What is Call Blending?
On paper it sounds great: if you’re operating a call centre, there are going to be quiet times when your staff are sitting around waiting for calls to come in. Why not get them to do some outbound calls during these times? From the accountant’s point of view this maximises the investment in the personnel and the technology. It also means you don’t need to have two teams of people, one making outbound calls, one taking inbound calls. From the IT manager’s point of view, the technology is available to allow the same operator to switch between inbound and outbound calls, so why not? Yet although call blending sounds great in theory, it doesn’t work in reality, for a number of reasons. Different skills The quickest way to ruin a good outbound cold caller is to give them inbound to do. This is because the skills involved in both types of call are hugely different. People making outbound calls to prospects or customers need to be proactive. They need to control the call right from the start,
Call blending is a way of life in many businesses and other organizations that rely heavily on audio communications to accomplish the goals that are in place for the operation. Here are the basics of call blending, including some ideas on when the technology can be a great asset to a business or other type of organization. In its simplest form, call blending is the capability to make outbound calls while also being able to receive inbound calls, all in one easy technologically created system. While older systems in the past required that a user enter a code to activate availability to perform one function or the other, it was not possible to be available for both functions simultaneously. After making telephone outbound calls, it was necessary to log out of that function and enter a separate code to indicate the station could now receive inbound calls. This process made it possible for staff to be underutilized, as it would be very easy for someone to forget to log back in. This scenar
“Call Blending is the ability of agents to simultaneously make outbound calls and receive inbound calls on one system – without doing anything such as logging on or off the system. The mechanics are like this: when inbound volume is low, agents are busy placing outbound calls to customers; as volume increases, the system transfers the agents to the inbound work team; then, as volume decreases, it moves them back to the outbound calling job. The system does the work, the agent does the talking, productivity increases and so do customer service levels.” To obtain technical information about the DSC call blending feature, please visit our online IVR software manual and user guide. Contact DSC to learn more about our call center phone systems including our call blending solutions. For a complete list of phone system features, please visit our phone features web page.
