Looking Ahead To 2017!

As another year disappears and 2017 begins it’s a great time to reflect on how your business can grow and improve over the next 12 months. One of the best ways to build your reputation is to increase customer satisfaction through every interaction you conduct. Unanswered phone calls and hurried conversations don’t do much to improve relations, so why risk your business reputation when we can look after your clients and help build the company reputation for you?

It’s worth thinking about what you want to be able to offer your customers - and if there’s extra little things that would help you get your company where you want it to be.

At Zoom we can help with all sorts. We’ll act as a team of receptionists, answering your calls and either transferring them to the right person or taking a message which we can email, fax or text you. If you’re running a recruitment or marketing campaign, we can manage the response for you, collecting the data you require and formulating a customised report of the campaign’s response and activity. You can also hire one of our 0800, 0845 and 0870 non-geographic numbers!

Need something more from us? We’re completely flexible so if there’s something particular you need, just call us and have a chat to see exactly how we can help! Get your business booming in 2017 with help from Zoom!

Top Tips To Get The Most From Your Staff!

Selling is everywhere and if it’s your business then it’s everything, too. We’ve put together our guide for getting the most out of your staff to make sure selling becomes an art form that your workforce enjoys.

• Even if your store has a relaxed feel to it, make sure everyone puts some effort into what they wear. Yes they could wear trainers and a t-shirt, but what message does that send? Run a competition to encourage your staff to put effort and thought into what they wear, to give the right impression (that your team members actually care) to your customers.
• Positivity goes a long way. Make sure you come to work in the right frame of mind - this will rub off on your team and encourage a happy, pleasant work environment. Make sure you be careful about what negative things you watch, listen to or read before you step through those doors.
• Be mindful of your words. This means thinking before you voice that opinion on a celebrity who has just had some misfortune befall them - enjoying a gossip at someone else’s expense may convey to the customer that you might enjoy a gossip about them once they’ve left too. Keep conversation positive and clean and encourage your team to do the same.
• Serve. We don’t mean embrace a slavish attitude, we mean go out of your way to help other team members, as well as your customers. Don’t portray a higher-than-thou stance, but go above and beyond to show your customers why they should shop with you.
• If you lose out on making a sale, don’t wallow in self-pity or blame the customer but stop and say “what could I have done better?” This way you’ll reflect back on your sales technique and learn, rather than shaking it off as a bad day.
  
  
  Come and see us at http://www.zoomuk.co.uk/services.html

Diversion Mayhem

We’ve all been there. You ring a company and get through to the wrong person, so they divert you to someone else, who passes you to someone else… the process of actually speaking to the right person can be a drawn out and frustrating one.

With Zoom you’ll never have to have your customers experiencing this. We’ll act as a central point for your calls to come in to, diverting them straight to the right person or department. You’re customers will be impressed with the speed and level of service you offer, handling all enquiries efficiently and smoothly. This in turn gives your business an improved reputation with customer care and is well worth investing in!

Our Zoomettes are all trained in Customer Service NVQs, levels 1, 2 and 3, to make sure your clients or customers never realise that they’re talking to a third party when their call comes through to us. We’re proud to be a part of your business and help you offer your customers the best service possible.

Top Tips For A Successful Phone Call

Here are our top tips for successful Phone Calls

1. Make sure you’re in sync with the business language the person is talking. If it’s a sector you’re unfamiliar with, then do some research and use similar phrases to make sure the person on the end of the line builds trust and confidence in you.
2. Acknowledge if the customer is in a hurry, telling them you appreciate this so they know you’ll be doing your best to deal with their enquiry as swiftly as possible. If you have to call them back, tell them how long or when it will be so they have a timeframe to work with.
3. Don’t answer before the phone has rung twice - most people aren’t actually ready and you’ll catch them unprepared! But make sure you answer before the phone has rung six times as you risk the person hanging up, presuming there’s no one to answer.
4. Don’t hang up before the caller does - you risk missing that crucial “Oh...by the way!” This could actually lose you business, so make sure the customer hangs up first!
5. When speaking to the person, pay attention to the tone of your voice - make sure it’s not monotonous as you’ll come across bored and uninterested. Inject a bit of liveliness into the way you speak - remember that the way the person perceives you is also the way they perceive the company.
6. Don’t ever have an empty pause of ten seconds or more, as this will come across badly. Make sure you’ve got open questions prepared in case the conversation dries up.
7. Don’t ever presume that someone shares your opinion on anything! Whether it’s sport, religion or politics, it’s never a good idea to voice how you feel on something as this could cause real issues if the caller doesn’t share your view. Stick to neutral comments that can’t be interpreted to mean too much!
8. Don’t make your choice of words too complex. Using long, sophisticated words may make you sound intelligent but it may also inhibit the caller from understanding what you mean if they don’t have the same vocabulary - stick to simple, easily-understood words to make sure your message is passed on clearly.
9. “I don’t know” is never acceptable. If you’re stuck and don’t know the answer to something, say “I’ll find out and get back to you”. The caller will feel much more valued and will have a much higher opinion of a company that clearly wants to help its customers.
10. Don’t leave the caller to ramble on without any acknowledgement from you. It’s so important to actively listen when someone is speaking to you, so interject with “Yes”, “I understand” and “OK” to make sure the caller knows you haven’t dozed off while they were talking!

Coaching For The Perfect Answer!

If you’ve just started your own company, you’ll have a new group of employees who are fresh to the job - and if a big part of that is training your staff to answer the phone correctly, we’re the ones to help!

A professional telephone manner goes a long way to helping your business succeed. Whether your business is a sales-based one or offers a particular service, you’ll need people who are competently trained to be beacons for your business and get the results you need to excel and be the best. Use our expertise to help you win sales, improve your relationships with customers and make your company shine.

By training your staff you can be more in tune with what your clients want, adjusting your behaviours to meet your client expectations.

Zoom can coach both individuals and groups on how to be competent, confident and to convey the right attitude across the phone. Equip your team with the right tools to answer your calls and enhance your company’s image. You’ll hear the difference in the way your staff answer the phones and you’ll see the difference in the results that then come in.

Outsourcing Is The Answer!

With any business, there will be busy periods when you need extra help to keep your business running smoothly. Christmas, during sales, during periods of staff holidays or sickness - sometimes you just need more hands on deck to make sure the level of service you offer your customers doesn’t falter.

All of our operators have been recruited from customer service background, which gives them a sound knowledge of their job to start with, however we believe in personal development and train all our staff to NVQ levels 1, 2 and 3 in customer service. This means we deal with your calls the same way you would - we want your company to shine, so we pride ourselves on answering and responding to your calls as if they were to our own company. And don’t worry, your customers and clients will never know that they’re talking to a third party. You can dictate the way we answer and we’ll always follow your instructions, to the letter.  

Missing telephone calls can mean you lose out on potentially huge amounts of business, which can cost you dearly. Don’t risk it because you’re low on staff, outsource your telephone calls to Zoom and let us help you keep your company’s image the best it can be. We’re always flexible, so if there’s something specific you need from us, just ask!

Your Very Own Virtual Receptionist

At Zoom, we’re proud to offer our clients a service that is second to none. If your business is starting small, why not employ our services to make it sound bigger with a truly professional answering service?

We’ll do everything a normal receptionist would, answering your calls as part of your company and directing them to the correct person or taking a message which we’ll pass on to you immediately via your chosen method - email, SMS, fax or text. Your phone calls will never go unanswered again, meaning all your clients are kept happy, with impressive service that will make every one of them feel valued and satisfied.

We also ensure that your company comes across in the best light possible, with professional, friendly and helpful staff who answer your calls as if your company was ours. You can have all your calls transferred seamlessly to anywhere in the world, giving the impression you’re in the office, even if you’re not!

Whether you’ve got one employee or hundreds, we can manage all the information to ensure calls are directed the right person, without passing the client from one person to another! We have excellent technology at our fingertips that helps us deal with all your calls in a timely and helpful manner, bringing up all your instructions whenever we get a phone call to remind us of exactly how you want your calls dealt with.

Marketing Campaigns Without The Stress

Need a response that’s more in depth than our call answering service? Here at Zoom we’re extremely flexible when it comes to our customers, so if you need a response to your marketing campaign, just ask!

We can handle the calls that come in from your campaign, taking down any information you want collected from the callers, be it names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses - whatever you need, we’re completely flexible and will always use your instructions to answer the calls. Our technology means that whenever a call comes in for you, all the details we need to answer the call are immediately on a screen in front of the Zoomette, to ensure they answer in exactly the right way, as per your instructions.

Callers will never know that they’re talking to a third party as we respond as if we were part of your company. We’ll take the details you need from them and collate the results together in a report that makes it easy for you to see exactly what data was gathered. You can even hire one of our 0800, 0845 and 0870 non-geographic numbers!

Call us now on 0800 583 5020 to see how we can help your business grow and shine!

Call Centre Services For You

One of the many exciting services we offer is to help you manage marketing and recruitment campaigns.

Advertising campaigns are wonderful ways to get your name out there, drawing in customers and clients, and generating business to increase your profits. We’re always happy to help you manage these, tailored to exactly what you need to get from the campaign.

Brief us on the product or service you’re offering and our Zoomettes can manage the response from the campaign, capturing the data you need from callers and collating this together. Data such as name, address, where they saw the ad and which product they are interested in can all be collected from each call and either emailed, texted or faxed to you as soon as it’s received. All the data from the campaign would also be collated and put together in a customised report, so you can see the response and the activity that has been generated by your marketing campaign. We also have 0800, 0845 and 0870 numbers for hire, allowing you to use these without actually having to purchase one.

We have a team waiting to help you manage your campaign, meaning you’ll get all the data collated together, saving you hassle, time and money. If you need more from us just ask! Our service is completely flexible, so we’re always happy to take the time to discuss your requirements and see how we can help. We treat your clients as though they were our own, so they’ll never know that they aren’t speaking directly to someone in your company. We’ll answer the phone in the way you’ve specified, to make sure your business is represented exactly how you want it to be.

Diary Management

It’s always a bad feeling when you suddenly realise that you’ve booked two meetings at the same time! There’s often a real gut wrench as you realise you’ll have to cancel one of them, leaving a customer or client disgruntled and annoyed. When you’re busy running your own business, it can be difficult to juggle appointments, arranging them when you don’t have your diary to hand because you’re trying to make sure you don’t miss calls from any clients.

That’s where Zoom can help. Let us take some of the stress away from you by managing your diary for you. We can use your online diary, or even set one up online for you to make it as easy as possible. This means while you’re out looking after your business, we can look after new and existing clients for you to make sure you don’t double book yourself- we’ll help you manage your time more efficiently.

Our diary management service works really well, especially for clinics or restaurants, where appointments and time slots need to be regularly booked in. We’ll always work to your specifications, booking in appointments or meetings that work to your schedule and your requirements.

Our Zoomettes are all trained with customer service NVQ level 1, 2 and 3, so you can rest assured that your clients will be well looked after, spoken to in a professional and friendly manner, while never detecting that they are speaking to a third party. An incoming call to your business activates a screen pop which tells the operative all your details and exactly how you like your calls to be answered. This keeps you in control all the time, so your business is dealt with to your specifications.

Let Zoom take care of booking in your appointments, so you can make sure you’re never double booking. We’ll help you utilise your time more efficiently and save you the time and hassle of having to do this yourself, freeing you up to look after the more important aspects of your business.

Trained To Impress

Here at Zoom, we’re incredibly proud of our team of telephone operators or Zoomettes!

We pride ourselves on taking care to recruit all our team from customer service backgrounds, so we know they’re the right type of people to look after your clients. We train all our team in customer service NVQ level 1, 2 and 3, then once they are fully trained we work hard to keep our staff - we have one of the best retention rates in the industry!

Our training includes implementing the best telephone manners to make sure your clients are spoken to in the best way, to promote your business and improve it’s image. When you join us we train each telephone assistant individually on your products and services, meaning they fully understand you. This in turn means they're able to give the highest level of customer service to your callers.

We actively encourage our clients to help us train our team- if you’re part of the handover process the staff get all your details straight from you, which means you help the transition to be seamless and smooth.

We use state of the art technology to answer your calls, with each Zoomette trained to use the technology so we make sure we answer your calls how you’d like them to. When calls to your business come through, a pop up screen tells each operator exactly how to answer the call. They can then enter the message details into the system to send to you, or they can seamlessly transfer the call to whichever number you’ve specified.

Flexibility That Puts You In Control

The flexibility of our service means you’re always in control of the service we give you. You can choose when to divert- whether you want us to act as a receptionist for you full time or whether you’d like to use us when you’re on holiday, in meetings or simply don’t want to be disturbed.

If you normally have a team who answer your phones, you can always use us as an overflow during your busy times. You can divert to us in a variety of ways to suit you:

On Busy

To make sure there’s never a busy tone, you can divert to us whenever your phone is engaged so you never miss a call from a potential or existing client.

On Unanswered

Divert to us after four unanswered rings so your customers are never left waiting long. We can answer for you and make sure all your customers are spoken to- we can book in appointments, process payments and post out brochures with your chosen stationary.

On All Calls

Have all calls diverted to us permanently so you don’t have to worry about the calls at all. You can undivert them at any time, allowing you to be in control. Sometimes you simply need to be undisturbed so you can focus on the more important tasks to ensure your business runs smoothly and successfully.

Why not start our FREE 7 day trial to see just how Zoom can help your business? During the trial we’ll look after your calls during business hours and you can get your friends and family to call in, to test us out and see just how professional and friendly we are!

Why Zoom?

At Zoom, we’re confident that we can make a real difference to your business by managing your calls in a professional yet friendly manner, while saving you time and money.

Take a look a list of the reasons below to help understand more about how we can help.

We offer a professional, warm telephone answering service where we can either divert the calls to your chosen number or take a message which we then email, fax or text you.

Each telephone operator is trained specifically on your products, so they have a thorough understanding of how to handle your calls.

We’ve grown through reputation - and our clients stay because they love our work! We don’t use contracts to tie people in, allowing you to stay in full control of your business.

We’re flexible- you can tell us exactly how you want your calls answered, what you want from us and you can change this daily, with no extra charge.

Thanks to our high speed Internet link, we can access websites or online diaries- we can book in appointments, give directions and process payments.

We use state of the art technology to deliver your messages to you swiftly, while our Address Finder software enables our team to find your callers full address details with just their postcode, which therefore eliminates spelling errors and inaccuracies.

Callers never detect that they are talking to a third party and we apologise if calls aren’t returned or if our clients are late for appointments. We can even call your customers to keep them informed of progress or to confirm appointments.

We really hope you’ll let us help you, freeing you up to focus on the more important aspects of your work and allowing us to reduce some of that stress that comes with running a business!

Good Telephone Manners

At Zoom, we train all our operatives to have the perfect telephone manners. We know how important it is to communicate well on the phone and how much of a difference it can make to your business.

We’ve put together a few tips on telephone manners and how to win over your clients.

Effective communication requires you to build trust, comfort and understanding. It also requires discussion, rather than just one person telling someone something.

Successful communication is where two people come to understand the same thing, so while a varied vocabulary may sound impressive, it may simply lead to someone not understanding what’s being said.

Repeating what someone has said back to them can assist in communication. It helps to clarify the issue- and it tests that the message that has been “sent” is the same as the one that has been “received”.

Testing for understanding (as above) is essential- most people will not say if they don’t understand, as they’ll feel embarrassed or inhibited by thinking that others do.

If you don’t know something, it’s best to carefully word your response. Instead of saying “I don’t know”, you can word it to sound more professional and positive. Use “I will find out” and then make sure you get back to them.

A lack of training is the most common reason for performance failure.

We take pride in our telephone manner, treating your clients the same way we would our own. When we speak to your clients, they will never know that they aren’t speaking directly to your company. They will always speak to someone who is well-trained, articulate and professional, while keeping a friendly warmth to the conversation. Try us now- free for seven days!

A Telephone Manner With A Difference.

Everyone knows that the way you speak on the telephone can have a huge impact on the way the conversation goes- whether you come away with a positive or negative feeling. When you phone a company, the person who answers can make you feel very valued- or as though you are wasting their time.

The difference in the way you are spoken to on the phone can result in two very different outcomes for businesses. If you receive blunt, cold and unfriendly service, you are much less likely to use that company for whatever business you needed from them. A positive experience, where the caller is dealt with in a friendly, professional and interested manner can transform a simple phone call into a business deal. Making the person feel valued, at ease and like they can trust you will result in them feeling much more inclined to use your company. Even if they don’t commit to anything during the phone call, you will stick in their mind and they will feel as though they can trust you- they may recommend you to a friend!

At Zoom, we consider your company part of ours, so we will speak to your clients as though they were enquiring about our own business. We’ll use a telephone manner that not only makes them feel positive about your company, but as though they are being dealt with in a friendly, professional manner to ensure we do the best for your business. All our staff undergo customer service NVQ level 1, 2 and 3, and we invest heavily in personal development and training. We then work hard to retain our staff once they are fully trained, meaning we have one of the best retention rates in the industry. Each of our team members are recruited from customer service backgrounds and we look after our staff, which means their team spirit and loyalty comes across in all the calls they take.

At Zoom, we can answer your calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including bank holidays, or you can subscribe to our “business hours” service, where we answer your calls Monday to Friday from 0845-1800 hours, with a voicemail service for out of hours.

Try a free 7 day trial to see just how good we are!

The Business Of Brochures

One of the best ways to get word out about your business is to send out brochures- it’s often requested by potential customers too! But sometimes, you find yourself missing out on business because you’re just too busy or away from the office, so you don’t have time to post out brochures.

Brochures are a great way to advertise your business, focussing entirely on your company and its offerings, thereby capturing the attention of your potential customer. Versatile and adaptable, brochures offer different ways to put your information across to your target audience. A graphic designer can help you put together an exciting design to ensure your business comes across as you want it to. It’s worth putting effort into the content on your material, whether it’s an enticing offer or punchy facts that will grab the attention of the reader. Bear in mind, brochures that are to be mailed out need to be sturdy enough to survive the postal system too!

Think about the size of your brochure- people respond well to clutter-free content, so make sure you have enough room to layout exactly what information you need, while keeping the aesthetics tidy and appealing.

Zoom can send your brochures for you, posting them out with your preferred letter and stationary, and using either 1st or 2nd class stamps. We can have these ready to post out in response to requests from your customers when they call. We’re completely flexible, so don’t hesitate to talk to us about what you need!