Before you start using Talk to help your customers, take some time to evaluate what you want to get from your call center, prepare your network, and learn about Talk phone numbers and how they work.
This article contains the following topics:
Goals and strategy
Before you start with Talk, take some time to think about what you want to get from it. How can Talk help you to achieve your goals? Some typical goals might be:
Boost customer satisfaction (CSAT)
Satisfying your customers is crucial to the success of your call center. The following tips will help you to do this:
- Ensure you have enough agents to handle call volumes (see Determining your Zendesk Talk staffing requirements).
- Save callers time by enabling them to exit the call queue and leave a voicemail or request a callback (see Configuring voicemail options and Returning callback requests.
- Encourage agents to respond to customer emails via phone -- it’s often faster, and customers appreciate the personal touch (see Making outbound calls).
- Make customer satisfaction, not average handling time, your main key performance indicator (KPI)
- Collect customer feedback using email or text message after each phone call
Improve operational efficiency
There are many ways in which you can improve your efficiency. Here are some ideas to get you started:
- Upload customer information into Zendesk & use internal knowledge base to limit average handle time - agents don’t have to spend time on the phone hunting for information. For information about Zendesk Guide, see Getting started with Guide: Setting up.
- Design your IVR and routing to connect callers with the right agent, the first time (see Route incoming calls with IVR)
- Well-trained agents will improve first call resolution, decrease handle time and increase CSAT. Our course, eLearning: Zendesk Talk for Agents is a great way to get started.
- Consider remote agents:
- Remote agents reduce staffing and infrastructure costs
- Remote agents can get up and running fast, without extra equipment
- You can track remote agent performance with call monitoring, dashboards, and reports. See Best practices for monitoring and maintaining Talk.
- Consider implementing omnichannel routing which enable you to route tickets to agents based on their availability and capacity.
Environment and system requirements
If you spend time setting up and optimizing your network and hardware for Talk, you'll help to ensure a minimum amount of downtime and problems later. Some of the factors to think about are:
- Network connection and bandwidth
- Router configuration (open ports and QoS enabled)
- Opening the correct firewall ports
- Using a supported web browser
- Choosing the right headset
For detailed information, see Preparing to use Talk.
Phone numbers and voicemail
To use Talk, you'll need a phone number. You can either buy a phone number from Zendesk or, in some cases bring your own number with you. When you start a suite trial, you'll be given a number, so you're all ready to go.
Buying a number
The first question you should ask yourself is "Where are your customers?"
Talk offers toll-free, local & national numbers for more than 40 countries. Use the calculator in the Zendesk Talk number availability and pricing article to find out what numbers are available and how much they cost. The following tips can help you choose the right number:
- A toll-free number sends a signal that you are committed to great service
- A local number makes a customer feel like you are closer to them
- Choosing a country-specific number helps you reduce costs.
If you want to keep your existing support number, you have two options:
- Port the number over to Zendesk
- Forward your existing support number calls to your Zendesk Talk number
Porting might take a few weeks, depending on your phone provider. For detailed information, see Porting numbers for Zendesk Talk. Also, bear in mind that some countries have regulations that require you to provide additional documentation to verify your business. You'll need to provide this information before you can start using your new number. For details, see Zendesk Talk and Zendesk Text number address requirements.
Next steps
This article is one of a series that give you best practices for using Talk. Click the links below to visit the other articles:
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Best practices for Zendesk Talk
- Best practices to plan for Talk (this article)
- Best practices for rolling out Talk
- Best practices for monitoring and maintaining Talk
To read more about Talk and it's features, see Zendesk Talk resources.
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