If you have seen the UK Whitegoods website then you may well have come across the “Find An Engineer” search system that matches customers with suitable repair companies.

This service deals with many thousands of requests a year and is bespoke software that was designed and written by ourselves and has been developed over a number of years to be secure and robust.

As an extension to this system we created some code that the repair companies could drop into their own website that allowed their customers to log the service requirement online, without the need to wait until the office opened, sit in a call queue or even just speak to someone if that was the preferred contact method.

It struck us however that any number of brands or manufacturers have this issue as well, they have not got the ability to allow their customers to easily log a call on their websites.

We can do something about that.

Custom Engine

For the Whitegoods Trade Association (WTA) to prove the concept we designed a customised search for visitors to the WTA website to find WTA members but, only WTA members.

Although the database in this case is shared with the database of all known UK repairers that we hold and can be used more broadly, the results will only display WTA members.

We could just as easily have placed the WTA on it’s own dedicated database that was secure and that only they had access to however, for the companies registered it is easier to manage both in the one place and from the one single dashboard.

For anyone else, especially where our client wishes to maintain the list of service agents themselves should they wish to publish those, we can also use a completely separate database that only the client can access ensuring that your data is only accessible by you.

Filter Service Requests

One of the really things about the way that we had to design the logic of our system was that we had to be able to filter on a number of inputs form the customer but, we also had to make that as simple and easy as possible to use. After all there would be little point to designing a system that whilst it might be technically brilliant, nobody uses as it is too complex.

The clever in this is that we dumb things down yet still capture the vital information to be able to allow us to filter specific calls to wherever they need to go.

If people are to use such facilities it has to be clear, simple, easy and fast. After all, you want to help your customers and make life easier for them, not harder.

Behind the scenes however you can do some really clever stuff, completely automated.

You can route certain repairs to an internal department, all to one point of contact or even to service agents directly by geography, product type, brand. You can even control that down to the level of specific key data point and direct the request as you see fit and, as suits your business.

Phone Time Reduction

One of the banes of a call centre is the waiting times when the centre is busy, customers despise having to wait in a queue to speak to someone often only agitating them yet further. Given your customer is likely to already be upset as they have a problem it is not ideal to make things even more annoying for them.

Offering the ability to place a service request online offers your customers the chance to bypass the need to wait in line to speak to an operator and rather than taking up valuable phone and staff time you capture all the details and can process the request faster.

To enable this all you need do is give your customers that option on your website so that they may not even call in the first instance and tell people that they can do this in your phone system.

Cheap to do, better service to your customers, less hassle for everyone.

Customer Expectation

The reduction in hassle, the ability to request services without the requirement to call a company is something that we think a great many people can relate to.

After all, why bother calling and waiting in a queue for what might seem like an age when you can just fill in a form or place a service request online.

Many of us are already familiar with this though having our cars serviced, other products in our hones, online shopping and so forth. The fact is, we are largely all used to these facilities being available to us and your customers expect it.

It is easier as we have said, it save you and your customers time, hassle and money but it is an expectation of customers that such facilities are available.

In the past such systems have been expensive and difficult to implement but using our system, it is neither.

Notifications

As an extension of customer expectations in our modern world not only do your customers expect these facilities to be available to them but, they also expect to be informed and be notified.

Of course we are aware of this and took steps to address this need.

When a service request is entered by default the system will send an email notification to your chosen point of contact but, also send confirmation of receipt to your customer. This lets you customer know that you have received the request successfully and that you will look into the matter for them.

Optionally or additionally you can also send your customer an SMS notification.

Of course it’s great that your customer knows you’ve gotten their request and that you will act on it but, it also saves your customer calling you to confirm it and, saves your staff time on the phones yet again.

Standalone & Integration

Our online call routing software can be used as a standalone system or, integrated into other systems as it has been designed to talk to rapport out the box.

Standalone use can be achieved very easily and you will still have many of the features such as email receipts to you and your customers, the ability to send SMS confirmation and so on however it really shines when used with rapport.

The system can be integrated into other call handling packages if the publisher allows this so the, just as would be the case when using rapport, the service requests are imported straight into your existing software.

No Poaching

We understand fully and totally get that you want your information to be secure. We do too and we are extremely active with security in this regard.

Experience has taught us with the engineer search that manufacturers will often try to poach service agents from time to time and we have many years of experience in ensuring that this cannot happen.

It would be foolish to say that it cannot happen or that someone clever enough couldn’t work out who the service agent was in an area but, that doesn’t mean that we have to make it easy to do. And most certainly make it impossible to pull off a list of agents.

We have done exactly that.

We read this as a security feature on many levels as, it prevents spammers from harvesting the data or at least secures it as much as is humanly possible and it stops competitors from stealing your hard won service agents.

Other Industries

Our online call system can be customised to suit other industries also, please contact us for more information so that we can advise based on specific requirements.

Savings

The biggest saving from our point of view here is on the part of the customer.

We wanted to make it easy, accessible and fast for people to be able to log a service request so it was less hassle for customers. People can just enter the details requested, submit the request and get on with their lives safe in the knowledge that it will be taken care of.

We accomplished that.

For the businesses that use this facility however we noticed that there were many benefits to them also.

Their customers had a more positive view of the business, it reduced time on the phones, saved typographical errors on data input, informed their customers better and many other benefits making things easier for you and your customers.

If you want to know more or find out costings please contact us for assistance.