Why Are You Still Using Just One Phone Number?

Several technologies, all of them simple, could make tech support less stressful for ISPs and their customers.

by Alex Goldman ISP-Planet Managing Editor [January 4, 2008]

If you have the technology to improve tech support, use it. For example, if you provide phone numbers to small business, grab several for yourself. Last year, we wrote about how local NYC-based VoIP specialist M5 gave customer Coldwell Banker, a realtor, several hundred phone numbers. Each ad placed by the realtor had a different phone number. The result: the realtor was able to trace the efficacy of its ads. Consider doing this for yourself. And if you're a typical ISP, you'll need less than a dozen phone numbers to track all your ads.

You could do more. Brad Templeton, in his ideas blog, suggests that any company with a website have a different customer service number listed there. For ISPs, this is especially relevant. If a customer can call a phone number that tells you their connection is working, that's useful. But why not go farther? Have separate phone numbers for business and residential service, a dedicated phone number for installs (whether you're delivering over telco copper or your own infrastructure), and perhaps give your top five customers, the really big statistical outliers, their own 800 number. You could provide numbers by department.

What if you're the owner operator? One phone number may make sense, but even if you're a company of one, you may find having multiple phone numbers useful. For example, you could take sales and customer service calls on different lines (even some national ISPs fail to do this).

Don't do it just because they do
A major competitive advantage of the small ISP is usually customer service (sometimes it's the ability to provide service in a remote area where there's no other provider). If customer service is part of what you market, don't mess it up with a poor IVR.

Too many recorded messages say, "please listen to the menu, as our options have changed." Many waste customers' time further by touting the service. It is completely ridiculous to say, "we are eager to serve your business needs in a reliable, courteous, and professional manner" when saying all of that just puts the customer on hold for longer. So don't do it.

The big companies make plenty of mistakes. Be different. Don't imitate their errors.

Click to call and CRM
In the article cited above, Templeton asks sophisticated internet companies to integrate web customer service with a CRM system. In the past CRM was expensive, but nowadays, with SugarCRM and salesforce.com and other innovations, even small ISPs can afford to implement this technology. It's not about whether you can afford it; the question you should be asking is whether you understand the technology and can get the most out of it. If not, don't do it, but if so, why haven't you? If you are using this technology, send us your story by clicking on the feedback link at the bottom of the page.

Sophisticated programming can give your agents a great deal of information about the customer when they call. If they're calling from home, a phone system that's connected to customer service can pull up their records (even large companies still have the customer type in their account number and then fail to deliver the data to the agent, who has to ask the customer to say the account number, and then the system fails to send this data to higher levels of support, when necessary—just because they fail to implement basic CRM doesn't mean you should imitate their errors).

With this technology, there are simple and complex options. Start simple. Don't try to do it all at once. Go for that fabled "low hanging fruit" which is the stuff that you can implement easily. Later, if it works as easily as you thought it would, add something more.

The goals are twofold: first, to deliver on that superior customer service that you advertise and, second, to save you money by saving both your agents and your customers time.

—End