The Cost of a Missed Call

Whatever industry you’re in, one thing is for sure: customer service is key to satisfied clients and better business. However, if you’re letting your leads and clients experience dropped, missed or lost calls, you might damage your business. This is a scary thought—but a good BPO customer service center can make sure this doesn’t happen.

Before we jump into the specifics of how missed calls affect business, let’s address an important question: What is a lost call?

In the world of business and customer service, “lost calls” refer to an all-too-typical scenario. A customer runs into an issue or question about a specific product or service and attempts to contact customer support—but receives no answer. This situation occurs frequently. This experience often has a negative impact on the company or business they were trying to reach—in more ways than one.

How Missed Calls Affect Business

Lost calls can wreak havoc on businesses, especially when they happen frequently. This is due to several reasons:

• Depending on what type of support they require, customers and leads who cannot reach your business might feel frustrated or even angry about their experience. In these cases, it’s unlikely that they will invest in your product or service again.
• Word of mouth is a powerful form of advertisement—and that works both ways. If your customers and leads struggle to reach your team and receive support, they’ll spread the word. Your reputation and bottom line can suffer, especially if they take their grievances online.
• Many leads and potential customers who call your business but cannot reach anybody will move onto your competition for convenience’s sake.

Lost Calls by Industry

Some sectors have more to lose from missed calls than others. In some industries (like health care, tech and banking) a missed call can do more than inconvenience your customers—it can cause severe damage.

Healthcare

In healthcare, time is of the essence. Missed calls can lead to stress and complications. Your patients need to know they can trust your team to be on the other end of the phone when they need support. This is why it’s essential for healthcare organizations of all types to invest in high-quality medical customer support services. A team of experienced live agents will work as an extension of your clinical team. They can handle all of your patients’ most urgent calls. Plus, your support team can also make outbound calls for appointment-setting, reminders and test results, which could reduce your overall incoming volume.

Tech

If you’re in tech, you know that your customers and leads require modern, client-forward service—and that means seamless communication. Tech clients expect easily contactable agents who can resolve their issues without fuss. Lost calls feel like a relic of the past compared to the swift communication provided by major tech industries. So don’t be a dinosaur. Instead, give your clients the modern support they need by offering a dedicated call center service. Otherwise, you might get a reputation for being outdated.

Banking

While not all banking issues require immediate assistance, circumstances that require it are often urgent. For example, when your clients experience potential fraud or theft, they need immediate support to ensure they don’t get in trouble. Lost calls during a crisis like this will be distressing for your client—and if they incur fees or destroy their credit, they might blame your bank. So it’s best to avoid this scenario; a financial calling center makes that simple.

Common Causes of Missed Calls

While lost calls aren’t ideal, they are also a common problem for many companies. There are many common causes of missed calls. Here are some of the biggest offenders:

Business Is Booming

As your business grows, you will receive higher demand for your products or services. Typically, this leads to an increased volume of calls and customer inquiries. That’s great! It also means you will need to scale your services to match demand. This means hiring more agents for your call center and introducing other dedicated customer support services to your business plan. Otherwise, your team will need help to catch up and calls will be dropped.

You Have an Influx of Calls

Some days are just hectic. Sometimes, it’s incidental; your product is trending on social media or your website experienced a temporary outage. On those days, you might receive more calls than usual. Without proper preparation, that can lead to lost calls (and long wait times.) We recommend a shared agent system for this problem—on busy days, you’ll have a team of “reserves” who can jump in and help take calls.

It’s Your Busy Season

Certain industries (like professional academic services, retail or insurance) have busy seasons. If your call center is the same size during the busy season as it is the rest of the year, that’s a recipe for missed calls and disgruntled clients. By working with a BPO call center, you can plan to scale up during your busy season so everything runs smoothly.

Your Team Is “Doubling Up”

Your staff was hired for specific skills related to your industry, not customer service! They should not have to choose between answering a ringing phone and performing their hired job. That type of situation leads to lost calls and unhappy employees. It’s a lose-lose situation. It’s always better to have a separate customer support staff. They will provide better service—after all, it’s what they do—and allow your team to focus on their job responsibilities.

Say Goodbye to Lost Calls and Hello to Better Business!

At TeleDirect, we banish lost calls—our agents are available 24/7! Call (800) 776-1081 to learn more.