With the advent of the internet, there are nearly countless ways for companies to connect with their customers and prospects. You can email, text, connect over social media, and even chatbots have become common. But the phone remains a vital channel that connects businesses to people. In the age of COVID-19, it’s arguably the best way to have an immediate, two-way conversation with a customer safely and securely.Â
The Challenge for Businesses
Unfortunately, trust in the phone channel has been eroding. Over the last decade, there has been a meteoric rise in robocalls and phone scams that prey upon unsuspecting consumers. The list of different schemes is long, but they all inevitably try to part people from their money fraudulently. It’s become so pervasive that a large majority of Americans won’t pick up the phone if they don’t know who’s on the other end. It’s gotten so bad that a hiker lost for more than 24 hours in the Colorado mountains ignored the calls of rescuersOpens a new window trying to find him because he “didn’t recognize the numbers calling.â€Â
People aren’t picking up the phone, and when businesses can’t reach their customers and prospects, that leads to serious ramifications, particularly for retailers. It can impact everything from simple issues with an order to last-mile delivery. A retailer is trying to make a large delivery, for example, but no one’s picking up the phone. The retailer is forced to store that item accruing all the associated costs until the customer answers. Retailers aren’t going to cancel an order; that would generate a negative customer experience. Instead, they must wait indefinitely for the customer to respond.Â
There’s also a corresponding cost for that negative customer experience. If someone expects that their couch is going to get delivered but doesn’t pick up the phone to accept delivery, that couch could get delayed for weeks. Of course, they may not see their role in the issue; they’ll instead blame the retailer for their delayed order.
Whether it’s a delivery service or a collections agency, the result is the same: companies need the customer to pick up the phone so that they can resolve the concern, schedule the delivery, or push them to make their past due payment. If customers don’t pick up the phone, those downstream operational metrics are impacted, hurting both the bottom line and customer perceptions of the brand. It’s more important than ever that retailers overcome trust issues and reach consumers by phone. Every interaction with their customers matters, especially as more brick-and-mortar stores close. Retailers are understandably desperate to have people answer the phone.Â
See More: How to Tackle Bad Bots in Online Retail
Rebuilding Trust in Phone Calls
Large retailers are taking steps to address worsening answer rates for their outbound calls. Savvy companies recognize that overcoming the mistrust of unknown numbers is too difficult. Instead, retailers are focused on ensuring that every person called knows that a brand they trust is trying to reach them. Retailers are starting to take advantage of the fact that smartphones can display much more than the 15-character limitations of Caller ID seen on landline phones.Â
Through a new technology called branded call display, callers to today’s smartphones can show logos, the reason for the call, URLs, and much more. Calls can also be authenticated with STIR/SHAKEN, so customers know the call has not been spoofed.†This information is delivered the moment the phone rings, so the person knows that they can trust the caller. Even better, retailers can provide a reason for the consumer to pick up.Â
The benefits go beyond answer rate improvements; it also protects a brand from being misused. For example, a large electronics retailer was having an issue where criminals were calling customers and purporting to be from the company. The fraudsters were able to spoof their calls so that they appeared to be coming from the electronic retailer’s widely known 800 number.
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Once the retailer adopted branded call displays, the fraud was eliminated almost entirely. It was now too hard for bad actors to pretend to be from the company since customers recognized that calls from the retailer were more sophisticated than the ones from fraudsters. Not only were customers more content, but it also upheld the electronic retailer’s reputation in the marketplace.
By optimizing the caller name and leveraging solutions like branded call display, retailers are also acting to make sure that their outbound calls aren’t marked as spam or blocked. A customer will not pick up the phone if they think it’s a spam call, even if it’s for a legitimate business purpose. By tagging their outbound calls correctly, enterprises mitigate the risk of being inadvertently blocked or tagged as spam by voice service providers.
Rebuild Trust Through Technology
The phone channel has been fundamentally under attack for the last decade, but these new technologies are allowing retailers to bring phone communications back to life. And in doing so, they’re better able to manage their brands in the marketplace, connect with customers and fight fraud.Â
As a retailer, how are you building customer trust in your phone calls and improving answer rates? Share with us on FacebookOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , and LinkedInOpens a new window .