support, nonprofit organizations, hospice care, retail, food distribution, utilities, property management, and several others.

Ansafone agents have a variety of integrated desktop tools available at their disposal to support clients. Their training includes participating in practice scenarios where their ability to quickly and consistently navigate client support tools is evaluated. Our call center agents are trained to handle more than phone communications for our clients.  Here is what you can expect for our call center agent team.

When Voice Support Is Needed

Ansafone agents use their training to deliver phone based customer and selling services for clients.  Agents use several enterprise level and software as a service (SAAS) applications to manage client services and communications. With these tools are agents are able to:

• Access customer data
• Access scripts and FAQ’s
• Manage member services
• Process orders – integrate with client systems
• Rapidly resolve caller issues
• Manage email response
• Deliver live chat
• Support social media monitoring
• Support social media mediation of user generated content – assuring maximum brand and participant satisfaction
• And more!

Our agents are able to handle each call center service deliverable efficiently. And when it comes to phone interactions, our agents are to rapidly respond to calls and decrease conversation and call handling times.

When Immediacy Is Essential – Call Center Live Chat

As with voice support for clients, live chat requires agent certification. There is live chat training that focuses on vocal expression and technology navigation. The process for live chat certification is as rigorous as voice certification.

Call Center Email Response Management

Rapid response is critical when customers send emails requesting resolution to issues. A dedicated team of Ansafone email response agents are there to support clients. They receive and reply to emails customers send to our clients. Using a variety of response FAQ’s and response scripts, our agents are trained to resolve client issues, and when necessary escalate the issue to the appropriate client level.

Call Center Social Media Monitoring – User Generated Content Mediation

Ansafone’s Social Web Agents use proprietary tools, Internet navigation, and integration to our client’s backend systems to monitor online “conversations” regarding our client brands and support them mediate user generated content. Ansafone establishes protocols and priorities for monitoring and engaging with “conversations” on the social web. Each program is client specific and tracks their most important social sites and “conversation” types.

For or clients that run online Promotions, Contests and Sweepstakes that rely on user generated content, our agents provide a variety of absolutely essential mediation services. Our agents save our clients time and money and are available 24/7/365 for mediation. Each contest entry is reviewed for rules compliance when it comes to submitted photos, videos, comments, and blog post. This helps to assure a pleasant experience for users and our clients. Ansafone’s mediation services can speed the time for promotion participation from the typical 24-48 hours. Adding speed to mediation approvals can certainly speed word-of-mouth spread and viral uplifts for a contest or promotion.

A Dedicated Call Center Team For Brands

For most of Ansafone’s clients there are dedicated call center support teams in place to support their voice, live chat, email response, and social web engagement. Our agents intimately learn the keys to supporting each client. Training is continuous with the goal of improving agent performance as they deliver support and sales services for clients.

Contact us for a consultative discussion about your brand’s need for tailored support and sales services.  Even if you’re using the services of a call center, you might be surprised by how Ansafone can support you. Contact us (866) 309-3606 www.ansafone.com.

Direct Response Services – A Call Center Must-Have

It’s an important promotional period for your brand. Media has been purchased for online, print ads, and television runs. The television media buys features airing times spanning all time zones in the USA and Canada. Some of the advertising time slots are during hours when the media buys cost less and are between 1:00am and 4:00am. You marketing shows a substantial number of consumers make purchases during those odd hours and during early afternoon timeslots.

Making the correct media buys is an important element in determining the success of marketing campaigns. Afterall, brands are making appeals to consumers to purchase their product. If the most promising consumers never see the ads, it’s an opportunity lost.

For some brands there is an additional need for call center services. This is where Ansafone Contact Centers can provide services 24/7/365. Ansafone’s On-Demand call center services are implemented to coodinate with advertising schedules. It’s during these advertising periods that calls reach a peak and the drop off until the next series of TV ads. Ansafone offers call center flexibility for our clients. When calls spike during the day our night, our team is there to answer On-Demand requirements.

Ansafone provides a cost-effective On-Demand approach for our clients that need Direct Response call center support. We use cross trained agent teams that can shift focus when needed to cover demand spikes. Ansafone uses our technology to route calls as necessary to agents trained to support your campaign. We assure that busy signals or dropped calls do not deter callers.

The Benefits Of Ansafone Call Center Direct Response Services

• Reliable media driven call center services – 24/7/365
• Cross trained sales agents provide a cost-effective support team
• The real potential for increased sales conversions
• Agent teams versed un up-selling and cross-selling techniques
• Scheduling flexibility
• A scalable On-demand approach
• Scripts created in consultation with you our client
• Complete data collection and daily service level reporting

Ansafone is truly and extension of you! Contact us and see how we can support your marketing calendar with industry leading call center services, (866) 309-3606. Visit us at www.ansafone.com/.

Call Center Reporting – An Important Tool For Your Business

Viewing The Details – Call Ansafone’s Call Center Reporting

Prior to launching Ansafone’s call center services, we develop a thorough understanding of the metrics you’d like to track. Ansafone’s reporting capabilities has the singular goal of delivering concise information that’s tailored to your needs.

Ansafone graphically lays out the report structures you require to ensure all reports meet your expectations. We ensure your key measures are accounted for before our call center services are implement.

Ansafone’s call center performance report stats are collects after every customer interaction with our agents – no matter the contact type of interaction – phone, email, text message, Tweet, web form, or social media support. Our report platform collects stats that are written and updated several times each hour. In near real time you’ll have the ability to review the performance measure important to your customer support program.

Ansafone’s client reporting provides insights into:

• Service levels achieved
• Calls abandoned and the reasons for abandonment
• Average talk times
• Outcomes achieved
• Number of call arriving based on time

Reports can be delivered using email, the secure Ansafone client portal, or using a secure FTP site.

If during our needs analysis it’s determined you need custom reports to satisfy your reporting requirements, Ansafone will create the views you need.

Ansafone offers flexible enterprise reporting options for our clients. Our call center features flexible and integrated technologies to support you. Contact us at (866) 309-3606 to learn more about our call center services and the reporting metrics we can provide. Visit us at www.ansafone.com to learn more about our complete range of call center services.

Call Center – Outsourced Customer Services

Outsourced Customer Service – An Ansafone Speciality

Some companies are known for their amazing products. I’m certain some products just came to your mind – some products you especially enjoy. Some companies are known for the ease of dealing with their customer services organizations. Have you had either an especially good or especially negative experience with a customer service organization? Can you remember every detail of a negative encounter you’ve had with a customer service organization?  How did it make you feel about the brand and company that produced the product? If your experience was positive, you probably vowed to make more purchases and tell your friends. If you had a negative experience well…you know what you thought!

Every company needs a customer service plan that keeps their customer as the focal point. Delighting the customer should form the foundation of that plan. Ansafone delivers outsourced call center customer services based on a plan designed to keep your customers satisfied and feeling positive about your brand. Ansafone offers professionally trained call center agents and the supporting integrated technologies to help resolve customer issues, or quickly place their order, or schedule that important appointment, etc. and do so with minimal talk time and confusion.

Ansafone’s call center service is available to support you 24/7/365 with:

• Issues resolution
• Professional agents available only when you need them – reduce your costs
• Order processing – credit card processing
• Product returns
• Support for your direct marketing campaigns
• Team specialist who know your industry and will learn your business

Ansafone is a company known for its work-to-completion culture. When issues arise we resolve them. When your goals change, we are there to react with you. If we see opportunities to help make you more efficient, we’ll share best practices.

Contact us today at (866)-309-3606 for a consult regarding your customer service needs. We’ll connect you with the right internal resources to assure your requirements are thoroughly understood and responded to in a timely manner.

Ansafone Contact Centers Selected as an Innovator Award Finalist by Interactive Intelligence

Ansafone Contact Centers has been honored by Interactive Intelligence as an Innovator Award finalist for 2013.

Santa Ana, CA (PRWEB) May 16, 2013 Ansafone Contact Centers, with contact center facilities in California and Florida, has been honored by Interactive Intelligence as a finalist in their 2013 Innovator Award. Interactive Intelligence has selected Ansafone Contact Centers as a finalist for its Innovator Award based on Ansafone’s comprehensive deployment and creative use of the company’s Customer Interaction Center(R) CIC solution designed for integrated IP communications.

Ansafone uses Interactive Intelligence’s CIC suite to integrate its US based operations that’s staffed by more than 500 agents supporting clients in healthcare, retail, consumer products, government, financial services, real estate, e-commerce, legal, and several other industries. In addition to phone interactions, Ansafone supports multi-channel interactions that include live chat, email management, text messaging, and social media customer services using the CIC suite as the platform.

Ansafone has unified the operations of all of its facilities around the CIC suite. According to Jared Mendez, Ansafone’s Director of Information Technology, “deploying CIC’s all-in-one platform allows us to integrate all aspects of our services from quality monitoring, blended dialing, workforce management, multi-channel routing, and provides us with a platform to expand our services to take advantage of emerging social media customer service opportunities. CIC has certainly allowed us to decrease our costs, improve agent productivity, and integrate service delivery. We’re confident that as Ansafone continues to grow, we will be able to manage our costs and provide our customers with excellent customer services.”

The Interactive Intelligence Innovator Awards event will be held at the at the Indianapolis Marriott, Interactions 2013 Conference, May 13 – 16 in Indianapolis, IN.

About Interactive Intelligence – Interactive Intelligence Group Inc. is a global provider of contact center automation, unified communications, and business process automation software and services. The company’s unified IP business communications solutions, which can be deployed on-premises or via the cloud, are ideal for industries such as financial services, insurance, outsourcers, collections, and utilities. Interactive Intelligence was founded in 1994 and has more than 5,000 customers worldwide. The company is among Forbes Magazine’s 2011 Best Small Companies in America and Software Magazine’s 2012 Top 500 Global Software and Service Providers. It employs approximately 1,400 people and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. The company has offices throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Interactive Intelligence can be reached at +1 317.872.3000 or info (at) inin (dot) com; on the Net: http://www.inin.com.

Interactive Intelligence Christine Holley, Senior Director of Market Communications, +1 317-715-8220 christine.holley (at) inin (dot) com

About Ansafone Contact Centers Ansafone Contact Centers has been in business since 1970 and is a privately held company. Randall J. Harmat, President and CEO, purchased the company from his father, Joseph Harmat, over a decade ago and has grown the business from its answering services origins into a full service Contact Center. During his leadership, Ansafone has succeeded in attracting and retaining top industry talent that shapes current client support programs and is creating the vision for future services. In 2001, Ansafone moved into its current location in Santa Ana, CA and recently added a new facility in Ocala, FL to be the east coast corporate office. Ansafone has other facilities in the Midwest and Eastern Time zones to accommodate clients nationwide. Ansafone maintains an active disaster recovery plan and delivers maximum service availability for clients.

Today, Ansafone provides everything from answering services for small to medium sized businesses to large scale contact center management solutions for the Fortune 500. Ansafone is a hi-tech organization with old-fashioned values and culture. Every team member is a stake holder in our clients’ success. We never close and are always available 24/7/365 to assist our clients with their customers’ calls and electronic touches. We make every touch an extension of You! http://www.ansafone.com

Leonard Scales Ansafone Contact Centers 352-368-0918 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 352-368-0918 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting lscales (at) ansafone (dot) com

How To Lose Your Customers’ Trust – Call Center Outsourcing Insights

How To Lose Your Customers’ Trust – Call Center Outsourcing Insights

When it comes to conducting business and keeping your customers happy, there are myriad of things you and your company can do. Conversely, there are also many ways you can leave your customers feeling unhappy, uneasy, and worst of all—untrusting. Losing your customers’ trust is one of the worst possible scenarios for any business, regardless of the field you’re in.

While call center outsourcing might seem like it would create a disconnect between your brand and your customer base—that does not have to be the case if you are partnered with an experienced contact center. That being said, there are some simple steps you can take regardless of whether you work in call center outsourcing or some other customer-centric field, that will aide you in your quest to gain—and keep—your customers’ trust.

Communication Is Key

No matter your field, if you offer open, honest, and frequent communications with your customers, be it phone calls, emails, or other types of communications, it help foster a sense of trust and loyalty.

Bringing in new clients or customers is the lifeblood of any business. New business development is a constant activity for most organizations. With that comes a heavier workload for your employees, and that can cause a decrease in your frequent touches and communications with your existing customers.

When a customer doesn’t feel they’re being communicated with in the way they’ve become accustomed to, typically their level of satisfaction drops. And chances are good the trust factor between you and your customer will also drop. To whatever ends possible, be mindful of your communication efforts with your current customers and be sure from the very beginning to establish and keep open lines of communications between you and new customers as well.

Poor Web Presence

When it comes to conducting business, not only should you want to look professional and legitimate online, you NEED to look that way! A website filled with, dated graphics and text, broken links, irrelevant Google ads and pop-ups signals to clients and potential clients that money is perhaps more important than their best interest, and your attention to business details may not be solid as you present. So it’s good judgment to pay professionals to create a functional, informative—and ad-free—website built for your company.

Don’t Use Jargon

No matter what your industry, chances are you have your own business lingo or jargon or acronyms that you use with your co-workers, employees, or those in your industry you deal with frequently. What do you think the odds are that your customers know or understand what you’re talking about when you throw out TLAs (three letter acronyms)? Zero to none. Cut out the jargon and lingo and speak with your clients in their own language. If they want to have a better understanding of your field or what some of the acronyms are you use, then you can clue them in. Outside of that, no more inside language or acronyms specific to your industry that your customers can’t possibly know.

Under Promise and Over Deliver

Never make a customer a promise you know there is no chance you can meet. If a proposal will require a week to prepare and must then go to legal for approval, never promise it will be delivered in two days. You want to lose their trust in the blink of an eye? Then promise them the world and see how quickly those customers leave you. Make them promises you know can be kept and then exceed their expectations by beating the deadline of other expectations. Really want to earn their trust? Show them—don’t tell them—that you’ll go above and beyond for them.

Now that you know how to handle your call center outsourcing customers’ and clients’ trust, do your best to earn and keep it for years to come! It is important to keep these insights in mind as well as this year’s top customer service trends in order to keep your business growing and relevant.

A Strategic Retail Call Center Partner Makes a Big Bottom-Line Difference

If you read business publications or watch the news, you’re certainly aware that many retailers are struggling to remain viable. If you’re a retailer, you understand the inside issues.

Several retailers are consolidating their locations and closing less profitable stores. Name brands we’ve known for nearly one-hundred years are teetering on shutting their doors forever. Competition is keen for retailers and several are, at best, in survival mode.

If there was ever a time for retailers to innovate and implement process improvements, the time is now. At this point, your success starts with a strategic retail call center partner.

Several retailers are attempting to return to the branding and merchandising roots that made them successful in the first place. A well-known restaurant chain has dropped menu items that distracted them from their very successful core business and corporate personality. One big box retailer known for its low prices is no longer offering the upscale designer brands it thought would attract new customers. Actually offering these upscale brands had the opposite effect on their sales.

Several retailers are experimenting with social media and the huge potential of the social web. Others are offering enhanced loyalty programs to encourage repeat purchases. Still others are trying to re-brand themselves to become more appealing to a broader demographic of consumers.

However, there is another growing trend among retailers that’s proving to have an excellent payback, and often within a shorter timeframe: the outsourcing to call centers, and in some cases, their entire customer services operations. Retail call centers handle phone order processing, answer customer questions about products and services, manage email response, and are an extension of the retailer in a variety of cost saving ways.

Which retailers – and what’s a good start?

Any retailer that has a huge base of customers participating in a store sponsored loyalty program is a candidate for a call center outbound campaign. The potential ROI is excellent. Retail call centers are in an excellent position to deliver cost-effective outbound campaigns that target inactive loyalty program members with reactivation incentives.

The goal of the outbound campaign is simple – entice delinquent shoppers to return to the store and purchase more regularly.

A retail good call center can be at the center of an outbound customer reactivation program that generates store traffic, reestablishes customer relationships, and builds sales. Any retailer that has a loyalty program and sells a large variety and volume of items (grocery, big box), and even specialty retailers (sporting goods, electronics, DIY) are good candidates for a call center driven customer reactivation campaign.

Customer Conversion Rates Justify Loyalty Reactivations

According to Marketing Wizdom’s “20 Customer Retention Strategies,” retailers can expect conversion rates for reactivating customers to be in the 25%-60% range. Would this conversion rate appeal to your organization?

The incentive offer to motivate loyalty members to return could be a discount, a gift, or perhaps a bundled set of items. Providing an incentive to reactive members need not be costly to the retailer, but rather a high-value to the customer.

A call center can use a variety of methods to determine why the consumers stopped purchasing items from you, such as the likelihood of returning and making repeat purchases, and recommending your company to friends and family. The call center can survey the inactive customers, and contact them to learn the reasons why their shopping patterns changed.

Using surveys, your partner can gather data that, when analyzed, will provide insight into why consumers have not been purchasing from you. Data gathering can also include questions about the competition, which competitors the customer gravitates towards, and why.

Getting the Process Started

Choosing the right call center is the first step. A good call center partner is  capable of leveraging multiple customer support channels to deliver a variety of outbound programs for you that include phone, email, surveys and NPS – and if you have text and social media information on your loyalty club members, expertise with these technologies, as well.

Visit the call center you’re evaluating to determine your level of rapport with them, and their ability to deliver for your organization. Once you’ve identified a call center partner, it’s time to determine how you’ll structure your customer reactivation program.

You will need to determine:

• Is your loyalty database solid and have there been recent updates.
• Have you captured complete contact information, such as full name, address, phone, email, birth date, and social media addresses?
• Based on your database’s inactive loyalty club member data, what’s the best incentive to motivate them to return, shop, and buy?
• Loyalty programs capture purchasing behaviors. Can you mine purchasing history of the inactive loyalty members and provide insight to the incentive to offer? Tailoring the reactivation program to be as specific as possible will produce the best results.

Shoppers should view the incentive as valuable; however, it does not have to be wildly extravagant or expensive for the retailer. Making the offer appealing is the key; this can be a discount percentage, a gift, or a tailored promotion. Be creative!

Outbound Contact to Engage Loyalty Club Members

Bonding with the consumer is certainly the goal of brands everywhere. It’s no different with your retail loyalty program; helping your loyalty club member feel appreciated and well served is vital for the program.

Your call center partner can contact new members by welcoming them to the club and letting them know about upcoming sales, promotions, events, and poll them on additional needed services. They can win back inactive loyalty club members by engaging them in the same manner.

Your call center can phone, email, text, or social message members and encourage them to return and purchase. With these contacts, you can gather the information that’s lacking in your database, such as mobile numbers, the number of people in household, number of children, and email and physical addresses to send coupons and promotions.

With each contact, you can create a profile based on the questions asked, and develop your own market study around your customers. You may already appreciate the value of this information!

Use outbound contacts to learn: 

• How happy customers are with your operation?
• Are they looking for products you don’t supply?
• Are there areas of service that need improvement?
• Are your clients satisfied with your services?
• What improvements would benefit the customer care experience?
• Are they satisfied with pricing, merchandising and brands?

Call Centers can offer instant innovation!

A good call center can offer you multiple channels to communicate with clients.

• Tailored inbound and inbound phone services
• Email response and web forms management
• Live Web Chat (easy to implement and has huge sales and customer delight potential!)
• Text messaging hot deals of the day
• Social media promotions and offers to subscribers
• Social media customer support services

It’s Worth a Test

Selecting a competitive retail call center that will tailor and deploy your programs is probably much more affordable than you think. Your partner will offer you multiple channels to reach and bond with your customers, improve your bottom-line, and differentiate you from your competition. Whatever the program, your call center will tailor it to your specific requirements.

Your call center partner has the potential to help you:

• Bond with your customers; provide new ways to surprise and delight
• Help gather market data about your customers; help you to understand their buying inclinations and how you stack up against the competition
• Increase sales through outbound calls; reactivate customers who are delinquent
• Use channels that are trending upward; live web chat, text messaging, and social media services
• Provide a huge leap in technologies and customer support strategies

Site: Market Wizdom

 

 

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