Did You Know…? | Call Taking

Did you know that the Successware platform has more than 30 modules that will keep your business running as smoothly and efficiently as possible? Did you know we have modules for Customer Service, Accounting, Marketing, Purchasing, and much more? Did you know we are launching an exciting “Did You Know…?” series where each installment will provide insight into one of our modules and all its capabilities that can lead to business empowerment? Our first module in this series is Call Taking.

Gone are the days of writing down phone call interactions on paper and losing them or failing to document a customer call that does not result in a job. These are missed customer history interactions and marketing opportunities. Successware can help you keep all customer interactions in one place, allowing for effortless marketing and simple follow-up.

Call taking might be the most important part of any business and the first step in gaining, retaining, saving, or converting prospects into customers. Recording and tracking all call information is vital for new, current, or potential customers, because you can better understand their needs and how you can market to them. Our call taking module is robust and helps you schedule appointments, pull reports, and provide the best follow-up to customers all in one place. When calls come into your business, it can be the first live interaction a customer has with your company, so it is important to make a good impression, track all interactions, and know when to follow up to get repeat business. Below are some of the features our Call Taking module is equipped with.

Empowered Customer Experience Representatives (CXRs) Make Happy Customers

Ever wonder what your Customer Experience Reps are saying on the phone to customers? Are they all conveying the same core message and repair options? You can help tailor and standardize the message each of your CXRs is giving to potential or current customers in our Scripts section. You can build scripts your CXRs can toggle between, based on the reason a customer has called in.

Call Taking documents how many calls your CXRs are answering and converting to business each month. You can easily pull conversion rates and investigate why customers may not be booking a job.

Understanding “The Why” Behind Customer Calls is the Foundation to Prioritization and Scheduling

When a customer calls into schedule a service, you can select the reason for the call from a drop-down menu. For example, if a customer calls in, and their air conditioning is no longer cooling. You could have a configuration code for “No Cool” as the Call Reason, which will automatically pull in the amount of time it should take for the job to be completed and technicians who are qualified to send to this assignment. This eliminates the need for any spreadsheet tracking or manual counting work outside of Successware to determine appointment times or length.

You are also able to track the priority and urgency level of each call. You will mark each call with a one to five, with one being the highest priority and five being the lowest. This will help dispatchers easily identify what calls need to be taken care of right away and which may not be as urgent. From here, you can fill out the Details section for the job, which will be sent to the technician, and help them understand what is going on prior to arriving at a job site. The technician may even be able to preemptively pull in a Good, Better, Best option to present to the customer before even walking through the door.

Tracking and Reporting on Marketing Attribution is Key to Future Marketing Success

One of the questions you should always be asking new customers is how they heard about you. Whether it be from a Google search, Facebook, or a direct mail campaign, it is important to track how customers learn about your business and what led them to contact you. With Successware, you can easily store this information when taking a new call. This data will help you better understand where to invest money and resources in your marketing efforts. Over time, you will be able to pull reports and see trends of where you are gaining most new customers from. These reports are a great way to determine ROI on your marketing efforts by using our Marketing Campaign Module and to see which are working the best in gaining new business.

Quality Work is Essential for Customer Satisfaction, Team Coaching, and Total Job Costs

If a customer has an issue with a repair or service performed, you can track this as a callback. If a customer has an issue where their equipment stopped working again, or if a tech must visit for a second time to fix an issue, you can link the callback to the original job performed. You will be able to see if there are any trends with your callbacks once you start tracking. An example of this may be if many callbacks are all coming from the initial work one technician completed, then that technician may need some additional training. Or, if a certain piece of equipment is the culprit behind callbacks, more training on installation or maintenance may be needed for your employees to eliminate future issues.

What About Phone Calls That Are Missed Job Bookings or Customer Praise or Concerns?

Once you are finished with a call, you can mark it as either:

• Post - job scheduled
• Post Pending - customer calling back once they check on appointment time
• Hold - allows someone else to pick up the phone and assist the customer
• Abort - customer decided not to book a job

Then, you can pull a report to see the frequency of each call type.

This designation is a good way to see an overview of how many calls are being converted to revenue-generating business and what things may be holding this back from happening, such as a set dispatch or diagnosis fee or lack of appointment times available. You can evaluate what common reasons are for jobs not being booked and make changes to your pricing or scripts or hire more technicians if lack of appointment times is the issue to see if it helps increase your conversion rate.

This screen will also let you see all calls marked as “Concern,” which are open tickets that need to be resolved. From here, you can drill down into what issue the customer had and make notes on how the concern was resolved—no more emailing concerns to a manager to follow up on and losing track of the resolution. You can also pull a report on “Concerns” and see if there are trends in issues occurring and can then figure out how to stop those issues from happening.