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This image shows how to create an ecommerce marketing strategy.

15th March 2022 blog

9 E-Commerce Marketing Strategies

An image of intelligent call routing being used.

14th March 2022 blog, Call Management

What is Intelligent Call Routing?

The image above shows 3-way voice calling.

7th March 2022 blog

3-Way Calling: Benefits & How to Get

Picture above shows what remote call forwarding is.

23rd February 2022 blog, Call Management

What is Remote Call Forwarding?

14th February 2022 blog, Call Management

What are Call Detail Records (CDRs) and Their Benefits?

11th February 2022 blog

What is Find Me Follow Me?

The most common SIP problems (with solutions)

8th February 2022 blog, VoIP

8 Common SIP Problems and Solutions

Use cloud communications to improve caller experience.

17th January 2022 blog, Customer Service

5 Ways to Improve Caller Experience with Cloud Communications

11th January 2022 blog, Customer Service

Customer Delight: What is it and How Can it Help Your Business?

9 E-Commerce Marketing Strategies

Kim Sayers 15th March 2022 blog

E-commerce businesses are more accessible than ever before. They’ve spread to a wide variety of platforms and even modified themselves to different devices. If you have an online business of your own, you know it’s a very saturated market. So, figuring out how to build a memorable brand can be difficult. That’s where e-commerce marketing strategies come in. These tactics help online businesses boost and sustain their growth.

The Growing Need for E-Commerce Marketing Strategies

Whether you’re starting up an online business or you’ve been running one for years, it’s vital to invest in e-commerce marketing strategies. These online marketing tactics and trends are constantly evolving to better suit users. If you want to see even more sales come through your business, following these digital marketing techniques is critical.

What is E-Commerce Marketing?

E-commerce marketing is a strategy that helps businesses sell products and services online. These strategies drive up e-commerce sales by promoting brand awareness and directing attention to the products. A good digital business marketing strategy informs and engages the business’ customer base. Some examples of e-commerce marketing include:

Blogs and content marketing
Banners and pop-ups
Digital ads
Social media posts

E-commerce marketing is equally as important to business growth as order fulfillment and other aspects of doing business.

Challenges of E-Commerce Marketing

E-commerce is an extremely competitive space for businesses. Since other online businesses use e-commerce marketing strategies to increase their sales, it is hard to stand out. To successfully build brand awareness, businesses need multiple marketing channels and approaches. Although this leads to more staff and time spent, it is required to drive business growth.

Developing a Successful Marketing Strategy for E-Commerce

Before you jump right into creating a growth marketing plan, there are some foundational elements to consider. Defining these fundamental components is vital to creating a successful e-commerce marketing strategy. Here are some key points to keep in mind:

Identify your target market – Your target audience influences brand voice, messaging, communication methods, platforms, and more. With a key target audience in mind, you’ll draw the right customers to your company. But if you don’t understand your target market, you’ll end up with a weak campaign that doesn’t drive profitable customer action.
Establish goals and objectives – Outline what you want to achieve with your e-commerce marketing strategies. Goals keep your strategy focused on the bigger picture. Objectives break down your goals and strategies into smaller, achievable steps. Clearly identifying goals and objectives will also help you measure success down the line.
Analyze your business journey so far – Take a close look at your business’ evolution and current progress. In what areas are you struggling or succeeding? What types of strategies or campaigns worked for you in the past? Your business’ journey will help highlight the areas to focus on in your strategies to increase business growth. Additionally, you can recycle strategies that previously worked, saving your business both time and money.

9 E-Commerce Marketing Strategies for Your Business

After you’ve developed your foundational elements, it’s time to begin planning your e-commerce marketing approach. Here are some e-commerce marketing strategies to help get you started:

Create & Promote Original Content
Optimize Your Website
Communicate & Interact with Your Customers
Create a Personalized Experience
Offer Incentives & Rewards
Enhance Customer Service
Expand to Social Media
Keep Up with Your Competitors
Create a Community & Following

1. Create & Promote Original Content

Original, quality content attracts and retains your target customers and, if successful, leads to profitable consumer action. This e-commerce marketing strategy focuses on the production and circulation of consistent, timely, and valuable materials.

Your content should deliver messages, inform, and, of course, entertain to keep the audience coming back for more. Use your content to support different departments (i.e., marketing, sales, production, etc.) in their goals. Additionally, use web pages, blog posts, and guides to further amplify your business’ products, services, brand, and more. This establishes your company as an industry expert and a trustful source.

So what kind of content should you create? There is so much freedom when it comes to creating your content. For example, here are a few different types of content you could develop:

Blog posts
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Newsletters
Knowledge bases
Videos
Podcasts
Social media

It may be obvious to state, but different types of content provide different types of value to consumers. But, all should work together to guide users through their customer journey.

Now, let’s discuss promoting content. If you don’t market your content, there’s a chance no one will see it. Marketing is just as important as content writing and creation. The most popular technique for content marketing is search engine optimization (SEO). A strong content marketing method and e-commerce SEO strategy help increase brand visibility and awareness.

Overall, content marketing and the use of a reliable SEO text generator for content creation, can contribute to your brand’s distinctiveness in comparison to online competitors. This approach not only helps in cultivating a loyal audience but also plays a vital role in establishing trust between your brand and consumers.

2. Optimize Your Website

Up to 100 percent of your business is probably done on your website. So, making sure it’s fully optimized will ensure customers navigate your website seamlessly and feel encouraged to make purchases. There are a few different elements that go into creating a fully optimized website. Let’s take a look.

Website Design – Your website’s layout and design should be simple and attractive. You want to draw customers in, convince them to stay, and ultimately, make a purchase. Here are some tips for creating a well-designed website:
- Grab your user’s attention with high-quality photographs, graphics, and color choice.
- Make sure important information like return policies are clear and easy to find.
- Present products and services in an unforgettable way.
- Offer easy access to significant content that will help them in their buying journey.
User Experience – User experience (UX) is the most important element to consider when building your website. Good UX occurs when you understand what users want to see and access and help them do that effectively. Make their experience as smooth as possible by creating an easy-to-use website. Avoid complicated site navigation, slow transitions, unnecessary content, or complex designs.
Conversion Rates – A responsive site contributes to better UX and website design. It keeps visitors on your website and reduces bounce rate. A responsive website includes the following:
- Quick loading times
- Mobile conversion
- Good page-to-page connectivity
Checkout Process – A smooth checkout process can single-handedly boost your e-commerce sales. It doesn’t take much to create a great cart and checkout design. The key is to be as transparent as possible with shipping costs, taxes, and other fees. This ensures the customer doesn’t encounter any surprises that scare them away when purchasing. Additionally, provide multiple payment options such as PayPal and major credit cards.

A fully optimized website aims to remove as many roadblocks as possible in every design element.

3. Communicate & Interact with Your Customers

Customers expect responsive support. So, when they want to get in touch with your business, you must make it easy for them to contact you. Consider adding a contact page to your website with omnichannel options like email, business phone number, chat, social media, and more. This way, your customers can reach out to you through their preferred method of communication.

Having omnichannel communication methods is also a great strategy for reaching out to your customers. Take a look at these 3:

On-Platform Messaging – Providing a way to communicate on your e-commerce platform removes all roadblocks for you and your customer. This method transforms your online store to literally a one-stop shop for both sales and support. With everything on the same platform, you can access customers’ purchase histories. This means you can quickly update users on order status and return policies, without searching through your archives. For example, Etsy allows buyers and customers to message each other.
Outbound Calling Service — Increase both sales and brand awareness with outbound calling for your online business. Adding outbound calling to your e-commerce marketing strategy gives you the opportunity to welcome new users, send out reminders, collect feedback, and much more. Through this method, you’ll receive valuable insight into your consumers and services. And, you’ll also craft a more personalized experience for customers in the process.
Email – Email gives you the opportunity to follow up on abandoned orders, send promotional coupons, direct users to onboarding info, and more. You can personalize each email to different target audience segments. This method allows you to generate leads, boost traffic to your website, and drive sales.

If you can only use one of these methods, consider your business needs, target audience’s preferences, platform’s capabilities, and overall budget.

4. Craft a Personalized Experience

A personalized experience creates a lasting impression on customers, bringing them back to your business. This e-commerce marketing strategy helps increase consumer loyalty, brand reputation, and revenue. Most of all, it separates you from your competition. One way to do so is by using headless e-commerce platforms that deliver highly personalized shopping experiences to each and every customer. A tailored service encourages consumers to stay with your brand instead of switching to another. That is so important in such a competitive marketplace.

With personalized service, you eliminate irrelevant options for users and direct them to products they need. This establishes a relationship between your business and the customer. You can incorporate personalization into your e-commerce marketing strategy through:

Personalized emails
Recommended products
Targeted ads and pop-ups
Websites and pages customized to users’ interests

Targeted strategies like these make the consumer feel understood and boost loyalty towards your business.

5. Offer Incentives & Rewards

Who doesn’t love a good reward? This is a sure-fire way to drive sales up. Incentives motivate consumers to interact with your brand. Incentive marketing for e-commerce grabs a user’s attention with unique offers, discounts, sales, and more. It gives consumers who are on your website an extra push to make a purchase. Here are some incentives to offer:

Coupons
Promo Codes
Loyalty Programs

These incentives and rewards encourage repeat clients and repeat purchases, while promoting consumer retention and loyalty.

6. Enhance Customer Service

Customer support and service are parts of any business, whether it’s online or in person. Support methods are always adapting to the consumer. But, here’s an opportunity to expand your e-commerce marketing strategies past traditional avenues. Delivering high-quality customer service starts with these methods:

Omnichannel Communication – Multiple channels of communication such as over-the-phone service or chatbots provide customers with options. This way, they can choose their ideal method of communication.
Accessibility and Reachability – Being easily accessible is the minimum requirement for a high-quality service. Customers want to immediately reach you when they need help. Local and toll-free numbers come in handy for global businesses or businesses looking to expand internationally. These numbers provide an easy, free way for callers to get a hold of you. Make sure to advertise your toll-free number to your customers, if they need it.
Round the Clock Support – 24/7, real-time support builds reliable and quality customer service. Consumers always know you’re available if they require assistance no matter what. To provide constant support service via phone, consider time-based or follow-the-sun routing models. This way, you are always available to all your consumers around the world.
Personalization – (Surprise, surprise) Personalization goes a long way in customer service too! Consumers want to know you’re going to solve their problems according to their individual needs.

Successful, high-quality customer service results in delighting the consumer and establishing loyalty. Happy customers increase brand reputation and can even lead to great publicity through word-of-mouth.

7. Expand to Social Media

Social media works not only as an e-commerce marketing strategy, but also as another opportunity to sell. Social media is a powerful tool for attracting new customers and boosting sales. You can increase your exposure by using social media for marketing purposes. A social media proposal is a great way to show off the products you offer, connect with potential clients and build awareness about what exactly makes up an excellent customer experience.

There are so many options when it comes to social media marketing. Starting with platforms, there’s a variety to choose from, with a different target demographic tied to each. For example, Facebook has a different user base than TikTok. Select the platform that fits your target audience and brand identity.

Additionally, you can pick from paid or organic posts, depending on your business needs. Influencers also bring visibility to your brand and showcase your products to a wide audience.

Social media gives your consumers another opportunity to interact with your brand. Consumer engagement increases through likes, shares, comments, hashtags, and more. It’s easy for users to share information between different platforms, which helps your business reach an even wider audience. Trending hashtags work as an attention-grabbing strategy. You can use these hashtags to measure your campaign’s success.

8. Keep Up with Your Competitors

Always keep an eye on your business rivals. This means looking at their e-commerce marketing strategies. Consider these questions:

What type of content are they producing?
What services do they offer that you don’t?
Are they using any incentives or reward programs?
What social and digital platforms are they on?

By reviewing your competitors, you get an outside perspective on what’s working and what can be improved. Then, you can incorporate the successful tactics into your own marketing strategies. A failed campaign gives you the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and make an even better version!

9. Create a Community & Following

Building a community around your brand adds another level of value for your consumers. A community gives your consumers a space to interact with you and each other. Here are some examples:

Comment sections
Forums like Reddit, Quora
Social media groups like Facebook groups or Slack channels

Community building is a great e-commerce marketing strategy as it gives customers a sense of belonging.

Real-World Benefits

Although your business and these e-commerce marketing strategies happen mainly online, they have real-world benefits. Your business will build brand awareness, increase revenue, establish a loyal customer base, and so much more. We’ve discussed many different strategies here but your next steps depend on what you need. So, choose the ones that work best for your business!

Want to learn more about cloud telephony solutions for e-commerce? We can help with that! Call us at +1 (561) 908-6171 or chat with our reps online!

What is Intelligent Call Routing?

Kim Sayers 14th March 2022 blog, Call Management

Simple call routing strategies are a thing of the past in successful business phone networks. These strategies have become outdated as they often generated long wait times, multiple transfers, and overall caller frustration.

However, your business and teams can tackle these challenges head-on with an intelligent call routing solution. Smart call routing brings accuracy, responsiveness, and new functionality to your phone system. Let’s look at what this service is, how it works, and what it can do for your company.

Intelligent Call Routing For Your Business

Effective communication between businesses and consumers is essential in a customer’s lifetime. When customers contact your company, you want them to reach the best person or department to satisfy their needs. Smart call routing is an affordable cloud communication solution that helps direct callers to the right employee, leading to better call management.

In this short guide, we will go over:

Definition and Features
Benefits of Intelligent Call Routing
Common Use Cases
Smart Call Routing Best Practices

What is Smart Call Routing?

Smart or intelligent call routing systems receive incoming calls, gather information from or about the caller, and route them to the appropriate agent or department. Some intelligent routing services even help users complete simple tasks or answer frequently asked questions. This service feature helps streamline the caller’s experience by eliminating unnecessary transfers.

Some providers have a smart call routing package ready to use upon activation. Others have call routing services with access to customizable, advanced features. When applied to your system, features like Interactive Voice Response (IVR) make your routing intelligent. This type of routing strategy is also known as IVR call routing.

How Does Intelligent Call Routing Work?

Intelligent phone call routing works alongside your cloud phone system to effectively manage inbound calls. Once a call comes in, the system automatically redirects callers to the correct department based on collected caller information.

The system gathers this information by asking callers to select an option from the preset menu concerning the intent of the call. Users make their desired selection by dialing the appropriate keypad number or speaking their answer. The caller’s input then determines the routing destination.

In other cases, the system routes the caller based on the caller ID and the account attached to that phone number. There are a few different ways to employ intelligent call routing; you’ll need to work with your cloud phone service provider to understand available options.

Specific destinations and how your incoming calls move through your phone system depend on the routing rules you create. You can easily input new rules and manage your call flow using your provider’s online platform or contacting them directly. Your preset rules define your phone systems:

Menu prompts and options
Routing destinations based on caller input
Alternate routing destinations or failover forwarding
Ring times and strategies
Advanced routing strategies like holiday routing and more.

Advanced Features for Intelligent Call Routing

As mentioned earlier, some providers offer access to advanced features that transform your regular IVR call routing system into an intelligent one. This allows businesses with evolving needs to customize call management setups and scale as necessary. Or, if you have an existing system in place (such as PBX), this is an easy way to increase functionality.

So, what types of features contribute to a smart call routing system?

Here are a few that come in handy:

Advanced IVR (Auto-Attendant) – With this feature, an automated voice automatically answers inbound calls and communicates with callers. It provides general information, instructions, and menu options. Advanced IVR is capable of organizing, prioritizing, and transferring incoming calls to boost your system’s proficiency. And, you can design your IVR system from the ground up to fit your business needs.
Customized Greetings, Voicemails, and Prompts – These customization tools allow you to upload greetings and personalize your phone system. It is useful for instructions, menu prompts, branding, and promotions. Even more so, it impacts the customer’s initial impression of your company and your quality of service.
Ring Groups (also Hunt Groups) – This advanced feature lets you ring several lines among your departments, teams, or agents. With the ring group model, you can either ring all users at the same time (simultaneously) or in a specific order (sequentially). This strategy helps your teams never miss calls by distributing them effectively.
Call Flow Builder – A call flow designer is an interactive tool that allows you to create custom call flows. So, you have complete control over the call process and how it travels through your system. A well-structured call flow design helps improve caller experience and streamlines your communications.

All of these features and more (like different routing strategies) help increase your network’s functionality and make smart call routing possible.

11 Benefits of Using IVR Call Routing

Smart routing is a popular solution for companies of all sizes that want to improve their phone system’s efficiency and overall performance. With a streamlined solution like IVR call routing, you can accurately distribute and route calls among your teams and deliver quick assistance to callers. This is beneficial for both your agents and customers, as it saves both parties time.

Let’s dig into all the benefits this feature offers:

Decrease call duration and wait times
Improve caller experience
Improve first call resolution (FCR)
Boost employee productivity
Manage this feature from any location
Reduce costs
Increase customer satisfaction
Better call reliability
Enhance network proficiency and functionality
Easy to set up
Never miss an important call

Intelligent Call Routing Use Cases

All types of businesses and teams can use smart call routing to efficiently manage inbound calls. So, to give you a better understanding of how companies and teams use IVR call routing, let’s go over some use cases:

• Businesses with high-call volumes – Intelligent routing helps businesses manage high-call volumes. It increases accuracy and handling capacity by routing callers to the correct agent or department. This way, callers avoid excessive wait times, multiple transfers, and repetitive explanations – which would otherwise lead to frustration and customer dissatisfaction. Instead, IVR call routing connects callers with the agent best-suited for their request the first time around. And in the process, it boosts your first call resolution rates and gradually reduces your call queue.

• Call centers – Maximizes a service center’s efficiency through call center IVR strategies and automation. Auto-attendants route callers to their chosen agent or department, significantly reducing hold times. Agents can then solve the customer’s issue and quickly move on to the next caller. So, your team’s productivity and customer satisfaction increases while your call handling times decrease.

• Sales and support teams – Some intelligent phone routing systems give you access to caller information like demographics or previous call history. Your system can then match reps with callers based on this data, resulting in better customer service.

• Remote teams – Whether you have a remote branch or your team works from home, intelligent call routing helps connect your teams – no matter their location. This is because the feature uses remote call forwarding to automatically route calls to any device. You can also use this as a failover forwarding technique. All you have to do is set it up in your service’s control panel.

Best Practices for IVR Call Routing

Here are some things to pay attention to when implementing IVR call routing into your phone system:

Map out your call flow or phone tree before inputting it into your system.
Keep IVR menu options short and simple. Avoid overloading callers with options.
Prioritize menu options based on common call topics or requests.
Consider your caller’s intent when creating your routing rules and call flow.
Don’t rely too heavily on phone system automation. Leave room for personalization.
Opt for a human voice when creating your menu, prompts, greetings, etc.
Monitor your network’s progress using system analytics.
Ask for customer feedback with phone surveys.

Ready to Add Smart Call Routing to Your Setup?

Global Call Forwarding offers intelligent call routing features with each of our phone number plans. To learn more about the benefits of advanced call routing or how to set up this service, call us at (561) 908-6171. Want to see it in action? Request a demo or chat with us online.

3-Way Calling: Benefits & How to Get

Meryl D'Sa-Wilson 7th March 2022 blog

It’s no secret that collaboration and communication are two driving forces behind any well-functioning sales or customer support team. Your reps need to be able to communicate with others (co-workers, supervisors, managers, etc.) when the time arises. And in some cases, they may need to collaborate with others during a call with a customer. The ability to quickly add someone to the call saves time and moves the process (closing the sale or support ticket) along smoothly. That’s when having 3-way calling within your cloud phone system comes in handy.

What is 3-Way Calling?

3-way calling is a call management feature that allows you to add another person to an ongoing call. Other common terms for 3-way calling include call merging, conference calling, or call conferencing. To do this, you will have to initiate the second call and then merge the two calls together.

There have traditionally been a few different ways to add another person to a call:

Conference call numbers or codes
3rd-party services
Call waiting, and so on.

But these resulted in reduced call quality and confusing mechanisms. It sometimes even led to the first call being dropped.

To solve these issues, phone service providers have made it easier to merge calls, leading to the birth of the 3-way calling feature.

Benefits of 3-Way Conference Calls

So, how can your business use 3-way calling? When conferencing with others, you can:

Collaborate internally on projects within customer service and sales teams
Conduct quick virtual meetings with important decision-makers
Offer more responsive service by getting help and support quickly
Save time on having two separate calls or meetings by having just one
Train new employees by showing them how to respond in certain situations
Boost customer satisfaction and caller experience by cutting down wait times and long transfers
Have faster and more efficient meetings and conversations
Increase first call resolution rates
Converse and collaborate across different departments, locations, and devices.

Call merging helps your teams connect and work together towards a common goal: improving your business’ sales and customer support initiatives. And with a cloud phone service provider, your teams can do this even during remote work periods.

How to Get 3-Way Calling with Global Call Forwarding?

You can get 3-way calling with any phone service provider. Global Call Forwarding offers a variety of call management features and services along with our virtual phone number plans.

If you are a Global Call Forwarding customer, you don’t need conferencing numbers or codes to engage in a three-way call conference. You simply need an Outbound Calling plan. Then, you can download the GCF softphone and use the Merge feature to add another person to your ongoing call.

Get Outbound Calling and other advanced business communication features with Global Call Forwarding. Call us at +1 (561) 908-6171 or chat with our telecom experts today!

What is Remote Call Forwarding?

Kim Sayers 23rd February 2022 blog, Call Management

With the growing acceptance of remote and flexible working, it is important to equip your business with cloud-based tools that ensure employees continue working even if they cannot be present in the office.

Cloud communications often grant you access to advanced features that help create a better caller experience. Among these features lies remote call forwarding. This feature especially comes in handy during unprecedented situations and remote work. But, it is not limited to those situations.

Forwarding Calls When Your Business Works Remotely

Remote call forwarding is an asset to businesses and teams looking to stay connected with customers while away from the office. This feature makes forwarding calls to any device from anywhere possible. So, you’ll never miss important calls or potential sales again. Advanced call forwarding meets both businesses’ and customers’ needs to connect.

What is Call Forwarding and How Does it Work?

Remote call forwarding (RCF) is a service feature that allows you to route incoming calls to another designated phone number, location, or device. Whether you’re in a different location or your team is spread across multiple areas, local and international forwarding enables consumers to reach your brand at the same number. This feature helps establish consistent business communication by ensuring every call to your number is answered, regardless of your location.

Incoming calls can be routed to any cell phone or computer worldwide. Overall, international call forwarding provides businesses with flexibility by seamlessly routing incoming calls to desired destinations, anywhere in the world.

When Should You Use Remote Call Forwarding?

Call forwarding is a valuable communication tool, creating a seamless and reliable experience for your callers. This feature is customizable to your business needs. But when can your business make the most out of this service? It pays off the most in these circumstances:

Remote work – Remote call forwarding is a great way to connect your lines of communication across multiple physical locations. Customers can dial the same, familiar number and reach an available representative, regardless of location. RCF helps distributed teams transition to the work-from-home setting without sacrificing call reliability or quality.
Network issues – Whether your internet goes out or your service is interrupted, you can still receive incoming calls by forwarding them to another location or device. This service feature acts as a fallback or failover strategy, so you never miss an important call.
Emergency situations – Integrating failover forwarding into your business phone system prepares your company for emergencies that may close your office. When you enable call forwarding, all inbound calls route to an alternative phone, destination, or available agent. This helps your business avoid shutting down for an extended period without putting your team at risk. Remote call forwarding is also an excellent crisis communication tool. You can set up emergency messaging in your prompts or route calls to back up teams when necessary.

7 Benefits of Using Advanced Call Forwarding For Your Business

Remote call forwarding offers businesses of all sizes benefits like flexibility, customization, and increased functionality. Let’s take a look at the top 7 advantages of using RCF:

Increased availability – You can forward calls anywhere! Your business remains accessible to consumers regardless of time, location, or issues. Set up rules for after-hours calls or remote backup teams to stay connected with customers.
Flexibility – Not only can you forward calls to any device or destination, but you can also change up your rules at your convenience. This service makes setting up and modifying forwarding rules from any device and at any time simple and effective.
No need for additional equipment – Since call forwarding is cloud-based, all you need is a good call forwarding service, a stable connection, and an internet-enabled device. So, you can skip the bulky hardware and complicated setup. You can even use your smartphone for business calls without exposing your private number.
Never miss an important call – Set up advanced forwarding rules, like find-me-follow-me, so you never miss another call. This feature allows customers to stay connected to your business and your team no matter either party’s location. It also helps prepare your business for any emergency situations or network outages.
Cost-effective – Remote call forwarding eliminates the cost of additional equipment. As a cloud-based service feature, it also is more affordable than a traditional phone service. You save on international and long-distance calling rates.
Improve caller experience – By providing an accessible and reliable service, you can improve the way callers interact with your business. Customers will always be able to reach your business with questions or concerns.
Fully customizable – Remote call forwarding is entirely customizable to your business needs. You control the handling of calls and how they flow through your system.

Get the Most Out of Your Remote Call Forwarding Service

To get the most out of this service, you’ll want to consider different aspects of the forwarding process. Here are some things to keep in mind when using this service:

Emphasize your brand – Whenever customers connect to your business, take the opportunity to reinforce your brand’s voice. It also helps to simply state your business name and other relevant information, so the caller knows they’ve reached the right company.
Ensure the stability of devices receiving forwarded calls – With a remote call forwarding system in place, you can route calls to any device or destination. But, this function is ultimately rendered useless if the device you’re forwarding calls to doesn’t work or has a bad connection. Make sure all devices included are stable and functional.
Shorten wait times – Try to shorten the amount of time calls ring at one number before transferring to another. You don’t want callers waiting for long periods at every number they are transferred to, which can lead to caller frustration.
Use basic IVR with menus and prompts – If you decide to add an IVR, phone menu, or prompt to your incoming call flow, make sure they are professional as well as short and to the point. Concise messaging helps keep the caller moving in their journey.

How to Set Up Remote Call Forwarding?

Ready to start connecting your teams and increase the functionality of your phone service? Remote call forwarding comes included with any Global Call Forwarding service plan. You can sign up on our website and start forwarding calls to locations and devices as needed. It’s easy to set up call forwarding in our online control panel.

To learn more about remote call forwarding, call us at +1 (561) 908-6171 or chat with our experts online.

What are Call Detail Records (CDRs) and Their Benefits?

Kim Sayers 14th February 2022 blog, Call Management

As the name implies, call detail records (CDRs) register all details of incoming and outgoing calls on your system. Whether you’re operating on a VoIP system, wireless phone, or PSTN, calls get logged in a CDR. You can use this feature for billing purposes, call tracking, evaluating success, and more.

Call Detail Records For Your Business

Call records (also known as call logs) contain detailed information logs about your phone network and users. This data can help inform areas of improvement for your business and help build a more effective service. This article will explore the benefits call detail records offer your business and how to use them.

What are Call Records?

Call detail records are data logs that document all telecommunication exchanges occurring on your network. More specifically, call records provide information on how and when the phone system was used. In other words, they log all billable phone activity on your network.

Most service providers typically upload CDRs to online portals or send them with your formal monthly bills. Usually, anyone on your phone network with administrative capabilities can access the records. The reports are never deleted and remain accessible forever.

What Information Do CDRs Include?

Your call detail records contain a wide variety of metadata to help you understand how employees and customers use your system. The reports are generally sorted by users or phone numbers and look like an itemized list. The information included in your call logs vary from service to service.

So, what kind of data could your call records include? Here are some examples:

Date and time
Call duration (minutes)
Caller ID
Location of call origination and destination
Destination number or number dialed
Completion status or reason for call termination
Type of call (toll-free, local, etc.)
Cost per call and total charge
Features used (SMS forwarding, call recording, etc.)
Call journey (extensions, IVR, etc.)

Additionally, CDRs might contain data related to your VoIP network, like IP address or port number. It is also important to note that call detail records do not include the contents of phone calls or text messages.

How is the Data Collected?

Software programs begin collecting data the moment you make or receive a call. Each call made on your network passes through a mediation layer which processes and converts call data into a specific format. When the data is properly formatted, billing systems and OSS applications can import the CDR to create your final bill.

When they enter the network, incoming calls are assigned a caller identifier (ID). The caller ID stays with the call throughout its entire journey, making call tracking possible.

Just remember, the data included in your call detail records depends on the type of software that collects the information and the provider you use.

6 Benefits of Call Detail Records

Call records enable your business to monitor all activity on your network and adjust your service accordingly. With this level of information, you can craft a more effective and successful business service. Here are the top 6 benefits of using call detail records in your company:

Better call management
Boost employee performance
Optimize campaigns for success
Identify quality leads and new target markets
Improve caller experience
Measure ROI of business calls and marketing campaigns.

How Can Businesses Use Call Logs?

Although businesses primarily use call records for billing purposes, your company can use these reports in many different ways. Let’s take a look:

Monitor Employee Use – Businesses and team managers can use call detail records to evaluate employee performance. The data reflects the number of inbound and outbound calls, call duration, and more. So, you can see if employees are hitting their objectives or need more training.
Call Analytics – Using call records, you can quickly analyze call data to learn more about your customer’s needs. The data informs you on customer calling behavior, pain points, preferences, and more. With that in mind, you can enhance the customer’s experience and drive sales.
Identify Calling Trends and Patterns – CDRs give you the ability to identify patterns and variants on your network. Identify the peak time for incoming calls or which countries generate the most calls. With this information, your business can create a more effective service.
Campaign Tracking – When you assign a unique number to each of your marketing campaigns, you can use the records to track call metrics and evaluate a campaign’s success. You can see which campaigns generate more calls and, therefore, more customers.
Call Center Management – Call logs contain tons of beneficial information for call center managers. It provides you with basic record-keeping but also allows you to track call volume fluctuations, call duration, and more. This information helps boost the functionality and effectiveness of your call center.
Billing – Your business can use the reports to calculate how many minutes you’re using and adjust your budget accordingly.

How to Access Call Detail Records

Here’s a step-by-step process on how to access your CDRs with Global Call Forwarding:

Log in to your Control Panel.
Go to the My Phone Numbers tab on the left-side menu
Choose a phone service line and click on Service Plan.
Click on Activity in the orange bar.
Then, choose what kind of calls you want to look at: Answered, All, or Missed.

Visit our Knowledge Base for further instructions on viewing or downloading your Call Detail Records!

Start Using Call Records to Improve Your Business

Call detail records come included with any Global Call Forwarding phone number plan. They are easily accessible through our online control panel. To learn more, speak with our sales team or your dedicated account manager at (561) 908-6171 or chat with us online!

What is Find Me Follow Me?

Kim Sayers 11th February 2022 blog

Whether you’re taking calls from customers, clients, or employees, an effective communication system is essential to every business. Find Me Follow Me call forwarding helps you stay connected when you’re on the go. That’s why this routing strategy is offered as a common Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) feature.

Understanding the Find Me Follow Me Phone Service

Find Me Follow Me is also referred to as call hunting, call routing, or call forwarding. However, this service is not the same as a basic call routing system. Instead, Find Me Follow Me allows you to set up forwarding rules that meet your needs.

This feature keeps you connected to incoming calls by routing them to your desired destinations and devices. Staying in touch with callers has never been easier or more flexible than with Find Me Follow Me. And since it is a cloud-based service, you don’t need any additional, expensive hardware!

What is Find Me Follow Me?

Find Me Follow Me is actually two different VoIP forwarding strategies that are commonly used together.

The “Find Me” strategy automatically routes inbound calls to a specified destination. This gives you the ability to receive calls at any location whether you’re in the office, at home, or traveling.

“Follow Me” forwards calls to designated phones, ringing calls simultaneously or sequentially. This service makes you available across several devices.

When these strategies are used together, your incoming calls route to a predetermined list of alternate locations, numbers, and devices.

You then have the option to ring these numbers or devices one after the other or all at once. This feature will continue down the list until the call is answered. If the call goes unanswered on all devices, you can decide what happens to the call next.

Here’s an example of Find Me Follow Me:
A call comes into your desired destination – your desk phone. The call rings for 30 seconds and goes unanswered. The call is then routed to your mobile phone and home phone until the call is answered. Find Me Follow Me will ring your devices sequentially or simultaneously.

Sequentially: It first rings your mobile phone and after 30 seconds, it rings your home phone.
Simultaneously: It rings both your mobile phone and your home phone at the same time.

If all devices go unanswered, calls are routed to voicemail or your backup team.

How Can Find Me Follow Me Help Your Business?

Find Me Follow Me ensures that you never miss an important call and increases your availability with callers.

Once you set up this feature, Find Me Follow Me automatically sends incoming calls to your predetermined list. So, the calls “find” you whether you’re bouncing between locations, working from home, or going out to lunch. This is also extremely helpful if your schedule is constantly changing or if you travel for work.

11 Benefits of Using the Find Me Follow Me Service

Most VoIP providers agree that Find Me Follow Me is a powerful tool for business communication systems. This call management feature not only offers a flexible way to stay connected, but many other benefits as well. Some of these benefits include:

1. Receive incoming calls from any location and on any device
2. Optimize your availability
3. Customize to fit your system
4. Reduce the need for additional hardware
5. Decrease call wait times
6. Reduce the number of missed calls
7. Keep your personal numbers private
8. Improve caller experience
9. Advertise only one, primary number for your company
10. Boost your team’s productivity
11. Easily scale your business

Who Benefits From Using Find Me Follow Me Call Forwarding?

Now that we know the specific benefits that come along with the Find Me Follow Me service, let’s discuss its use cases. Here are a few examples of those who benefit most from using this routing strategy:

Customer Service and Sales Teams
Find Me Follow Me call forwarding enables your support team to deliver a responsive and consistent service. The feature helps agents maximize their availability. Additionally, your sales team will never miss out on a lucrative sales opportunity. Using Find Me Follow Me, both support reps and sales agents can deliver quick response times and improve the caller’s overall experience.
Remote Workers
If your company needs an easy way to forward calls from your workplace PBX to an employee’s personal phone, Find Me Follow Me is the perfect solution. The virtual service not only allows you to route calls to other devices, but also to any location. This is a seamless and efficient way to connect customers to your remote team.
Business Owners
Small business owners and solopreneurs are constantly pulled in multiple directions — whether you’re attending meetings, checking in with employees, or networking. Find Me Follow Me will ensure that important calls always reach you.
Healthcare Providers
Doctors and healthcare professionals are always on the move. So, they need a healthcare communication solution that keeps them connected even when not at their desks. Find Me Follow Me allows patients with emergencies and urgent questions to quickly reach their healthcare providers.

How to Set Up Find Me Follow Me

Most VoIP providers include the Find Me Follow Me service with their cloud phone plans. Here’s how to set up Find Me Follow Me with Global Call Forwarding:

1. Log in to your Control Panel.

2. Choose a phone service line and click on Settings.

3. Select Call Forwarding from the horizontal menu and click IVR.

4. Click the orange Manage IVR Application button.

5. Select Phones from the menu on the right-hand side and click Add a new phone.

Here, you can add the number where you want your calls to first arrive.

6. Click the green Save Changes button.

7. Select Add a new phone again.

In the Call Destination window, choose your ringing method. Add as many numbers or devices as you want by clicking the orange Add button.

8. Hit Save Changes.

9. Then, select Create New Application in the IVR Manager window.

10. Choose Phone Call from the list of actions.

Here, add a name and select the desired number calls should come to first (see step 5). Note: Skip the prompt section.

11. Customize the Max. Wait time between transfers.

12. Click the arrow in the Failed bar and choose Phone Call again.

Add a name and skip the prompt section again.

13. In Destination, select the phone group you created for backup devices.

14. Click the blue Close button and hit Save Application at the top.

Get Advanced Routing!

To learn more about Find Me Follow Me from Global Call Forwarding? Speak with our representatives today or connect with your dedicated account manager today! Call us at +1 (561) 908-6171 or chat with us online.

8 Common SIP Problems and Solutions

Kim Sayers 8th February 2022 blog, VoIP

Effective communication systems are at the heart of successful businesses. SIP provides your business phone system with a dependable, cost-effective, and modernized service. While this service offers a ton of capabilities and benefits for your business, it’s normal to experience SIP-related issues every so often. We’ll discuss typical SIP problems and our recommended solutions.

Identifying and Troubleshooting Common SIP Issues

SIP trunking uses the internet to route calls, making your business communication easy and affordable. SIP provides reliable and stable communication services. But as with any technology, even SIP encounters technical issues. Although this service usually has a low downtime, it’s great to know tips for troubleshooting SIP problems.

Understanding Your SIP Trunk Phone System

It’s helpful to understand how your SIP system works to properly identify any upcoming issues. Before we get into common SIP problems and their solutions, let’s first review the basics of your SIP trunking service.

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) works with VoIP to transmit and maintain multimedia communication through the internet. SIP trunks convert communication data into digital packets. The service then delivers the packets to your desired destination, also referred to as a packet switch network.

One SIP trunk includes several channels. Every channel represents one call, whether it is inbound or outbound. A SIP trunk with multiple channels enables you to simultaneously place or receive multiple calls. Additionally, SIP trunking works with most devices and can even be integrated with your PBX.

Now on to common SIP problems and solutions. We’ve divided SIP issues into two main categories and included our recommended fixes:

Audio quality

Echoes
Delays
Broken audio
Jitter
No sound

SIP connection issues

Inability to make calls
Dropped calls
Missed calls or not receiving calls

As we begin to discuss SIP problems, keep in mind your selected SIP service and settings. Also, you can review our glossary to familiarize yourself with the terminology used in this article.

Audio Quality SIP Problems

Communication is vital in any business. So, poor audio quality can negatively impact business calls. The first step in solving an audio VoIP problem is to identify the issue. Audio quality issues could be anything from jitters, echoes, and delays to broken audio. Keep in mind that some solutions apply to multiple SIP problems. Let’s take a deeper look at each issue, possible causes, and solutions.

1. Echoes

Phone echoing occurs when voice audio repeats at a later interval. Usually, the caller experiencing the echo isn’t the one creating it. Echoes trigger caller frustration and affect caller experience for both parties. The main cause of phone echoing is hardware problems or a slow internet connection.

Solution for Echo in Audio

The quickest way to eliminate an echo is to take your phone off speakerphone or lower the volume. Speakerphones use multiple microphones and speakers to transmit your voice. Since this function uses several microphones, voice audio is sometimes reflected back and causes echoing.

Keep an eye on your equipment. If you have a faulty microphone or headset, it can also contribute to echoing. Outdated or damaged equipment within your SIP or VoIP infrastructure — such as an old switch, headset, router, or cables — generates audio quality issues. Replace your old equipment or legacy phone system to help reduce unwanted feedback and audio interference.

2. Delays or Latency

Voice delays are a significant pause between when you say things and when the recipient hears you. This is also known as audio latency or lag. Latency leads to callers talking over each other or prolonged pauses in the conversation. The common cause of voice delay originates from a low internet speed.

Solution for Audio Delay

If you have audio quality issues, check your current bandwidth power. Bandwidth affects both the upload and download speeds of your internet connection. For one SIP channel, your minimum bandwidth speed should be 100 kbps. This rate should increase depending on the amount of SIP channels or trunks you have. Contact your internet service provider (ISP) to ensure your network meets these bandwidth requirements.

If you’re still having audio trouble after checking your bandwidth power, review your Quality of Service (QoS) settings on your router. QoS enables you to prioritize different kinds of traffic on your network.

3. Broken Audio

When words or voices continuously cut in and out, you’re experiencing choppy or broken audio. Inconsistent audio increases miscommunication between parties. The usual source of broken audio is packet loss. Packet loss occurs when certain pieces of data are not successfully transmitted. Typically, network or internet connection problems contribute to packet loss.

Solution for Broken Audio

Although WiFi is usually strong enough for basic internet access, Ethernet may be a better option for your VoIP phone system. An Ethernet cable increases internet speed, lowers network latency, and offers a more stable connection. This is a possible solution to packet loss that causes broken audio and jitters.

Streaming services take up bandwidth power and contribute to internet traffic on your network. When making or receiving calls, consider closing the streaming services to increase call audio quality.

4. Jitters

Call jitter occurs when voice audio is missing or jumbled. Similar to broken audio, audio is lost and never delivered to the recipient. But unlike broken audio, voice data has the potential to be delivered out of order. This affects the overall quality of the call and often leads to miscommunication. Packet loss also triggers this issue and originates from a poor internet connection.

Solution for Jitter in VoIP Calls

Again, poor internet connection and insufficient bandwidth contribute to many common SIP problems, including audio quality issues. A stable and strong internet connection sets you up for the best audio quality. Double-check that you have the appropriate amount of bandwidth available to power your devices and services.

A jitter buffer intentionally delays incoming audio data packets so that the caller receives clear sound. You can use either a static or dynamic jitter buffer. A static buffer is set up through your hardware by the manufacturer. Whereas, a dynamic buffer is software-based and easy to modify to the needs of your network.

5. No Sound

This issue occurs when your call successfully connects, but you can’t hear anything. In some instances, the other caller may not be able to hear you. Lack of sound results in a constant exchange of “Hello?” and “Can you hear me now?” which is really aggravating for both people on the call.

Solution for No Sound in SIP Calls

Firewalls provide your network with security to prevent unauthorized network traffic. However, your firewall may be preventing your audio packets and SIP in general from working properly. To fix this, make sure firewall and PBX ports are open to your provider’s recommended settings. For Global Call Forwarding users, open ports 10,000 to 60,000.

SIP Connection Issues

SIP trunks and VoIP calls make business communication both reliable and efficient. However, users may sometimes experience SIP problems when making, receiving, and connecting calls. Here are some common SIP connection issues and solutions:

6. Inability to Make Calls

Outbound calling is an essential part of operating a business, especially for call centers. It can derail your company’s efforts or business transactions if you cannot place outbound calls. Some services clearly indicate if outbound calling is disabled or unable to connect with a message or icon.

Solution When Unable to Make Calls

First, make sure you have the outbound calling feature added to your account. To check if you have this feature, reach out to your service provider or IT support. Global Call Forwarding users can review your enabled services in the Control Panel or speak to your dedicated account manager.

If you have outbound calling enabled, double-check your SIP credentials. Make sure to confirm the validity of your SIP user ID, password, and domain information with your provider.

Additionally, check that your SIP trunk is set to the proper codec. Codecs both compress and decompress data to reduce file size and consume less bandwidth power. Different codecs provide various data transmission times, known as bitrates, and bandwidth requirements. Contact your SIP provider with questions about correct codec names.

For our users, use codec G.711 for all SIP trunks. The Global Call Forwarding network supports the G.711 codec, which provides the best VoIP call quality and uses no compression.

7. Dropped Calls

When calls randomly end or stop in the middle of your conversation, you experience a dropped call. Businesses or call centers with high call volumes might also experience dropped calls after a specific amount of call time. Dropped calls tend to create caller frustration for both parties.

Solution for Dropped Calls

Dropped calls typically originate from a poor network connection or limited bandwidth power. Analyze your internet speed, connection, network traffic, and available bandwidth power to identify areas of improvement to your network. Consider contacting your ISP or looking for a VoIP quality test online to obtain this info. Additionally, take a look at your QoS settings and make sure to prioritize all voice calls.

Ensure both your software and hardware are updated as needed. For software, consider turning on or allowing automatic updates.

8. Missed Calls or Not Receiving Calls

Calls that go straight to voicemail or don’t properly come through your phone system are considered missed calls. This is another common SIP problem that could affect your company. When you miss calls, you miss business opportunities. So, let’s solve this issue.

Solution for Missing Calls or Not Receiving Calls

If you’re not receiving calls as intended, ensure your firewall isn’t blocking your inbound calls. Simply access your firewall to authorize or manually add your provider’s IP address.

Setting up a friendly trunk can also solve this issue. A friendly trunk allows the call to proceed to the next step in your SIP system. It’s best to ask IT support for help with friendly trunk configuration. But if you’re a do-it-yourself person, you can configure a friendly trunk using open-source PBX software like FreePBX, Elastics, or Asterisk.

Solve Your SIP Problems with a Reliable Service

Selecting the right VoIP provider will help eliminate persistent SIP problems. Look for a SIP trunk provider that understands your business’ communication needs and offers reliable services.

Global Call Forwarding delivers a clear-cut SIP trunking service. We offer 24/7 support and a dedicated account manager for every user. This dedication helps avoid VoIP problems before they begin. Our affordable and straightforward plans provide a stable and reliable service with no roadblocks.

Call us today to learn more or request a demo!

5 Ways to Improve Caller Experience with Cloud Communications

Kim Sayers 17th January 2022 blog, Customer Service

When a customer calls your business, they expect to be helped right away. Without a basic phone number, a consistent answering system, an organized routing plan, and more, you could lose potential sales and repeat customers. Using our cloud communication tools, your company will have the speed, mobility, and flexibility to improve caller experience.

How to Create a Positive Caller Experience with Cloud Communication

Callers quickly abandon businesses or publish bad customer reviews when they have a bad customer service interaction. But, a well-designed caller experience produces increased consumer lifetime value (CLV), repeat clientele, and referrals. With cloud communication tools, your company can easily and reliably receive calls from anywhere in the world. Once a call comes in, you are in full control of how it is managed — this can make or break a caller’s experience.

Here are some ways to improve caller experience with our cloud communication tools:

1. Provide an Easy Contact Method

The first step in providing great service is being easy to contact. Consumers generally will switch to a different brand or service if they cannot find a simple and affordable way to call you. This is where toll-free numbers come in handy. Our toll-free numbers offer a free call to consumers in selected countries. You can expand your network with our international toll-free numbers to connect with your global customers. This option forwards long-distance incoming calls to your business’ location and stays free for callers.

2. Stay Consistent

When a client calls in, you want to pick it up within the first three rings. Callers are more likely to hang up or feel frustrated if a call rings too long. Our interactive voice response system (IVR) makes consistency easy by automatically answering inbound calls, even if your company has to manage a high call volume.

After IVR answers, it is capable of completing common tasks and transferring callers to the right department or employee.

Simply put, a cloud IVR can improve caller experience by:

reducing your employees’ workload
cutting down on average handling time (AHTs)
eliminating ignored or missed calls
delivering a consistent cloud communication service.

Plus, this call management feature comes included with our virtual number plans. This cloud communication tool guarantees that each inbound call will be answered in a consistent time frame and manner.

3. Be Professional and Friendly

A positive and professional greeting not only tells your consumer they called the right business but also that you’re happy to hear from them. Your opening message establishes the tone for the rest of the call. Voicemail messages are equally important as they leave a lasting impression and sometimes notify callers of the next steps.

Custom messaging such as on-hold messages, music, and sale promotions can drive sales and lower call abandonment rates. Our customized phone greeting feature makes it easy to set up opening messages and voicemails, using cloud IVR from our online control panel. You can upload any personalized recording as a greeting or voicemail.

Improve Caller Experience with Cloud Communications — Source: Stockphoto.com – O# 100062207713 ID#100186088462

4. Manage the Flow of your Inbound Calls

After your opening messages, what happens to the call? A well-thought-out call flow can improve the caller’s experience by letting you control where and how a call is routed to enhance customer experience.

Our call flow designer allows you to design how you manage and route incoming calls. With this tool, you can visualize how calls move through your system.

Here are some advanced call routing options we offer for any business model:

Geographical Routing
Geo-routing allows you to direct inbound calls to the nearest call center based on the caller’s location. This cloud routing tool helps establish a reliable and accessible caller experience by connecting consumers with a representative in their time zone and preferred language.

Round Robin Routing
This routing service distributes incoming calls evenly using your preset order of agents to determine the next rep in line and transfers the call to them. Round Robin strategy can improve caller experience, especially for high call volumes, by reducing hold times.

Follow the Sun Routing
With follow-the-sun routing, your company can provide 24/7 international customer support without depending on a singular support department. Additionally, your agents aren’t overwhelmed by midnight shifts, improving their customer interactions.

Time of Day Routing
Time-based routing diverts inbound calls to a different predetermined destination based on the time of day, such as past business hours or during a holiday. This can improve customer experience by automatically forwarding calls for the most convenient handling.

Sequential Forwarding
Our sequential ringing feature guarantees that every call is addressed. With this strategy, you can add multiple numbers to your sequence and program calls to go down the list or voicemail if they never connect. Having a backup system ensures a smooth caller experience and avoids any frustration from dropped calls.

5. Regularly Train and Give Feedback to your Support Team

You can consistently deliver a positive and successful caller interaction by proactively improving service interactions. Cloud call recording gives you the opportunity to listen back to previous calls. With this cloud communication tool, you can provide your staff members with feedback and personalize training. This allows you to fine-tune your customer service interactions and identify any room for improvement.

Bringing Cloud Communications to your Business

Cloud communications are the future of business communication. With the variety of advanced tools and features, you can not only improve the way your teams interact with customers but also improve office productivity.

Learn more about all our cloud telephony solutions. Call us at 1 (888) 908-6171 or chat with our representatives online today!

Customer Delight: What is it and How Can it Help Your Business?

Kim Sayers 11th January 2022 blog, Customer Service

It is easier than ever for consumers to switch to different services or rival products. Attracting new clients is also becoming increasingly expensive for businesses. To counter these trends, businesses have adopted a customer delight strategy. Here, we’ll walk through the importance of customer delight and how you can leverage it to improve customer relations.

Advancing your Business through Customer Delight

Delighting your customers is becoming necessary in successful business models. It can influence a client’s choice to stay with your brand or replace you with a competitor. A happy consumer base can increase sales, generate organic publicity, refer your business to others, and much more. This lasting positive impression can sustain your business and guide it towards continued success.

What is Customer Delight?

Simply put, customer delight is exceeding a consumer’s expectations — when a client has a beyond positive experience with the brand, products, support services, etc. When your business surprises or delights a user, you establish a bond and increase the likelihood of consumer loyalty. This is an ongoing process, which no one employee or department handles. Whether you’re in marketing, customer service, IT, or production — you’re all equally responsible for sustaining a company that delights clients.

Customer Satisfaction vs. Customer Delight

At first glance, customer satisfaction and customer delight are the same things. Customer satisfaction is a stepping stone to delight.

So, what’s the difference between customer satisfaction and customer delight? While consumer satisfaction just meets their experience, customer delight aims to exceed.

Let’s break down these two concepts further.

Customer Satisfaction – A satisfied client is someone who received average or decent service. The encounter didn’t blow their mind, but it will do. It’s easier for a satisfied user to switch to rival providers or products. This is also referred to as customer abandonment or churn rate. Satisfaction reduces the likelihood of customer retention as it creates a vulnerable state in the consumer’s journey.
Customer Delight – A delighted client is someone who received an above-average experience. The consumer’s entire encounter with the brand positively exceeded their expectations. This type of service leaves a lasting, favorable impression on the user and increases the likelihood of consumer loyalty. Overall, it contributes to the customer’s lifetime value and the company’s long-term success.

Calculating Success

It’s important to measure the success of your customer delight strategy to make sure it’s working. Start by creating an index or baseline of current consumer attitude toward your brand. Create your business’ baseline by asking for feedback or sending out client surveys. Once you’ve established a baseline, you can measure progress through a couple of different methods, including:

Customer Lifetime Value
Retention Rate
Net Promoter Score
Churn Rate
Customer Effort Score, and more.

You can also ask for additional feedback or conduct follow-up surveys. This way, you can determine areas of your strategy that are working or need improvement.

5 Ways Delight Improves Your Business

We’ve already discussed how exceeding customer expectations breeds consumer loyalty. But, what other benefits does this tactic have for your business? Take a look below.

1. Stand Out from the Competition

By creating a personalized and unparalleled customer-first strategy, you separate your business from rival companies. Aiming for delight instead of consumer satisfaction can influence clients to stay with you or switch to your brand.

2. Sustained Growth

An above-average experience attracts clients to your business, products, or services. Striving for customer delight strengthens the possibility of customer retention and loyalty. This process of both attracting and retaining consumers leads to sustained growth and long-term company success.

3. Organic Publicity

A delighted customer is more likely to produce organic publicity for your brand. This happens naturally through consumer word-of-mouth marketing, recommendations, reviews, and more. Delight creates unofficial advocates and promoters for your company.

4. Protects Brand Reputation

Exceeding a customer’s expectations can protect your business’ reputation. In the same way, it can generate positive publicity, it also discourages consumers from writing bad reviews or criticizing you publicly. Even a social media blow can negatively influence your reputation and sales. Strategic customer delight works to prevent negative press. Delighted clients might even defend any negative comments against your company.

5. Cost-Effective

Delighting consumers is actually more cost-effective than customer satisfaction. Retaining clients through customer delight is far more lucrative than attracting new ones. According to Harvard Business Review, acquiring new customers costs anywhere from 5 to 25 times more than retaining current clients. Exceeding customer expectations additionally contributes to increased sales and user spending. In another study by Bain & Company, increasing consumer retention rates by 5 percent caused profits to increase by 25 to 95 percent.

How to Delight Customers?

A successful customer delight strategy doesn’t happen overnight. It is an all-encompassing and ongoing process that takes time to develop. If you’re just getting started with exceeding client expectations, take a look at these popular customer-first strategies:

Collect Consumer Data

Market research is an important part of exceeding customer expectations. You have to know your audience to deliver the best experience possible. Market data enables you to focus and target client needs, wishes, and interests. It also provides insight into possible improvements in your service or products. You can collect consumer data through:

Active listening and paying attention
Identifying pain points
Customer segmentation
Surveys and testimonials
Voice of the customer feedback research

Personalize the Customer’s Experience

Using the data you collected, you can tailor a consumer’s experience to their individual needs and wants. A customized experience comes as a result of one-of-a-kind interactions and consumer-first strategies. You can even use personalization software to design customer-focused web content and personalized emails for each client. Such personalized touches connect your client to your brand and help steer them towards delight and retention.

Empower Your Team

Above-average service begins with customer-facing employees. Proper foundational training helps employees recognize opportunities and deliver an unparalleled customer experience. Additionally, encourage your support team to take ownership of their work and give them the freedom to make decisions. This will lead to a boost in productivity and quicker decision-making – which will all lead to successful interactions.

Up Your Customer Service Game

Strengthen your customer support by being accessible to all your consumers. Make it as easy and painless as possible by providing follow-the-sun customer service. With the right tools such as our cloud communication tools, your business can be globally available with no added fees for your clients.

The Bottom Line

If your customer has a problem, fix it quickly and painlessly. Delivering a smooth service experience is more likely to improve customer loyalty and delight. Once you establish an effective service, you can start adding the little touches to seal the deal. Don’t strive for the bare minimum; keep evolving and progressing the customer’s experience.

Learn more about how Global Call Forwarding’s communication features can help your business generate delight. Reach out to us today to learn more — Call us at 1 (561) 908-6171 or chat with us online!