No phone is no excuse – You have to be where your customers want to talk to you

By John Woollam, CEO, Euphoria Telecom

The rapid lockdown sent many companies scrambling to set up operations remotely, and left their customers hanging – on the telephone.

Taking an omni-channel approach to customer service is certainly critical, but many people would rather pick up the phone when they want something from a service provider. And outdated technology has left too many South African consumers unable to do so.

If your business telephone solution cannot flex to be available whenever and wherever – you have a problem.

A 2019 survey conducted by Longitude showed that 54% percent of customers prefer to speak to a live human, while 34% would change providers if they were unable to speak to someone.

A further 21% said they would change providers if they could not find a customer service telephone number.

Yet many South African companies have business numbers that are tied to their physical offices, and have gone unanswered for months as the lockdown has continued.

This means they are relying on other customer support channels to service orders and support queries – irrespective of what their customers prefer.

Whether you are a B2C or B2B company, your customers want to know they can reach you over the channel that suits them best. Euphoria Telecom’s customer support teams have handled some 7,000-odd tickets since 1 April.

Most of these enquiries related to customers suddenly needing a Remote Working solution that offers comprehensive Workforce Management features. More than half of these queries were resolved on the the first call.

This is due to the efficiency of Euphoria’s industry-leading business telephone solution, which is accessible to both our people and our customers seamlessly.

In fact, our customers probably haven’t even noticed we’ve been running largely remotely since the end of March.

Euphoria’s cost-effective solution includes a digital receptionist, which will direct calls faultlessly to your teams onsite and remotely. Your teams can work with VoIP handsets, or use our browser phone, or our mobile app.

Cloud-based PBXs offer a multitude of benefits – beyond just being accessible anywhere – and help you bring a human touch to all of your customer engagements.

If your customers are still hearing nothing but a ringing phone on the other end of the line – maybe it’s time you called us, and gave them the answer they’re after.