Outbound Call Centers and IVR’s
I recently had the unfortunate experience in dealing with a company that uses call centers as the boogie man for their company. They don’t answer their calls and it’s the fault of the call center they contract their support to.
The company doesn’t offer email or web based direct contact, only thru the call center. Again, they claim it’s the fault of the call center that I cannot get in touch with anyone at their company.
Finally there’s the BS of calling the company, getting an automated voice response (IVR) you know punch 1 for this and 2 for that, etc. etc.
Which no matter what you select the first time, goes to another IVR which again doesn’t matter what you select goes to yet another one, which ends up with the customer being told no one is available to take your call, try again later.
I’d like to get a hold of anyone in the company to find out how this is the call centers fault that they can’t provide an email address? What garbage!
Call centers have enough problems and bad press and shouldn’t be used as the scapegoat for poorly run and operated companies.
OK, I know I shouldn’t but…
No matter if you’re out at baseball practice or just hanging around the house and don’t want to be bothered, the answering machine or voice mail is a godsend! It can however cause havic in an outbound call center. When they get a busy or no answer, your phone number simply goes back into the queue to be called again. But with an answering machine or voice mail, sometimes, they tens to “lose” your contact information
I remember back when the answering machine was a relatively new invention. My parents thought that it was the most amazing contraption that they had seen in years. Our answering machine was large and it had a large cassette tape in it that recorded incoming messages and another large cassette tape that played the outgoing messages. We had a lot of fun creating new and interesting greetings for callers on our answering machine.
Many of the answering machine greetings were annoying and some were very funny. We recorded songs, we took turns creating messages and we always kept things new. One of the more annoying answering machine greetings was the well-known, ;Hello | Hello. I can’t hear you | Can you speak up? I still can’t hear you’re not home. Leave a message on the answering machine after the beep. Many callers were extremely irritated with the message and often hung up on the answering machine.
Today, you can find new ways to annoy and amuse your callers through your answering machine, especially on your cell phone. There is a site called The Answering Machine that offers message downloads for your cell phone. You can choose from three hundred different greetings. The Answering Machine also offers many other treats for your cell phone as well.
The Answering Machine has a list of the top ring tones for your cell phone. One list provides the classic downloads for your cell phone answering system like the theme from the Exorcist and Mission Impossible and from popular music like Hey Jude and You Spin Me Round. Whatever your taste, you can find a great ring tone for your cell phone through The Answering Machine.
The site also provides a choice of colour logos for your cell phone. The pictures range from cartoons to photographs to artwork. If you prefer a little movement, The Answering Machine offers animated logos for your cell phone. Many of these logos are downright funny and some are just plain scary. Many of the animated logos are appropriate for cell phone users of all ages but some are adult.
I am going to spend a little time looking around The Answering Machines website to find a great logo, some animated pictures and maybe a cool new ring tone. But what I’m really looking forward to finding is a great message for my cell phone. Over the years, I have run low on new and creative ideas. I figure that I can put my creative efforts elsewhere and rely on The Answering Machine website for free downloads that are guaranteed to amuse.
Outbound Call Center Work
Home improvement sales is one of those ideal big ticket items that go well wtih outbound call center work. Outbound call center work means that these are the people that make calls to private homes trying to locate potential new business. These are the people that are looking for interested home owners that desire a new kitchen, or other high cost improvement.
Outbound call centers typically do not however push for sales but rather appointments or leads for a business to follow up on at a later time using a trained sales person. Imagine having a whole room of people making calls into your business area looking for leads? This is the best of all worlds from a business perspective but the privacy of the homeowner is the cost of the outbound call center business.
There’s always the national do not call list but it doesn’t protect people from local, in state calls. oh well!