A Simple Guide for an Effective Inbound Call Strategy

Making sure that your customers can reach you when they need to is one of the most important aspects of delivering excellent customer service. If customers have a problem, your business should have channels for them to reach out to you. Phone channels are a way to provide customer service immediately.

What are inbound calls?

An inbound call is when a customer calls in. These are customer-initiated calls received by call centers. Most of the calls that come into the call center are from customers who need help with customer service or technical support issues.

Help desks answer inbound calls too. However, these calls may come from employees.

Three common inbound call types.

The inbound call center commonly receives customer service-related phone calls. These include:

  1. Orders and payments. Despite the popularity of e-commerce, many shoppers still prefer to place their orders over the phone. Inbound calls facilitate customer transactions via phone. Shoppers also might contact a company with billing questions or to find answers for a payment issue.
  2. Product and tech support. Customers call for help to solve a wide array of issues, from returning damaged products or changing account information and passwords to complaining about product malfunctions.
  3. Upgrade, renewal, and cancellation of products and services. The popularity of subscription-based businesses (monthly clothing deliveries, online streaming services, and more) for both consumers and the enterprise, such as software as a service (SaaS) and cloud storage, has increased the number of calls related to the upgrade, renewal, and cancellation of products.

An inbound call center can be versatile and handle many of a company’s sales, marketing, and customer service needs. If run correctly, inbound call centers can make money.

Today’s call centers provide customer service not only through telephone calls but also through email, chat, and more.