There is no shortage of calling to be done in the merchant services industry, and whether it’s outbound sales calls being made by your team of agents, or inbound support calls coming in from your client merchants, your ISO stands to benefit greatly from anything that streamlines and enhances the process. As a result, many ISOs seek out call center software to help improve their daily phone ops. Putting technology to work to help your team make their jobs easier is always a good idea, but with so many call center platforms on the market, it can be hard to know what to look for and which to choose. The following five areas represent some of the most important things to focus on when shopping for a new call center for your ISO in order to ensure you end up with a system that will offer you the highest possible value and the best possible results.
1) Ease of Use
Any new tool you introduce to your ISO absolutely must be as user-friendly, easy, and enjoyable to use as possible. Without those key ingredients, your team simply won’t adopt the new software and embrace the advantages it brings to the table.
IRIS CRM’s advanced power dialer is extremely easy to use, and its wide array of built-in features are user-friendly and intuitive enough that even the biggest technophobes will be able to unlock its full power with almost no training required. The dialer can be easily launched from anywhere in IRIS CRM with a single click, the user interface makes dialing as simple as using any other phone, and the rest of the dialer’s features are all accessible in a matter of a few clicks.
2) Enhanced Calling Efficiency
Efficiency is at the core of all calling operations, so any merchant services call center platform you adopt absolutely must increase your team’s productivity and daily calling numbers. IRIS CRM’s dialer is designed specifically to make outbound calling as efficient and easy as possible for your agents by eliminating most of the repetitive work traditionally involved in high-volume calling operations.
With IRIS CRM, your agents can quickly create a call queue with their whole day’s call sheet within the CRM, and then let the power dialer automatically work through the list, dialing each new prospect after the previous call ends. The result is no wasted time between calls, and no repetitive dialing to drive your team crazy. Your agents can also launch calls to leads or merchants with a single click from within the lead management section of the CRM, and full lead and merchant information are always available at all times whenever your agents are on a call. That ensures that not only is calling faster but that the quality of the contents of each call is higher as well.
3) Local Presence Calling
Your ISO needs to be able to attract merchants on as wide a scale as possible, and that makes out-of-area and out-of-state prospecting an important function. Unfortunately, an unfamiliar area code showing up on a prospect’s call display often results in the call being ignored, sending answer rates through the floor. You can’t sign a merchant you can’t connect with, so boosting those out-of-area answer rates is crucial.
IRIS CRM’s Local Presence calling feature solves that problem by making it easy for your agents to access numbers from all over the country, ensuring each prospect will always see your calls coming from a number they’re familiar with. With IRIS CRM, you can easily port in your existing phone numbers or secure new ones from right within the system. Your agents can then select the number they want their outgoing calls to display from whenever they need to make out-of-area calls – it’s that easy, and using Local Presence can boost your answer rates by up to 400%!
4) Training and Quality Control Features
Conducting the sales process over the phone is a unique skill that requires specific training. Phone sales are also subject to a number of specific regulations, and it’s important that your management team is able to regularly ensure that those standards are being met.
IRIS CRM makes it easy to do both by providing easy access to call recordings and enabling managers to listen-in on live calls and to speak to agents or customers during with “whisper” and “barge” modes. With full access to all calls, individualized training programs can be developed based on each agent’s strengths and weaknesses, ensuring your teams’ on-phone sales personas and techniques are always well-defined and effective. You can also use listen-in and call recordings to ensure that your agents are playing within the rules and not exposing your ISO to any potential trouble with the FTC.
5) Advanced Inbound Call Routing
In a complex sales environment like merchant services, your organization needs to be equally as capable of effectively handling inbound sales inquiries and merchant support requests as it is outbound sales calls. That makes inbound call routing an important feature to look for in any call center system, because good routing ensures that inbound callers reach the right person as quickly as possible, minimizing hold time and transfers.
IRIS CRM’s dialer comes with a complete interactive voice response (IVR) system designed to make inbound call-handling a breeze. The options can be easily configured in any way you’d like, with as many levels as you’d like, all from within the CRM’s dialer settings. You can set options to route to specific individual extensions, or to groups, like “sales,” or “support.” Calls to group numbers are delivered using round-robin routing to ensure that they’re evenly distributed, ensuring a quick connection for the important merchant on the other end of the line. The system also enables you to set custom ringtones, custom hold music, hold advertisements, and more.
Not only does IRIS CRM’s advanced power dialer offer all of these features and many more, but it also integrates seamlessly with all other areas of the CRM. That means your team can access everything from lead accounts to billing and payments, to the support desk and help tickets, to their email accounts, and more, all from within the dialer while they’re on a call. That makes IRIS CRM a complete solution – not just a call center – designed to help your team with end-to-end service from the earliest interactions with a new merchant throughout their entire lifetime with your ISO.
For more information on how IRIS CRM can help your ISO improve the efficiency and effectiveness of your calling, as well as all other areas of your operations, contact us now!