Cloud Routing and Direct Response Advertising
Direct response advertisers share a common dilemma. Their advertisements generate huge spikes of traffic during and immediately after they are aired. Then call volume drops sharply until the advertisement airs again. The traffic spikes generate too much call volume for a small call center to handle. But there is not enough traffic in the lulls between spikes to keep the agents at a large call center busy.
One solution is to lease agent time from a large call center that services many other direct response advertisers as well. By serving many direct response advertisers, the large call center’s traffic spikes even out, and they are able to keep their agents busy most of the time.
A problem with the mega call center solution is that since the agents have to represent so many products, they don’t have time to learn very much about yours. They are essentially, just order takers. They can’t answer customer questions, they can’t up sell, and they cannot promote or communicate your company’s brand.
ConnectFirst’s cloud routing service offers a better solution. Instead of leasing agents from a large, one-size-fits-all call center, cloud routing lets you spread your calls among several smaller boutique-style call centers. These smaller call centers might not individually have enough agents to handle your call spikes, but by routing your calls between several smaller call centers, you are still able to capture all of your calls.
A benefit of using a smaller call center is that, since they can only work for a few clients, their agents have the time and motivation to learn more about your products. They are better able to answer your customer’s questions, to up sell and cross sell, and to communicate your brand.
You get the best of both worlds – the high quality customer service offered by small boutique style call center agents, and the ability to capture the calls generated during your highest call volume peaks.
Although originally developed to meet the unique needs of direct response advertisers, cloud routing has other uses as well. Among those are:
-Business continuity challenges, such as natural disasters, network / facility failures, or to respond to a homeland security threat
-Agile response to unexpected call volume spikes
-Load balancing calls across a network
How Cloud Routing Works
When you sign up for Connect First cloud routing, we provide you with access to our cloud routing platform, and with a set of phone numbers for your direct response campaigns. Use the platform and phone numbers to configure cloud routing to the call centers you want to work with.
If you do not yet have relationships with call centers to handle your calls, we can help point you to the centers best suited for your business. We can configure and manage your cloud routing for you, or you can use our call center platform to manage your cloud routing configuration yourself.
When configured and active, customer calls to your cloud routing phone numbers come to us first. We then route the call to an available agent at one of the call centers configured to handle your calls. This call routing happens almost instantaneously, with no discernible lag to your callers. You can rest assured your customers will reach a knowledgeable, high quality, customer service agent, even during your highest call volume peaks.
For more details on Cloud Routing visit http://www.connectfirstcci.com/cloud-routing.html
Darren Prine
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Director of Channel Sales
Connect First Inc.
P: 678.561.2900
F: 678.668.7366
E: dprine@connectfirst.com
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http://www.connectfirstcci.com
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