Do Your Telecom Resources Leave a Hole Through Which Money and Customers Can Fall?
March 30, 2016
By Tracey E. Schelmetic
TMCnet Contributor
Operating in the retail sector today is a business pursuit that is fraught with chance and danger. Customers are volatile, changeable and expect the moon. They KNOW they can always head to an e-commerce giant like Amazon, so if they are browsing your retail store, or searching on your Web site, it’s critical that you impress them the first time, the next time and every time they choose to interact with you after that. “Customer loyalty” is largely a word from history books today.
Running a retail business isn’t for the faint of heart. Carry too much inventory and you waste money. Carry too little, and you risk losing customers to other retailers or online sellers. Hire too many workers and you’re facing the expenses of overstaffing. Hire too few and you’re providing a poor level of customer service. Simply put, retail interests simply can’t afford to spend a dollar more than they have to today.
With the costs of telecommunications assets rising, as well as the number of channels through which a business can waste money if it’s not careful, keeping track of telecom resources and usage is vital for retailers. A good call accounting solution can help retail organizations manage their telecommunications while improving their customer service. By implementing reporting tools focused on business intelligence reports, retail organizations can effectively manage their support staff, track abandoned and transferred calls, and ensure customer confidence and satisfaction.
Abandoned calls are a particularly harmful mistake in the retail world. Most customers simply won’t try again if a call has rang without answer, or if it’s been picked up but put on hold indefinitely, according to ISI Telemanagement Solutions, Inc. The company’s Infortel Select tracks abandoned calls and provides ring-time summaries, ring-time detail, and daily or weekly metrics to show the level of responsiveness when a person is answering the phone. It also provides dialed number identification which allows companies to capture the phone number on an abandoned call and re-establish communication with the customer. This type of service is highly relevant to retail organizations because of the way the businesses are structured.
“Large retail chains are often made up of a headquarters and a number of branch locations, which are constantly opening and closing in towns and cities,” wrote Infortel on its Web site. “As these branch outlets open and close, there are instances where trunks and circuits no longer in use are still being accounted for in the overall telecom expenses. Likewise, when specific processes are not in place to activate and deactivate phone lines, or when organizations consume smaller branches without a properly-documented inventory, the telecom spend could be hemorrhaging money without you even knowing there’s a hole.”
A good call accounting solution will tell you where the holes, eliminating the need to have customers find them for you (to the detriment of your business). It can also help you manage mobile use by ensuring that everyone assigned a mobile phone by the business needs it, and is using it properly. The potential for abuse with mobile devices is high.
“Cell phones are often distributed without written justification for employee use,” wrote ISI (News - Alert). “Carrier bills go unreconciled, and inventory records are haphazard and nonexistent with regards to phones or devices dispensed to employees.”
If your retail organization is bleeding money, it’s time for a thorough analysis to determine why. Telecom is often one of the largest expenditures for any business. Ensure your telecom assets are operating in sync for the benefit of the business, and not existing to be a hole through which money and customers can fall.
Edited by Stefania Viscusi