Learn how having a DID number for every department in your office can help streamline business communication and call management. Here we explain how DID numbers work, what these numbers are used for, and their many associated benefits.
What is Direct Inward Dialing (DID)?
A DID number works within a business’ cloud phone system and allows callers to ‘dial in’ to a specific phone number. In other words, callers can dial a direct number to reach a specific person or department instantly without the need for an operator.
How Does a DID Number Work?
Local and international DID numbers work through a direct inward dialing (DID) facility that enables calls to be routed directly to any phone number or global SIP destination. They are not tied to any physical phone line
Most modern businesses — especially medium-to-large enterprises — use DID numbers in some way or form. This telecom facility gives them unique contact numbers for specific departments or employees. As such, your business can have an international DID number for support, sales, marketing, and other functions.
What is a DID Number Used for?
DID numbers can take a simple phone system and give it added functionality and benefits. In other words, you can expand your business phone system by adding international DID numbers.
Calls made to DIDs can be routed to any network; including to remote workers and satellite offices. All your employees, teams, and business locations are, therefore, bound into one private branch exchange.
This way, you can increase the chances of calls being answered and ensure business continuity.
8 Ways Your Customers Benefit from DID Numbers
There are multiple benefits of using DID numbers for your business. These benefits range from support for scalability to tracking calls to saving on communication-related costs.
1. Scalability
Your business can have multiple unique DID numbers spread across various departments and teams. Add new numbers and lines without additional equipment. Scale your network up or down as your business grows without worrying about wasting money.
2. Cost-Savings
Expanding your business with international DID numbers is cheaper compared to legacy telecom carriers. Reduce costs up to one-third by switching to direct inward dialing.
3. Reachability
By dialing a DID number, your customers can quickly reach the right department. They can get the assistance they need without dealing with a receptionist or response system or waiting in a call queue. This helps your business manage high call volumes.
4. Call Tracking
When you use specific or unique DID numbers for each department and/or employee, you can track incoming calls, time spent on calls, and other metrics with call detail records. Use call analytics to track and improve productivity and quality. You can even track return on marketing investments by assigning numbers to marketing campaigns.
5. Global Expansion
You can get a DID number for global expansion. This means your business can expand internationally without establishing a physical presence. Here you can save on global expansion costs and still increase your international coverage. Furthermore, your customers can evade long-distance calling charges to reach you.
6. Access to Advanced Features
Take advantage of our full set of communication features including call forwarding, cloud call recording, hosted IVR, outbound calling, and more. Use these features to create an efficient business phone system.
7. Multichannel Communication
Open up new communication channels such as voice, fax, text messages, voicemail, and fax.
8. 24/7 Customer Support
Provide 24/7 round-the-clock customer service by adopting a Follow the Sun customer support model with location- and time-based routing. This way, your global customers can find support in their region, time zone, and language.
Finding a DID Number Provider: 10 Things to Consider
Open your business up to new avenues and growth opportunities with a DID provider. When looking for the right provider, consider these questions:
What do you need the DID numbers for?
How many international and local DID numbers will your whole company need? Consider satellite offices, remote workers, etc.
What regions and countries does this provider cover? Are these regions included in your list of target countries?
What additional features does this provider offer? Are these features customizable?
Can your business benefit from these features?
Does the provider offer multiple pricing plans?
Do you need to sign a long-term contract to use their service?
Are there any set-up, installation, or cancellation fees? Check for hidden fees.
What are their current customers saying about their service?
What is their customer service response rate? Are their support teams easy to reach?
Research each provider thoroughly. Look through their services and features. Read the content on their blog or customer stories to see how their features work in practice and in your field. Read case studies, testimonials, and reviews to understand how customers have used their service. Review different providers’ pricing structures to understand what the industry expectation is and compare that to your budget.
Once you have gathered all the information, choose the provider that is the most transparent and reliable.
Get DID Numbers with Global Call Forwarding
Have questions about how DID numbers for your departments and employees can streamline business processes and improve caller experience? Speak with our telecom experts today! Call us at 1 (888) 908 6171 or chat with us online.
Picking the best softphone for your business determines how your business interacts with its customers and vice versa. Find out how to choose a softphone with relevant features and add-ons that will improve business-customer communication and enhance caller experience.
What to Look for in a Softphone?
A softphone is an application that allows users to place calls from any location and device. All you need is a headset, VoIP service, and a stable internet connection. Then your teams can make and answer business calls from anywhere in the world.
Softphones work through the internet and on most devices, as opposed to desk phones. So, whether your set-up includes Windows or Mac devices, you can use a softphone with ease. However, you will need a VoIP service with credentials to log in. And an internet connection with enough bandwidth to handle multiple VoIP calls.
How do you pick a softphone that fits perfectly within your phone system while offering you advanced telephony features? Here are a few things you must consider.
1. Operating System
What type of softphone would work best for your employees and teams? Do you need one that runs on a desktop or smartphone or both? Does it matter whether the softphone is compatible with Windows, macOS, iOS, or Android devices?
There are various forms of softphones: mobile apps, desktop apps, web extensions, and web browser apps. Certain softphones can be accessed by logging in on a browser (such as Chrome) while others need to be downloaded to a device to use. Many softphones use WebRTC for functionality.
You will need to decide what type of softphone is most suited for your business set-up. For instance, if all your employees work out of the same office and reuse the same devices (computers), a desktop app or browser extension works well. On the other hand, if your teams work remotely, you may want a more remote-friendly option such as a browser extension that can be accessed for any type of device. Most softphone providers will offer their dialer in these different formats.
2. Softphone Features
The next, and perhaps most important step is determining your needs and required features. The main purpose of a softphone is to make and receive calls from any device and location. But that is not all a softphone does. Softphones can also store call details and records, allow for internal transfers and conferencing, and more. When choosing a softphone, you may want to consider the different features that come along.
Think about how these features can further streamline your business communications. If you hold multiple offices or manage remote teams, being able to quickly transfer calls can save a customer’s time. Additionally, having an outbound calling service with a dynamic caller ID ensures you call international customers through numbers they recognize and feel comfortable answering.
Furthermore, having access to call records and contact information goes a long way in ensuring your teams stay up-to-date on customer interactions and offer better service.
3. Pricing Structure and Options
Softphones are cost-effective. However, different providers offer different pricing structures and payment options. Compare the prices of different providers along with the features and services they offer. Some things to consider include:
Do they offer different pricing tiers depending on the business’ size and the number of users?
Are monthly minutes included?
What features come with the plans?
Are there additional add-on services?
Do they offer a free trial that you could use to test the service?
How is the pricing structure laid out? Is it month-to-month or long-term contracts?
You do not want to get locked into a service contract when the service does not live up to promises made by the provider. It is important to test out the service and easily cancel it if needed.
4. Support for Outbound Calling
Your softphone should be able to support your outbound calling strategy. This means that if you have long-distance or international customers, your softphone should help you connect with these customers without any interruption or service issues.
Global Call Forwarding’s outbound calling service lets users connect with long-distance and international customers with high voice quality. Furthermore, we offer a dynamic caller ID feature that lets your employees customize their caller ID when calling these customers. In other words, you can override the existing caller ID to display a local or toll free number when calling customers in foreign countries.
Your customers will feel more comfortable answering your call when it comes from a local number than an unrecognizable and unknown foreign number.
5. Local and International Coverage
Lastly, can this service provider support your local and international calling needs? For example, you will need local and international numbers to stay connected to your customers. And so, it helps if you can get both your softphone and phone numbers in one place and through the same service provider. This can help reduce costs and time spent on two different providers and platforms.
Learn More About Global Call Forwarding’s Softphone
Global Call Forwarding is a leading softphone provider. And we offer a multitude of cloud-based phone services. Curious about how our softphone can help your teams make business calls with high-quality service? Chat with our experts online or call us at 1 (888) 908 6171. We offer a free trial for businesses and are available 24/7!
Customer feedback is crucial in understanding the value your business offers its customers and how customers are using your products and services. Customers who don’t find value or growth will find a new service. But taking time to listen to their concerns or struggles and taking action will increase customer loyalty and retention. As you prepare your voice of the customer VoC research program, here are 9 best practices and 9 common mistakes to keep in mind.
Building an Effective Voice of the Customer Program
To create a voice of the customer (VoC) research program, there are a few key things to take into consideration:
What is the research for
Who will you interview
What customer segments and audiences to cover
How will this feedback be collected and stored
Who will be involved in this process
How will the data be analyzed
What next steps will your business take
By answering these questions, you can start building a focused research program with a clear idea of what you want to find and how you will handle data.
How to do VoC Research
There are a few different ways your research teams can go about collecting customer feedback. However, your goals and resources available will help you decide how to conduct customer research.
For instance, if your business interacts with customers primarily via phone conversations, then you would choose phone interviews for the research. On the other hand, if you want to collect feedback about a new service feature or product update, then you can insert a micro survey in the dashboard or send it in emails or push notifications.
What practices should a research and feedback collection team implement when conducting voice of the customer research? Here we list 9 VoC best practices so you can get the most out of your research efforts.
1. Outline How the Program Will Run
First, design an effective voice of the customer research program. Determine what type of feedback and research you want to collect. How will you (or your research team) collect this research (methodologies)? What tools and resources will you use? Where will all the data be stored and analyzed? What do you hope to do with this information and feedback? What are the end goals?
Answering these questions will help prepare your teams. And when the time comes, your teams will be equipped to communicate with customers, understand their needs and pain points, collect and study data, and find ways to improve the customer experience.
2. Collect Feedback & Insights Across All Communication Channels
If your business communicates with customers on different channels, then you will want to collect feedback from all those channels. This means not only doing phone and email surveys but also chat and social media, if applicable.
Basically, any platform or channel you engage with customers and prospects on is a valuable platform for collecting voice of the customer research. You can decide the form and length of your survey or questionnaire based on the channel. Create short surveys and embed them in the email or chat window or attach links to longer surveys that may need more time.
You can increase the number of responses you receive by collecting feedback from all communication channels and also get varied responses and perspectives.
3. Collaborate with Other Teams & Share Reports
Depending on the purpose and goal of a research project, all relevant departments should have a say in how feedback should be collected and studied. Identify key leaders and players from each department. Get their support via perspectives and suggestions. Invest in the right communication tools to collaborate effectively with these teams. Once research is collected, share insights and reports with these leaders and departments.
4. Personalize VoC Requests
Think of every interaction with your customer as a way of delivering value. Therefore, when conducting VoC research and collecting feedback, treat your customer as a partner. Demonstrate that the purpose of this survey or phone interview is to understand how you can serve them better. Ask relevant questions; customers will not answer questions that have nothing to do with them or how they use your product.
5. Seek Feedback at the Right Touchpoints
This practice depends on how you stage your interviews and surveys and what data you want to gather. For example, do you want to know how your product is doing overall? Or, do you want to understand how specific processes are working? Hopefully, you want both.
But timing your requests for feedback is crucial. Doing so gives customers the opportunity to let you know about their frustrations or struggles and also let you know how a new feature or service is working out. Good moments for feedback can include:
After the customer has onboarded
As a follow-up to new product features or add-on services
After the customer has completed a big task or achieved a goal
As a response to customer behavior such as low levels of activity
After the customer reaches out for customer or tech support.
6. Respond to Customer Feedback
Don’t ignore feedback once you’ve collected it. Respond to the feedback by offering solutions or changing processes. Let your customers know that your business is aware of their concerns and working on a solution. Don’t leave them hanging.
7. Study Data & Act on Feedback
Don’t stop at collecting data and sharing it with other departments. Study and analyze the data. Then, together, work on creating action plans based on the feedback provided to make processes simpler and improve customer experience. This is the whole purpose of conducting voice of the customer research.
8. Consider the Voice of the Employee
Don’t forget about your employees. They are a big part of customer interactions and can provide valuable insights and perspectives. They may notice trends in customer queries, struggles, achievements, or pain points. And they can help you identify areas of improvement within internal policy and processes. In other words, they can direct your attention to areas that impede their ability to deliver good customer experience and service.
9. Track & Measure ROI
Finally, look at the results. All this work will be for nothing if you don’t get results that match your business goals. If your main goal is improving customer experience, you will also improve business ROI. This is because both work hand-in-hand: the better the customer experience, the longer the customer stays with your business and continues to purchase your products and services. Track your efforts and measure ROI to ensure your efforts and goals are aligned.
Poorly designed VoC programs can greatly harm your research efforts and may even negatively affect your relationship with these customers. Here are 9 common mistakes to avoid when conducting voice of the customer research.
1. Being Unprepared
Not knowing what you need to do or how to do it is the biggest hurdle your research team can face. Do the research and talk to your leaders. Come up with realistic goals (more on that below) and a game plan that everyone approves of. Prepare a list of questions for inclusion in the survey or phone interview. And research the customer and their business to ensure your questions are relevant to their experience. In other words, don’t talk to them without knowing what you are looking for or what the end goal is.
2. Not Researching Customers Before Connecting with Them
If you prepare generic questions which may or may not be relevant to each customer, you run the risk of not getting accurate or helpful responses. This is because customers who don’t find your questions relevant to their experience will not know how to answer them. And if there is nothing for them to gain, they will not want to waste time.
Create questions that are customer-focused and not business-focused. Conduct market research to uncover their problems and potential pain points. What can your business do to solve a particular issue?
3. Setting Vague or Unrealistic Goals
This mistake may have pricey results. If the goals set are not clear enough or achievable, your team may end up wasting time and resources in this voice of the customer program. Additionally, in certain situations, goals may need to be adjusted or re-evaluated. Take time to do this and make a case for it based on insights gathered.
4. Asking the Wrong Questions
Not asking the right or relevant questions will cause a lot of wasted time. For one, customers may not provide valuable insights. And two, you may miss out on getting to the main point. Keep your VoC research goal in mind and draft questions accordingly. When you conduct interviews, you may come across other angles and perspectives to include in future questions; make a note of these. Ask follow-up questions and focus on “how” and “why” questions. These will help you dig deeper into their goals and how they use your product to achieve those goals.
5. Failure to Secure Support
Research is not easy; it takes time and demands resources. This means stakeholders need to buy in to your program and goals. The whole point of VoC research is to identify ways to make your company and its products more customer-friendly. The more satisfied customers are, the more your business will grow.
As such, VoC research can highlight changes that may affect the company culture and values. Therefore, if your VoC program does not have adequate support, the results may not be taken seriously. And these insights may get buried in other more urgent projects. Ensure your team and leaders understand the value of the research you will undertake before you begin.
6. Not Collaborating with Other Teams
Work closely with other teams before, during, and after the research project. Their perspective can help you devise better questions and valuable results. This means taking the time to sit down and talk to your marketing, sales, and customer service teams. You may even meet with product managers and development teams to get their take on the product and its purpose, and what future developments are possible.
Without working and collaborating with other members, you may miss out on key perspectives that can drive your research. For instance, if you do not speak with your sales or customer service teams, you may not learn of common customer problems that your research can help solve.
7. Not Using Automation When Available
Research is not easy; it takes time and needs resources. However, without the right resources and support, it can prove to be more expensive and less effective. Think: customer automation tools, lead qualification tools, data analytics tools, and so on.
Streamline your processes. Create separate workflows for different types of audiences and segments. Use efficient tools and resources that make it easy for your team to identify customers and leads and to collect and study the data.
While there is a tendency to ignore similar and low-level feedback, make it a point to keep sharing insights and feedback with your teams and leaders. Even a low-level issue can become a larger issue if it occurs consistently. Something that may seem like a small issue might be the root cause of a larger issue. The point is, sharing your insights with others may help you see things differently. And will also help leaders and managers learn more about their customers.
9. Failure to Act on Feedback
Finally, not acting on feedback defeats the whole purpose of conducting voice of the customer research. Whatever the feedback, work on ways to make the customer experience better. Customers should know that your business cares and is working on making their lives and jobs easier.
Why Voice of the Customer is Important
VoC research helps your business pay attention to the customer’s voice and feedback. At the end of the day, if your product or service does not cater to customer needs, they have no loyalty to your brand. Considering how competitive the market is, customers will find new services. Don’t lose out on valuable customers. You may even be able to use these insights in creating and updating customer journey maps that will, in turn, show you ways to bring more customers on board.
Your business will see huge returns from working with customers and learning from their feedback. And gradually, your customers will become brand advocates and help your business grow.
2024 was hard. Let’s face it: many businesses lost valuable customers and many customers lost their favorite businesses. However, there is still hope for those who need it. Reconnect with past customers and ignite the flame with new customers through customer success trends for 2026.
2026 Customer Success Trends
What is customer success and why is it going to be important in 2026? Customer success is the process of proactively reaching out to customers and clients and working on improving their experience with your business. While customer service is reactive (after a customer reaches out to a business), customer success is proactive and takes the first step.
The 2020 global pandemic caused much uncertainty and dramatically changed business practices. As such, customers need more care in the new year than ever before. This is where customer success comes in. Make your customers happy, develop strong customer relations, and increase sales with these 6 customer success trends for 2026.
1. Virtual and Multichannel Communication, Especially Video
COVID-19 led to many businesses coming up with creative ways of staying in contact with their customers and making themselves reachable. This led to a rise in multichannel communication and customer support with businesses offering voice calls, text messages, live chat, emails, and video calling.
Video streaming and video conferencing are important customer success trends for 2026. In 2024, many businesses had to switch to video conferences for sales and customer support services. With video streaming and conferencing, these businesses were able to engage in detailed and personalized meetings with valuable customers. In a time of uncertainty, this helped bring many customers on board. As such, customers will expect some degree of video and virtual support in the following years.
AI and automation in business continue to be a growing trend. Businesses across the board are finding ways to streamline and automate simple, repetitive processes so that their employees are free to focus on more complex and important tasks. Customer success teams can also benefit from automated processes. Some common customer success automation tools include:
One example of an efficient customer success automation tool is the automated IVR system. An IVR system answers incoming calls, identifies the caller and their needs, and proceeds to assist. The IVR system can be programmed to simply transfer callers to the right department or employee. However, more advanced IVR systems can even assist callers in completing tasks without the need of an agent. These tasks include, but are not limited to:
Collecting feedback and surveys
Providing troubleshooting help
Providing information about the company (hours, location, services offered, etc.)
Phone system automation can help streamline services, increase efficiency, and help your teams work like a well-oiled machine. Plus, you are guaranteed more accuracy when you use AI to conduct basic tasks.
3. Proactive and Customer-First Strategies
Customer success focuses on being proactive, as opposed to customer service which is reactive. In other words, customer success occurs before the customer reaches out to you. More specifically, in customer success, your business reaches out to customers to make their experience better.
Here is a great opportunity to put those customer-first strategies to use. These strategies focus on:
Understanding the customer’s needs and expectations.
Working closely with the customer to provide useful and relevant solutions.
Collecting feedback from current customers.
Conducting market research to develop strong buyer personas for your target audience.
Creating better experiences and interactions for your customers.
Over the years, businesses have noticed that customers respond better to personalized service. Providing personalized service for your customers can include:
Personalized or customized sales and customer service — researching or studying your customer and their needs before pitching them or providing assistance.
Including personalization features in your phone system that identify callers and help them with their account or query, keeping their history in mind.
Personalized email marketing with customized and relevant products and services.
By offering custom solutions and personalized service, your customer understands that their business is important to you. Additionally, you make it easier for them to see how your products and services can directly relieve their problems and make their lives or businesses function better.
Furthermore, by executing such an approach, you can increase your customer lifetime value. This is a great way to increase your value as a business when marketing to target customers.
5. Focus on Customer Journey Mapping
Customer journey mapping is one of the most important customer success trends for 2026. Customer success as a service involves working closely with customers and clients and helping them achieve their goals. As such, your customer success teams will need to measure and map their journey.
For most businesses, the customer’s journey starts at the moment they show interest in your product or service. It ends when they make a purchase. However, for companies focusing on customer success, the actual journey begins at the customer’s purchase. How can you continue to serve this customer and ensure they will come back for more?
So, what is customer journey mapping and why is it significant? Customer journey mapping involves creating a journey map for your customer. In other words, developing a map that details the visual story of your customer’s interactions with your company. By doing so, your customer success teams gain insight into each customer’s behavior, needs, and perspective. And by understanding these factors, your business can provide better services to valuable customers. With customer journey mapping, you can:
Understand customer preferences via feedback
Create better alignment between teams
Measure and enhance customer experience
Define milestones and work towards them
Execute better customer success strategies that are more likely to be successful
6. Collecting and Reviewing Customer Success Metrics
Lastly, as with any significant business process or strategy: Collect, Measure, and Optimize. Collect data and feedback regarding customer experiences. Measure important customer success metrics such as customer health scores, CLV, customer satisfaction scores (CSAT), net promoter score (NPS), etc. And based on your findings, improve and optimize customer experiences and interactions.
Strengthen Customer Relations with Care
Customer success helps you work with customers to better understand and serve them. By doing so, you can strengthen their relationship with your business and convert them into recurring customers or those that recommend your business to others! Give the above customer success trends for 2026 a try and give your business the tools it needs to thrive in the new year. Call us to learn more at 1 (888) 908 6171.
Knowing your customers’ value and how much they bring back to your business is essential in understanding where your business stands and what it can do to increase revenue and sales. In this post, you will learn how to calculate customer lifetime value (CLV) and how to improve your business’ CLV by increasing customer retention and loyalty.
What is Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)?
Customer lifetime value (CLV) is a customer success metric that determines how much net profit your business is able to make from one customer over time. The CLV can tell you the dollar worth associated with a long-lasting relationship with any customer. This is a metric used to determine the value of your customers and how much money they bring to your business. This metric is key when it comes to bringing aboard new customers and deciding how much to spend on existing customers.
Why Measure CLV?
Going by this definition, the higher your business’ CLV, the more revenue each customer brings into your business. Therefore, with each customer’s value increasing, your sales and marketing teams can afford to take on new customers. In other words, your business can spend more on attracting new customers and retaining existing ones. And this is simply because each customer is valuable and brings more to your business. CLV is important because:
Acquiring new customers is expensive and difficult, at times
Loyal and recurring clients will be your best promoters
Current customers can help your business growth
So, calculating CLV can give you insights into the quality of your customers and what your business can do to increase revenue and sales.
Calculating CLV
Calculating your customer lifetime value can be tricky. Understanding the core components will prove helpful. We break this down into easy-to-follow steps. Calculate your CLV scores by following the below steps:
Step 1. Calculate Average Purchase Value
Value of each purchase.
Average Purchase Value = Total Revenue / Number of Orders
Step 2. Calculate Average Purchase Frequency
Frequency of each purchase.
Average Purchase Frequency = Number of Purchases / Number of Customers
Step 3: Calculate Average Customer’s Value
Value of a customer.
Average Customer’s Value = Average Purchase Value / Average Purchase Frequency
Step 4. Calculate Average Customer’s Lifetime Span
Number of years that each customer visits or uses your service.
Average Customer’s Lifetime Span = Sum of Customer Lifespans / Number of Customers
Step 5. Calculate Customer’s Lifetime Value (CLV)
Your Business’ CLV score
Customer’s Lifetime Value = Customer Value (step 3) x Average Customer Lifespan (step 4)
9 CX Strategies to Increase Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
When thinking of ways to improve customer lifetime value, there are three main factors to consider:
Average Transaction Value
Number of Repeat Sales
Average Customer Retention Rate
By influencing or increasing these factors, your business’ CLV and customer experience (CX) will improve. So, what can you do to better these numbers?
1. Conduct Surveys and Ask Questions
One way to improve your product or service is by increasing the number of repeat customers and subscribers. To do this, you need to identify what keeps customers coming back and any significant deal breakers. The best way to learn more about what your customers like and expect is by asking them. Conduct surveys, ask questions, and collect voice of customer data. Learn more about your customers so you can serve them better and convert more into recurring customers.
2. Enhance Customer Service and Customer Success
According to a study conducted by PwC, 32% of customers will end their relationship with a business after a bad experience. And so, this goes without saying but improving your customer support and customer success services can go a long way in retaining customers and making them advocates for your brand.
Consider investing in omnichannel and multichannel customer support. By increasing the number of channels that customers can use to connect with you, you can appeal to a wider customer base and offer more responsive service.
You may even find it useful to utilize self-service options such as knowledge bases and support centers, automate IVR services, chatbots, support tickets, and more. Self-service options give users the ability to solve their problems themselves and on their own time. Read our post about customer service trends to determine where your business is lacking.
3. Design Relevant and Easy-to-Use Products and Services
How relevant your business and products are can greatly impact how prospects view and interact with your services. Stay relevant, discuss current issues, and offer up-to-date information and features. If customers find more relevant usage elsewhere, they will go to a competitor without hesitation.
4. Develop a Customer-First Strategy
To enhance CX for your business, you need to create a customer-first strategy. Such a strategy requires your sales and marketing teams to take time to understand the customer, their needs, pain points, and preferences. And then develop a strategy that supports them and their needs.
5. Consider Usability Testing
Usability testing is a kind of market research. In usability testing, your marketing and services teams observe how users interact with your product, software, or service. You can test specific processes (sign-up, purchasing stage, etc.) or the entire system. Usability testing lets you identify areas that need improvement; specifically what processes and features are not clear or easy-to-use. Then, you can create better products and software that make customers more comfortable and less confused.
6. Cross-Sell and Up-Sell
Most sales teams already know that cross-selling and up-selling can greatly improve customer retention. Offering additional services and add-on features is a good way to reduce cart abandonment and build customer loyalty. Furthermore, offering products and services that are relevant to your customers will make a great difference. Customers appreciate personalization and customized recommendations and see them as an effort to really help improve their lives.
7. Create Valuable and Engaging Content
Keep your customers engaged by creating and sharing valuable and informative content. Utilize your blog page, emails, and social media platforms to educate and inform your customers and also establish your business as a trustworthy and credible one. Show readers that your employees know the industry and are developing first-class products.
8. Consider Loyalty Programs
Invest in customer loyalty programs to keep your customers coming back for more. Discounts, member-only promotions, etc., will help retain valuable customers. Treating them with special care and effort will give them more reasons to stay.
9. Continue to Delight Your Customers
Lastly, don’t stop delighting your customers once you lock them down. Keep them happy. Surprise them with small gestures; these can be holiday greetings, birthday vouchers, gift cards, etc. These little gestures can go a long way in securing customer loyalty.
After All, It’s All About Customer Relationships
Your customers drive your business’ growth. Without them, your business can easily fall behind and into the shadows. Try these CX strategies to improve the way customers interact with your business and give them a reason to come back for more. Competition is everywhere and so it’s up to you to make your business stand out. How far are you willing to go?
Learn more about how Global Call Forwarding’s communication features can help your business communicate better. Reach out to us today to learn more!
Customer service has always been central to the success of any business. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted how businesses offer customer support as well as customer service expectations held by consumers. Now, more than ever, each business needs to evaluate how they are engaging their customers and offering care and support. Here is where ensuring your reps and employees practice empathy in customer service becomes crucial.
What is the Role of Empathy in Customer Service?
The first thing we should learn about is the concept of empathy. It is the process of imagining or putting oneself into another’s shoes in an attempt to better understand the other and what they are going through. And so, empathy should be understood as one of the most important traits when interacting with customers. But what does empathy in customer service look like? And as a Chief Customer Officer, how can you train your team and yourself to be more empathetic?
What is Customer Empathy?
Customer empathy is the process of understanding your customers by digging deeper into their pain points, concerns, motivations, and more. This means taking a step forward instead of simply saying “I understand” and proceeding with stock responses.
Empathy in customer service, therefore, means taking the time to understand each customer individually. What are their concerns? What is their situation? How can your product help them specifically? And so on. By paying attention to these questions and each customer individually, your team can provide a more holistic and meaningful customer experience.
Why You Should be More Empathetic When Dealing with Customers
According to research conducted by PwC, about 32% of customers will end their relationship with a brand after having one bad experience. Customer service expectations have increased and customers no longer tolerate bad-to-moderate service. They expect businesses to go above and beyond and, specifically, to be considerate and empathetic.
Being more consciously empathetic in your customer interactions can prevent the loss of potentially valuable customers. If your business does not take steps to improve customer experience by creating products and services that are customer-focused, your customers will not hesitate to go to your competitors.
6 Signs Your Business is Lacking in Empathy
In order to determine whether your customer service team is lacking in empathy and needs to up its game, look closely at how your team is performing. Some key indicators include:
Customer service and customer interactions happen in a variety of ways and across different platforms. Among these are:
In-person meetings
Phone and video conversations
Live chat
Email interactions
Social media platforms
Your customer service must be consistent across these platforms so that each customer leaves your business happier and more satisfied than when they arrived. How can you and your team be more empathetic in customer interactions? Here are some helpful tips:
1. Maintain Eye Contact
This one goes without saying — Always maintain eye contact. It is often considered rude if you are paying attention to anything other than the person you are interacting with. This becomes even more important when you are engaging with customers on video calls. It is easy to get distracted and focus on the slide share or other materials, but take time to look at your customer and listen to them. Make them feel seen and heard.
2. Adopt Active Listening
Don’t just assume that you know what the customer is going through and that it is a common issue. Even if the issue is one of the most common complaints you receive, try to treat it with a new perspective. Your customer may have tried different methods to resolve the issue. This could provide you with more information and insight.
Once they have described their issue, repeat it back to them so they know you were paying attention to every detail. Listen actively so you can provide helpful advice that they haven’t tried before.
3. Have a Positive Attitude
No matter what the situation, try to adopt a positive attitude throughout the interaction. Chances are your customer is really upset about the issue they are facing and their frustration may leak into their interaction with you. Don’t let that color the way you respond to them. Take a moment to understand what they may be going through and focus on solving the problem for them.
4. Be Patient and Respectful
Similar to the above tip, strive to be patient, kind, and respectful in your interaction. Give them time to speak (or vent, if they are really upset), avoid getting frustrated yourself, and focus on the end-goal which is resolving their concern so they can continue to enjoy your product or service.
5. Avoid Biases
As with any interaction, avoid making assumptions and biases based on your own perceptions. This means respecting the person for who they are and what they are trying to achieve. Don’t assume they don’t know anything or that they know everything. Always ask for clarification instead of making an assumption.
6. Be Careful When Cultural and Language Barriers are Involved
This is another area of concern where empathy in customer service is essential. When cultural and language barriers are present, there is room for confusion and misunderstanding. Take time to understand your customer. If you are struggling, ask to put them on hold, and find a supervisor or rep who can help. Make sure to get back to your customer soon, don’t keep them hanging on hold for long. Also, keep international phone etiquette in mind when calling customers in different regions and parts of the world.
7. Ask Follow Up Questions
This is a good way to show your customer that you are interested and invested in this conversation. Ask follow-up questions that are relevant and can help narrow down the issue at hand. This can also help you offer more personalized solutions.
8. Match Your Customer’s Tone
Whether it is through email or phone conversations, try to match the tone and enthusiasm of your customer. Don’t be too formal if your customer appears informal and casual, and vice versa. Personalize your interaction with each customer to connect with them in a better way.
9. Build a Bond, Be Flexible
Look for common interests. For example, the online pet company Chewy’s customer service agents always ask customers about their pets and share stories about their own pets. This is a good way to create a bond with their customers and talk about something both parties love: their dogs or cats!
Call center trends are changing, and managers and agents should be aware of the upcoming shifts that will be taking place. Here are the 2026 call center trends to keep in mind when looking for ways to improve your contact center’s capabilities.
So, what’s new in the world of call centers? Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve observed a focus on remote working and virtual communication possibilities. Call centers had to adapt to these changes as well and use virtual call center software to stay connected and continue working efficiently. Additionally, we’ve noticed a rise in AI, automation, and chatbots, all meant to reduce the burden on agents while continuing to offer high-quality services.
Here are the top 2026 call center trends your business should be aware of and consider implementing:
1. Cloud Communication Solutions
Cloud communication is one of the most important call center trends with confidence in the cloud rising. UCaaS and CCaaS are two main cloud communication solutions available to businesses and call centers. UCaaS streamlines internal communication and collaboration while CCaaS improves customer interaction. Combining UCaaS and CCaaS solutions can give your help your call center shift to the cloud seamlessly.
2. Remote Work
The pandemic made remote working a necessity, and that led to the remote work trend. The ability to work from home (or any other location) may just mean the end of traditional on-premise call centers as we know it. And this brings us to the virtual call center software. Such software makes it possible for call centers to go virtual or move to the cloud, enabling agents to stay connected no matter their location.
Furthermore, your business can save on infrastructure, equipment, and utility costs. However, managing remote teams can prove challenging. Advanced virtual call center tools can help ease these concerns by making it easy for managers and teams to connect. Additionally, managers can use tracking or call recording software to oversee agent behavior and performance. Some common examples include call whispering, call barging, etc.
3. Artificial Intelligence
According to a recent report by Finances Online, the use of AI can help improve agent satisfaction, efficiency, and productivity as well as customer satisfaction.
Whether AI will overtake human customer service representatives or not is still in question. But for now, AI and human agents can work in tandem. While artificial intelligence has yet to become as capable as human agents, AI is improving every year. One of the growing call center trends is the increasing use of artificial intelligence software in terms of smart routing, multichannel support, automated processes. More on all of these below.
4. Automation & Self-Service Tools
Automation allows agents some wiggle room and can reduce their burden. In some cases, AI can help filter out simple queries so that agents can focus on more complex customer needs. We’re talking about using CMS or CRMs that automate processes and update information, so that everybody on the team has the right and most recent information. Some common automation tools and processes include:
By providing self-service tools — where customers can get information or resolve issues on their own — you can cut down the time agents spend on repeating simple, mundane tasks and services. For example, something as simple as signing up online, have an online guide to show how. This can reduce the number of calls coming in for sign-up help.
5. Omnichannel Communication
Customers are expecting multiple communication channels. And so, if you only offer phone and email, you need to start offering other services. Think: live chat, chatbots, video, text messaging, etc. This allows your business to connect with a wider range of audiences and meet your customers where they are. You may even consider jumping on social media platforms and engaging with customers actively and in real-time.
The main reason to adopt cloud IVR and smart call routing is to reduce call wait times. Most people understand the struggle of waiting in long call queues or being bounced around from department to department. All of this to get an answer to a simple question.
Whether it is one of the top call center trends or not, businesses should continuously strive for shorter wait times for their companies. Here is where cloud IVR and advanced routing strategies come into play. Cloud IVR uses automated responses to greet callers and identify the purpose of their call. Then, based on their response, the IVR transfers the caller to the right department or assists them through pre-recorded messages and processes.
Another way to reduce wait times and to help callers reach the right department quickly is through call routing strategies. What strategy will work for your business depends on what you want to achieve and how your business offers sales and support. For example, do you want to offer 24/7 support or adopt the Follow the Sun model for customer support? Do you have high call traffic or fluctuating traffic? Do you have support and sales teams in multiple locations? Smart routing strategies include:
You may even choose to offer voicemail and callback options for customers who do not want to wait in line and are willing to receive a call from your company at a later time.
7. Call Metrics & Analytics
If your call center isn’t already tracking and analyzing call center metrics, you risk falling behind. The best way to identify how your call center is performing is by tracking metrics and KPIs. Common call center KPIs include:
You are probably aware by now that customer satisfaction is one of the top priorities of any business, but what about the satisfaction of those employees who directly deal with those customers? Many companies often neglect and forget their call center agents.
It is important to realize that customer service agents are the backbone of any company because they are the face of your company. If your agents are unhappy, then your customers will certainly not be happy to deal with them.
You can improve their overall performance by offering moral and psychological support for your agents. After all, dealing with angry customers all day does take a great deal out of a customer service agent. It is no surprise that one of the top call center trends, therefore, is focusing on EX and making employees feel comfortable and confident in their jobs.
9. Reward Your Agents
There are times when a call center must keep up with large surges in call volume. During these times, agents can become overworked. Call centers have some of the highest turnover rates in any job. To combat this, call centers can look to ideas from management on how to keep employees motivated during these highly stressful and taxing times.
Some ways that you can keep your call center employees excited to come into work is by:
Creating office-wide competitions,
Offering rewards or incentives, and
Recognizing your employees for their hard work.
If you have noticed a lack of motivation in your contact center, try some of these motivating ideas to wake your crew back up and get them back in action. Taking a bit more time to reward these employees will result in happier agents, increased productivity, highly trained and seasoned agents who are loyal to your company, and better overall customer service.
Everyone is talking about Voice of the Customer (VoC) data as an essential tool to understanding your customers and improving their experience. But what is VoC and how do you collect such data? Here is a detailed guide to what VoC is and what to keep in mind when collecting customer data through these top 10 Voice of the Customer methodologies.
Voice of the Customer: Definition and Methodologies
First, what is Voice of the Customer? VoC is the way your customers talk about your products and their experiences or interactions with these products and services. It is a market research method where a business collects detailed customer feedback about their products and services used.
Why is VoC Important?
So, why should you collect customer feedback and pay attention to the voice of the customers? Customers using your product are in the best position to explain how useful, user-friendly, and worthy your product or service is. When collecting VoC data, look for:
Customer pain points
Hesitations or objections
Desires and needs
Requirements and expectations
Benefits, usage, results
And so, learning how they use the product and how successful it is in helping them complete tasks will help your business create better products as well as market your current products more effectively.
By collecting VoC feedback, your business can gain:
Comprehensive and detailed insights into what your customers look for and need from your products and services.
Data that can be put towards product development and marketing efforts.
VoC Program Stages
A VoC program — that is, collecting and using Voice of the Customer data — typically involves three stages:
Collection — Collecting feedback and information via interviews, surveys, polls, etc. related to specific products or services.
Evaluation — Analyzing and studying responses to identify customer needs and expectations.
Implementation — Using feedback and analysis to create better experiences and products that boost business performance.
In this post, we will specifically focus on the collection phase of VoC data and what methodologies work best.
And when collecting VoC data, it is good to be prepared with the following questions for each data collection project:
What is the purpose of this data collection project?
What is your target audience or group? (Current customers or new prospects?)
How will you collect this data? (In-person interviews, online surveys, social listening, etc.)
What stage is the customer or prospect in? (Unaware, problem aware, solution aware, product aware, most aware)
Once you have these factors in place, you can focus on questions to ask your customers and prospects.
What to Ask Customers?
Before we dive into VoC methodologies, let’s quickly run through how to prepare for customer interviews and surveys. In other words, what questions to ask your customers so you can get the best feedback and insights. Your questions can be focused on how customers perceive your business or how they use your product or service; customize questions accordingly. Here are some questions to consider:
What made them look for your business/product/service?
When did you realize you needed something like [product/service]?
What brought you to [business/product/service]?
How did you find out about [business/product/service]?
What problem were you trying to solve with [business/product/service]?
How did you go about researching for a solution to your problem?
How or why do they pick a business/product/service?
What matters most to you when choosing or signing up with a business or purchasing products or services?
What characteristics do you look for in a business, product, or service before purchasing or signing up?
Why were you interested in trying our [product/service]?
Did you consider any alternatives to our [business/product/service]? What were they?
Why did you choose our [product/service] over [competitor]?
About your business/product/service
What comes to mind when you think about our [business/product/service]?
How are you using our [product/service] at the moment?
How would you describe the [business/product/service] to a friend?
What do you like the most about [business/product/service]?
What is the most useful feature of the [product/service]?
What surprised you about [business/product/service]?
Would you recommend [business/product/service]? To whom and why?
How can [business/product/service] improve your customer experience?
How can [business] improve the [product/service]?
Understanding pain points, concerns, and issues
What would you like changed or modified regarding the [product/service]?
What features do you wish the [product/service] had, that it doesn’t currently have now?
What concerns do you have about [product/service]?
What competitor would you prefer over our [product/service]? And why?
What’s the #1 thing you can do with [product/service] that you couldn’t do before without the [product/service]?
What’s the biggest problem that you were able to solve/fix with our [product/service]?
What concerns or hesitations did/do you have before deciding to buy or sign up for [product/service]?
Understanding results and outcomes
What has changed for you since using [product/service]?
What measurable results have you noticed since you started using [product/service]?
What results are you hoping to achieve with our [product/service]?
Let’s now look at the 10 different Voice of the Customer methodologies that you use to collect customer data:
1. Detailed Customer Interviews
One of the traditional VoC data collection methods is conducting detailed interviews with consumers. These interviews can help you get insights into the customer’s perspective about your business or specifically about a product or service you offer.
You can conduct in-person, phone, video, or email interviews, depending on your capabilities. However, in-person interviews are considered the most effective for this purpose. You can choose to interview particular customers or target groups, depending on why you are collecting this data and how much information you need.
Be prepared with a list of questions and follow-up questions before conducting the interview. Inform customers how long this interview will last and what the purpose is.
2. Customer Surveys & Feedback Forms
A customer survey is another good (and common) way of collecting customer information and understanding customer expectations, needs, and pain points. There are a few different ways to send out customer surveys:
Online surveys through links or emails through survey tools such as SurveyMonkey
Phone surveys through customer service teams or automated IVR systems
In-app or in-software surveys
In-person or suggestion-box surveys
Contact forms surveys, etc.
You can send out such surveys and feedback forms when prospecting new leads or to new and long-term customers. As mentioned above, be prepared with questions to include in your survey form. When appropriate, include and offer multiple-choice options, drop-down lists, text-boxes, and so on. This will enable customers to provide more information and give you detailed results.
3. Customer Reviews
Online customer reviews are a great spot for collecting information about how customers are using your products and determining how they feel about them. You can look up Google reviews as well as industry-specific review sites such as G2, TrustPilot, Capterra, etc.
Additionally, since these reviews appear online and are visible to potential customers, you will want to watch these reviews and respond to them as well. Respond to good reviews with “We appreciate your business.” And respond to negative reviews with positive and solution-focused responses. In other words, show new prospects how your business handles negative reviews and customer concerns.
Call detail records can be helpful when putting together insights and data based on history. You can use call records to understand the preferred communication channels and contact times. Additionally, you might even identify common complaints that require the help of your customer support team. This information can be used to create support content that helps customers solve issues through self-service options, when appropriate.
5. Recorded Calls
Next, record and review calls with customers. A call recording service is a great tool for sifting through common customer needs, expectations, and complaints. Here, you can identify patterns, anomalies, and more. These insights can then inform better product development and enhanced customer experience.
6. Email Groups
You can use highly personalized emails to specific segments or send well-written generic emails to all your customers. Make it easy and less work for your customers to answer the survey. You may choose to include the feedback form or poll within the body of the email or include a link for them to click. Let them know the purpose of the survey and how long it will take them to complete it. You may even choose to include a reward for a lengthy survey that will take up a good amount of their time.
7. Social Listening
Social listening refers to paying attention to what your customers and clients are saying on social media platforms. More specifically, what are they saying about businesses, products, and services like yours? You can choose to simply listen or actively participate in the conversation to learn more about customer expectations and interests, directly from customers and in real-time.
8. Live Chat
Live chat (whether monitored or AI-enabled) is a popular customer support channel. Web visitors often use live chat to connect with a company as opposed to calling or emailing them. This makes live chat a good source for collecting VoC feedback. You can collect feedback by asking questions in real-time or scheduling a follow-up survey after assisting the customer.
9. Focus Groups
Focus groups are groups of people who asked to share their thoughts, feelings, and expectations about a product or service. You can use focus groups to test new products or features, gain feedback on existing products and services, learn how to improve user experience, and more. This is another common way of understanding the Voice of the Customer at different touchpoints.
10. Customer-Focused KPIs
There are two customer-focused KPIs or metrics that can help you gain insights into how satisfied your customers are and whether they will advocate for your brand:
1. Net promoter score (NPS) measures the loyalty of a business’s customers. NPS provides quick feedback from customers focused on whether they are likely to recommend your product or service. A common example of this is — “How likely are you to recommend our [business/product/service] to a friend or a colleague?
2. Customer satisfaction score (CSAT) measures the level of customer satisfaction after interacting with a business or using a product or service. Use questions similar to those in NPS measures and customers can answer with ratings such as a scale of 1-10 or range of Very Satisfied-Very Dissatisfied.
Let Voice of the Customer Methodologies Enhance Your Services
It’s not an underestimation how important customer satisfaction is, and companies should aim to ensure they are delivering on this fully. As we have demonstrated, Voice of the Customer data is a key tool for businesses to understand what customers appreciate about your business, and ultimately, where your business can improve. If you are aiming to maximize the experience for your customers, be sure to implement VoC methodologies and learn more about how to please those seeking out your products or services.
What is the best way to sell to a new lead? This is the age-old question. Salespeople and marketers have tried and tested different methods and approaches and have collected varied results. Two of these methods that salespeople continue to use are cold calling and warm calling. But what is the difference between these methods and which approach is more helpful for your business?
The Difference Between Cold Calling and Warm Calling
Both cold calling and warm calling are outbound calling sales approaches. In these approaches, salespeople reach out to prospects and try to sell or move them down the sales funnel. Let’s take a deeper look at each of these methods and their pros and cons.
What is Cold Calling?
Cold calling is a sales technique where a sales team reaches out to prospects and leads who may or may not have heard of the business. In other words, these prospects have not interacted with your business or purchased products and services from you. They have not heard from your business or representatives before. Some of these prospects may not have even heard of your business.
Cold calling then is the attempt to increase brand awareness and sell products and services to these prospects by introducing them to your brand. Usually, sales teams are given a list of prospects deemed fit for specific products and services. This list is put together through market research of target audiences. Your job then is to reach out to them, educate them about the brand and product, and make a sale or set up a sales appointment.
Pros and Cons of Cold Calling
So, what makes cold calling successful and why do some business managers say that cold calling is dead? Here are the benefits and issues that come with cold calling:
Pros of Cold Calling
Cons of Cold Calling
Solo hunting; reach out to customers on your own
Customers are usually wary of unknown phone numbers and may not answer
Connect with new customers
Customers are usually annoyed by cold calls
Lets you weed out bad leads and uninterested customers
Warm calling, on the other hand, is an inside sales process where sales representatives reach out to prospects and customers who have previously interacted with the brand. These individuals are aware of your business and demonstrated some interest. Maybe they liked a social media post or downloaded an eBook from your website or submitted an inquiry about a product.
Additionally, warm calling also includes gathering feedback through surveys, informing regular customers about new promotions, or inviting them to webinars, etc. In some cases, calls made after cold emails may also be considered warm calling. This is because you have already established a connection and familiarity with the customer.
With warm calling, your job as the sales rep is to answer their questions, provide more information, and engage them. By doing so, you are moving them down the funnel and closer to a sale.
Pros and Cons of Warm Calling
If cold calling isn’t the way to go, can your business benefit from warm calling? Let’s look at how warm calling can convert more customers and what potential issues to keep in mind.
Pros of Warm Calling
Cons of Warm Calling
Leads are aware of your business and interested
Sales reps may not take these calls seriously enough
Leads are more likely to become customers
Over-calling may discourage the prospect
Personalize calls to meet prospects’ needs
Customers may prefer other channels of communication
Whether cold calling or warm calling is right for your business depends on your business structure, values, and goals. Also, another factor is where your business lies in its growth process. If you are a new business, then cold calling is the way to increase brand awareness and identify key markets and audiences. On the other hand, if your business is relatively established and has a strong online presence, then warm calling and inside sales will help maintain credibility and attract valuable customers.
How Can Global Call Forwarding Help?
Global Call Forwarding offers a variety of virtual call center tools and features that can support both your cold calling and warm calling efforts. Get outbound calling, particularly, to connect with customers and leads around the globe with local and toll free numbers. You can even use call routing services to maintain connectivity across different locations and time zones. Speak with our representatives to learn more about how we can help your specific business. Call us today at 1 (888) 908 6171 or chat with us online!
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