If you have run your business for any considerable amount of time you have probably lost a customer, perhaps through no fault of your own. In this day and age you cannot afford to let this happen. Effective call handling management is one way in which you can effectively minimise the risk of losing customers and make sure they come back and buy from you again.

You do not need to buy expensive call handling software or hardware to manage calls effectively. What is important is that you successfully implement a system which can track, record and learn from calls received and introduce processes and measures which can avoid problems in the future.

How can call handling help my business?

The way you deal with a customer complaint will essentially determine two things. The first is if they will ever buy from you again and the second is how they will refer to you to their friends or colleagues. Call handling is as much an art as it is a science. Your staff must be given protocols and processes to follow in the event of a complaint, but the manner in which a problem is remedied is down to how empathetic an employee is towards the customer. In other words a sympathetic voice goes a long way in complaint situations.

· An apology must be given after the complaint has been made

· The caller must be assured the problem will be remedied as soon as possible

· No guarantees should be made but the aim should be to try and resolve the problem at the time of the complaint

· The caller should ideally not be passed around. If they do need to be transferred the problem should be explained to the complaints department before the customer is put through. This will ensure the customer does not have to repeat themselves and  become more frustrated

· If the problem cannot be resolved over the phone a clear time frame and process should be explained to the customer with a reference number for the complaint along with telephone number and name of contact

· After the complaint the call should be logged and assigned a severity rating. Should the customer call again the reference number and full details of the problem should be on record with a status on the resolution of the problem

The data collected from all complaints should be used to uncover inherent problems and from these insights action should be taken. This could mean changing processes however the changes made should be tracked over time to see if they successfully resolve the issue. The action taken should be thought of as a trial and error process and not a permanent fix. In most cases if a problem is dealt with successfully and rapidly there should be no reason why a customer should not buy from you again as long as the problem does not re-occur.

The best way to ensure your employees are equipped to deal with problems effectively is to create a call handling handbook which detail scenarios and step by step guides on how all problems should be resolved. For example the severity of complaints should be clearly defined with a clear time scale by which problems should be resolved. This means employees are clear about what is expected and how issues should be dealt with. To re-enforce these measures frequent training sessions should be carried out with refreshers for more experienced staff.

Effective call handling can promote loyalty and cut costs. Any processes put in place should be rigorously tested and abided by.

Office Front is a UK based call handling company.