Call handling techniques aim to make sure that calls are handled efficiently, courteously, and to the satisfaction of both the caller and the organization.
What happens if your business misses a call?
- You could miss out on a sale.
- You could upset a customer in need of support.
- You could miss some other opportunity that impacts your bottom line.
You can’t manage what you’re not aware of. So, any potential issues or missed opportunities are a total mystery … because they never happened.
You might be missing business phone calls if:
- You have a high call volume.
- Customers complain they can’t reach you.
- Agents report they can’t answer calls quickly.
- Your call center analytics are informing you that you have missed calls.
How can you solve this? With efficient call handling techniques, backed by sophisticated technology that makes your life a lot easier.
What Is Call Handling?
Call handling is the process of managing all incoming (inbound) and outgoing (outbound) calls within a business. It encompasses everything from answering calls promptly to routing them to the right person.
A typical call handling process looks the same from the outside and the inside. It’s what you incorporate in the middle that really makes call handling work for you:
- Automated options
- Greetings
- Call routing (to agents, queues, voicemail, etc.)
- Agent transfers
- Active listening
- Problem solving
- Solution verification
When done well, call handling increases customer satisfaction and business efficiency. Customers get through to you quickly, dramatically reducing the chance of missed calls.
Expect call center metrics and KPIs like average handle time and first call resolution to improve when you optimize your call handling process.
Call Handling Techniques
In any business, you need to decide how to handle incoming calls. There are typically four options to choose from.
In-house team
Here, you have employees dedicated to answering and routing calls. They might be specific to each department or operating in a help desk capacity.
While not traditional call center agents, they will answer, handle, and escalate calls. This skill set lends itself to quality communicators as well as experienced employees.
- Ideal For: Small businesses with predictable call volume.
- Requires: Training and resources for call handling skills.
Virtual receptionist services
These are remote services that answer calls on behalf of your business. These agents (who don’t work for your company) determine the reason for calls and direct callers based on preset instructions.
For example, you could ask a virtual receptionist to troubleshoot all first-line inquiries, such as rebooting routers, checking online opening times, or asking if someone has already logged a ticket. From here, the virtual receptionist can route a call to the relevant department.
This is a cost-effective call handling solution for businesses with fluctuating call volume. If you’re on the verge of needing a formal call center setup but aren’t ready to commit to hiring dedicated agents, a virtual receptionist is a great middle ground.
- Ideal For: Small businesses with fluctuating call volume. They benefit from answering services that help scale rapidly without having to onboard new staff.
- Requires: Training specific to your business processes, customers, and products.
Automated attendant systems
The first part of a traditional call flow is a computerized system with prerecorded menus for self-service options. Think of the last time you contacted a business and were greeted by an automated system.
It might sound something like:
- If you’re an existing customer, press 1
- If you’d like to become a customer, press 2
From here, other preprogrammed menu options help guide callers to the right department, queue, or agent.
✅ Pro Tip: Imagine that someone reaches a sales queue via the interactive voice response (IVR) but hangs up before reaching an agent. You could schedule them for an agent callback the next day.
For example, customers might try to reach a plumber after business hours. Most will either be unresponsive or direct incoming calls to a voicemail, where callers will likely hang up before leaving a message. But it can be worth it for the plumber to return missed calls where the caller navigated far enough in the call flow. For some businesses, timing truly matters more than price.
- Ideal For: Businesses with high call volumes or those who handle many basic inquiries.
- Requires: Auto attendant software/hardware and associated configuration.
Call center software
It’s easy to put robust call handling systems in place to manage high call volume, call routing, and call performance tracking.
With basic call center software, expect features like:
- Call queuing
- Call recording
- Call forwarding
- Interactive voice response
- Computer telephony integration
- Automatic call distribution
- Skills-based routing
- CRM integration
More complex call center software may also include:
- Performance analytics
- Real-time dashboards
- Predictive dialing
- After-call surveys
- Escalation management
- Quality monitoring
- Sentiment analysis
- AI help
- Voice recognition
- API integration
Call centers are a major leap from standard business phone systems.
- Ideal For: Small to medium businesses with varying needs, many departments, or mixed skill sets.
- Requires: Implementation of call center software and user training.
Types of Calls Handled
When attempting to streamline your call handling techniques (in other words, how your calls are handled), it’s important to classify the types of calls that your business receives.
Customer service
Existing customers ask about products, services, troubleshooting, and complaints. These are typically less urgent unless they fall under the category of technical support for a mission-critical product.
Technical support
Existing or new customers may need help with your product or service. This could range from first-line basic issues to problems that need to be diagnosed and escalated to subject matter experts or second-line engineers.
Sales
Potential customers may return calls or make inbound inquiries about your products and services. These may be follow-ups from outbound sales activity focused on generating leads, qualifying prospects, and converting sales opportunities.
Order processing
A customer may call you when they are ready to order a new product, buy a second product, or purchase an upgrade. The agent’s role here is to review customer requests, process payments, and confirm details. These calls may be initiated by online activity, SMS campaigns, or other marketing and sales campaigns.
Information
General calls can request company information, directions, or business hours. Examples include:
- Return address
- Opening hours
- Updating account information
- Confirming delivery status
Typical Inbound Call Handling Techniques
Regardless of the types of call you receive, the call handling process will be similar. Of course, you can customize every part of the process to improve the customer experience.
Greeting
Either an agent or an auto attendant answers the call professionally and completes identity verification. The goal here is to make the caller feel comfortable and confirm they are who they say they are by asking for details like an account number, phone number, PIN, and security questions.
Qualifying the call
By asking qualifying (and possibly scripted) questions, you can better understand the customer’s reason for calling. The more information the agent gathers here, the higher the chance of directing them to the agent best suited to their query.
Routing or assisting
Depending on the call type, the agent may either assist the caller or route the call to another agent or department.
- Assisting: Provide information, resolve resolving the inquiry, or take taking necessary action (e.g., placing an order).
- Routing: Choose to place callers in a queue or use call routing to transfer the call to the appropriate department or agent.
Active listening
Rather than simply sitting on the call, agents are encouraged to follow their customer service script while demonstrating attentiveness and understanding the caller’s needs. This helps the caller feel important and confident that their issue will be resolved quickly.
Problem solving
Once the caller is speaking with the correct agent to resolve their issues, they and the agent work toward a solution. This may include asking exploratory questions, gaining information about the root cause of the problem, and taking any troubleshooting steps.
Confirmation and next steps
Before the call ends, the agent confirms they have resolved the issue or they have given the customer everything they expected to gain from their call. Here, the agent summarizes the conversation, confirms the actions taken, and outlines any next steps, if applicable.
Ending the call
The call handling process concludes with the agent expressing thanks for the call and politely ending the conversation. For reporting purposes, the system retains the call duration, any logged outcomes, and other information.
How a Call Center Platform Can Help
When your business has a high volume of calls, it pays to manage your call handling techniques effectively. Hoping your phone system can handle the volume, distribution, and routing isn’t enough if you want to provide high-end customer service.
Instead, look for a call center platform that helps in the following ways.
A unified solution
Call center software or call handling software can streamline both inbound and outbound calls through a single platform. You can conduct call handling, management, and reporting in one user interface without having to switch between apps or different screens.
ACD
ACD routes calls based on preset rules (skills, availability, etc.) to the most suitable agent. Based on customer inputs like pressing 1 for sales or 2 for support, the call center solution directs calls to the most qualified agents.
IVR
IVR allows callers to self-serve by navigating menus to reach the appropriate department. As an automated technology that interacts with callers through voice or touch-tone input, it uses prerecorded messages, speech recognition, and dynamic menu options to guide users to desired information or services.
Call queuing and callback
To reduce hold times, place callers in a queue with estimated wait times or offer callback options. Wait times are calculated using real-time data combined with historical wait times for certain departments and query types.
During the call queue, you can offer a callback. Here, the routing system keeps the caller’s place in the queue and triggers an outbound call to them when it’s their turn in line.
Call center analytics and reporting
With every call you receive, your call center software learns about customer and agent behavior. By turning this data into graphs, trends, and visuals, you gain valuable insight into call volume, call duration, agent performance, and customer sentiment for process improvement.
Integration with CRM systems
By connecting your call handling interface and your back-end source of information, you give your agents access to customer history and information for a personalized caller experience. There’s no need for agents to hunt for past customer interactions, purchases, and documentation. Instead, CRM integration brings all relevant information to the fore at the beginning of a call.
Omnichannel communication
So, what happens when customers decide they prefer another channel of communication?
You can offer extra channels like:
- SMS
- Web chat
- Social media
- Messaging apps
This is called an omnichannel contact center.
Now, you can manage all inbound queries within the same contact center platform as your customer calls. The entire customer journey is connected, and you can serve all your customers regardless of how they want to reach you.
Make Every Call Count With Nextiva
Using a call center is the industry standard for businesses handling large volumes of calls. Instead of juggling, missing, and making guesses about calls, make a conscious effort to provide a more efficient customer experience, and watch your metrics soar.
Nextiva offers a voice-based call center and an omnichannel contact center that supports as many channels as you wish to offer customers.
Rather than missing calls and suffering the consequences, see how Nextiva can change your business for the better.
