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Voicebots in debt collection: From automation to personalization
Voicebots in debt collection: From automation to personalization 958 539 Emilie Coene

Debt collection poses a constant challenge for businesses, requiring a delicate balance between maintaining financial health and preserving positive customer relationships. However, this process is often perceived as time-consuming, complex, and sometimes delicate on a relational level. This is where technologies like voicebots come into play, offering a modern and efficient solution to automate and simplify the processes of managing overdue payments.


Voicebots: A strategic asset

Debt collection, traditionally associated with complex and time-consuming processes, is undergoing a significant transformation with the advent of voicebots. These voice assistants leverage artificial intelligence, text-to-speech solutions, and speech-to-text recognition to bring a new dimension to overdue payment management, providing increased efficiency while maintaining a crucial balance with the human aspect.


Enhanced efficiency through advanced features

Our debt collection voicebots come equipped with features to automate and simplify processes:

Call initiation and reception:

Voicebots not only initiate calls but are also capable of answering them, providing greater versatility in interactions;

Debtor authentication:

Voicebots integrate advanced authentication technologies to ensure the security and confidentiality of exchanges;

Customized Scripts:

Each interaction is based on customized scripts, allowing the dialogue to be adapted based on the specific situation of each debtor;

Payment reminder automation:

Voicebots can systematically send payment reminders and follow-ups at defined intervals, ensuring a consistent and comprehensive approach. This automated follow-up maximizes collection chances, reduces the risk of defaults, and helps lower operational costs;

Gathering debtors' intentions:

Voicebots can gather debtor intentions, providing valuable information to guide the debt collection process;

Identification of critical moments:

Voicebots are designed to identify moments where human intervention is necessary, allowing team members to intervene at the opportune time;

Statistics and Recordings:

Through a secure platform, you have access to key statistics and detailed recordings for in-depth analysis and strategic adjustments;

Interconnectable Interface:

Seamless integration with financial management and CRM systems, ensuring effective collection of debt-related data.


The harmony between technology and human strategy

Despite the undeniable advantages of voicebots, the human element remains relevant, especially in the more complex stages of the debt collection process. Situations requiring a more personalized approach, a nuanced understanding of the context, and delicate negotiation are best handled by experienced professionals.

The key to success lies in finding the balance between the automation provided by voicebots and human intervention where it truly adds value. The judicious use of this technology optimizes the debt collection process, freeing up time for employees to focus on more strategic and relational aspects.


Stefania, our Project Manager, tells you all about it:

In conclusion, integrating a voicebot into the debt collection process can enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and provide a smoother customer experience. However, it is crucial to strike the right balance between automation and human interactions to ensure that customers are properly supported while optimizing debt collection operations. With the right strategy in place, voice robots can become a valuable asset for any business looking to improve its debt collection practices.

At iKanbi, we go beyond the standard offering by providing personalized support, ranging from custom voicebot development to deploying advisors specialized in debt collection. We are here to support your business at every step of the process, ensuring effective financial management and optimal customer relations.

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Outsourcing your customer service to a contact centre
Outsourcing your customer service to a contact centre 1920 1536 Emilie Coene

Whatever your company’s size, sector or customer service maturity, managing interactions with your customers and prospective customers can often be difficult, costly and time-consuming. That’s why many companies outsource the management of their customer service to a call centre, benefiting from a range of advantages as a result.


Solutions to meet your needs

iKanbi Solutions

Boasting significant experience, a call centre can offer you  bespoke solutions in line with your customer service maturity level, from providing support and advice when it comes to implementing or optimising your processes to the partial or total outsourcing of your company’s customer service.

Improving your customer experience

Call centres specialise in fast, efficient and multi-channel management of customer interactions in a wide range of sectors. Consequently, they have significant expertise and experience and can provide efficient and high-quality customer service.

Customer Advisors are specialists who are trained in handling different types of requests, helping to resolve customers’ issues and providing a high-quality customer experience. By outsourcing its customer service, a company can benefit from the expertise and skills of these Customer Advisors, which will lead to high levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty and an improved customer experience.


Availability and flexibility

Many contact centres can provide services outside your opening hours. Some even offer services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for a continuous customer service experience. This is particularly important for companies with customers in different time zones or who need support outside traditional working hours.

In addition, call centres can provide a flexible service by adapting to demand in terms of interaction volumes and workflows. This flexibility ensures that your customers are served quickly and efficiently, even during periods of increased activity or seasonal changes.

Cost optimisation

Outsourcing your customer service certainly helps to reduce the costs of in-house management. After all, you won’t need to invest in the recruitment, training, technology and infrastructure required to provide in-house customer service.

In addition to reducing your costs, a contact centre can help you to implement processes to obtain a better return on your investment: boosting customer loyalty, generating additional income, reducing churn, increasing the average basket, etc.


Multi-channel access

By opting for a multi-channel approach, a company can respond to its customers’ preferences and communication needs and provide a more customised, flexible and convenient customer experience. Of course, the chosen channels must be appropriate and be made available at the right time during the customer journey.

Inevitably, this multi-channel approach leads to greater complexity in customer service management. A contact centre can provide centralised management for all communication channels, including telephone, email, chat, social media and instant messaging. This means that an interaction which begins on one channel can be easily transferred to another channel, if necessary, while safeguarding the conversation’s history and continuity.

Going back to basics to focus on your core business

Outsourcing your customer service to a call centre allows you to focus more on your core business. You can devote more time and resources to developing your products and/or services, sales strategy, innovation, etc.

In short, any public or private company or organisation of any size can work with a contact centre to provide high-quality multi-channel customer service, manage customer interactions effectively and improve the customer experience. Choosing to outsource your customer service means benefiting from specialist customer relations expertise and resources while being able to focus on the essentials: your company’s core business.

Enhance your Customer Experience

peaks in customer service activities
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How to effectively manage peaks in customer service activities ?
How to effectively manage peaks in customer service activities ? 1640 924 Emilie Coene

Customer service plays a crucial role in a company’s success. It is the preferred point of contact between the company and its customers, and the quality of this service can have a direct impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. However, it often happens that companies are confronted with  both foreseeable and unforeseeable peaks in activity that strain their ability to effectively respond to customer demands. In this article, we are going to examine the sources of these  interactions peaks , the consequences of poorly managed peaks, and finally, some potential solutions for dealing with them.

The main causes of activity peaks in customer service

Regardless of business sector, at one time or another, every company is faced with interaction volume variabilities. The causes of these increases and decreases in activity can mostly be explained by seasonality, as well as by factors both inside and outside the company:

causes of activity peaks in customer service

Adverse consequences for customer services and the company:

Failing to effectively manage peaks in activity within your customer service department will have negative impacts on your customers and their satisfaction levels, and your staff, as well as on your company’s brand image:

  • Customer dissatisfaction: Spikes in calls, tickets or emails can lead to significant degradation in handling times and wait times as well as in the quality of the responses given, which causes customer dissatisfaction as they feel neglected or poorly dealt with. With the risk that the customer leaves for the competition.
  • Deterioration of the brand’s image: A bad experience with customer service is one of the main reasons why customer’s leave a brand, and a large number of them share their experiences on social networks or with their friends and family. As with the other channels, comments on social media must receive quick responses due to the risk of damaging the company’s reputation and discouraging potential new customers.
  • Staff turnover and absenteeism: Poorly anticipating peaks in activity will disorganise the structure of your customer service and undeniably lead to a team that is under pressure, understaffed and unable to absorb the workload in the proper conditions. Absenteeism and staff turnover will increase.
  • Increased costs: To deal with the increase in absenteeism and staff turnover, extra expenses will be involved to cover the costs of recruitment and training, administrative costs, software licensing fees, etc.

Key steps to better managing peaks in customer service activities

It is important to always bear in mind the impacts that inadequate preparation for peaks in activity can have within your customer service department. The keys to avoiding them are anticipation as well as communication, based on 6 tips that cannot be overlooked:

  1. Leverage the data from previous years: We can never repeat it enough, but reports are indispensable. These will allow you to analyse interaction records across all communication channels by period, by event, and so on… These analyses will allow you to highlight the seasonality of your activities and create a forecast.
  2. Equip yourself with a predictability tool: Based on interaction records, a forecasting tool will enable you to arrange the necessary resources according to volumes, schedules and skill sets. This type of tool is vital for good management of your customer service as it enables you to interpret the realities internal and external to the company and their impacts on customer service.
  3. Call upon a contact centre (BPO or outsourcer): Entrusting your customer services either in part or in full to an external service provider will bring you many advantages: cost savings, advice and expertise, etc. A contact centre will be able to assist you in managing peaks in activity by helping you to create forecasts and promptly increase resources.
    Discover all the advantages of outsourcing your customer services by reading our article: “Outsourcing your customer service to a Contact Center “
  4. Support your customers in becoming more autonomous: Digital is a precious ally during busy periods as it allows you to implement self-service tools in your customer service, which reduces the number of incoming requests along with wait times. You have to identify the most simple tasks with the least added value that don’t require intervention from a Customer Adviser. These tasks could be handled by an FAQ, a chatbot, a voicebot, and so on…
  5. Offer your teams proximity coaching: The training and support given to your Customer Advisers are vital to maintaining the motivation and quality of your teams when the workload is more substantial.
  6. Opt for transparent communication: Inform customers of wait times or any potential technical issues. Also ensure that your Customer Advisers adapt their communications to apologise for the wait, for example. More communication will help reduce frustrations and appease dissatisfied customers.

In conclusion, effective management of peaks in customer service activities is essential to ensuring customer satisfaction, maintaining good service quality, preserving the company’s reputation and optimising costs. By planning for and anticipating these peaks, using appropriate technological solutions and providing proximity support to their teams, companies can offer exceptional customer experience, even during busier periods.

Need help managing your customer interactions? Contact us
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Using a call centre to make sales appointments
Using a call centre to make sales appointments 1920 944 Emilie Coene

Although telephone prospecting is facing new challenges in an increasingly digital world, it still plays an important role and outsourcing it to an experienced call centre can be an effective strategy to boost your sales team’s appointment-making.

Telephone prospecting: a tool for differentiation

Digital prospecting offers a number of advantages, including automation, wider reach and potentially lower costs. However, it will never offer the same flexibility and potential for personalisation as telephone prospecting.

Through telephone prospecting, you can stand out from your competitors by:

  • Adopting a personalised approach: with telephone prospecting, you can establish direct, personalised contact with your prospective customers. You can adapt your approach to the specific needs of each prospective customer, ask relevant questions and offer tailor-made solutions.

89% of customer relationship managers say that personalisation is a key factor in competitive differentiation.

  • Creating a sense of trust: telephone prospecting allows you to establish a closer relationship with prospective customers. Frequent interaction, provided that these calls are timely and respectful, will help to create an understanding of prospective customers’ specific needs, build trust in your brand and develop long-lasting relationships.
  • Eliciting an instant response: telephone prospecting provides an instant response about prospective customers’ interest. This can be particularly useful for products or services which require a quick decision or for prospective customers who prefer direct communication rather than waiting for a response by email or chat.
  • Generating qualified leads: telephone prospecting is an effective way of qualifying and updating a database or CRM; it can also be used to identify the most interested prospective customers and schedule an appointment. What’s more, these telephone conversations can provide key information for your sales departments, including consumer needs, interests, etc.

Outsourcing appointment booking

Organising and managing a team of sales representatives or telemarketers is a time-consuming task that requires hands-on management and a wide range of tools including telecommunications, a CRM, scripts and reporting. That’s why many companies of all sizes choose to outsource sales appointment campaigns to a call centre.

A call centre can help you to optimise your sales processes and improve your conversion rate:

  • Save time and resources: by outsourcing your sales appointment campaigns, you can free up your sales teams to concentrate on tasks with more added value. In this way, you can optimise the use of your resources and spend more time on sales and signing contracts; You won’t need to manage recruitment or deal with any absences;
  • Greater flexibility and scalability: call centres are designed to be flexible and scalable to meet your needs. As such, you can adjust the number of appointments you wish to make and benefit from higher call-handling capacity in response to your growth or seasonal changes.
  • Expertise in communication and sales: Sales Advisors who work in call centres are trained and specialise in sales appointment campaigns. They’re trained to communicate effectively with prospective customers, identify sales opportunities and convince prospective customers. Their expertise in communication and sales can increase your chances of successfully generating qualified appointments.
  • Compliance with rules and regulations: When organising a telephone prospecting campaign, you must be aware of all the regulations governing telephone prospecting, such as the GDPR, the DNCM (Do Not Call Me) and so on. Call centres have expert knowledge of these regulations and can help you to develop a compliant and targeted telephone prospecting policy;
  • Personalised monitoring and reporting: Your call centre partner will provide detailed reports on calls made, appointments made, results obtained, etc. This data enables you to monitor performance, analyse trends and adapt your appointment-making strategy.
  • Access to IT tools and developers: Call centres have access to a wide range of technological tools which are required to manage sales appointments effectively: VOIP telephony, call recording and analysis, automatic call dialling, etc. They can also create links between your CRM and their tools to simplify data exchange.

Whether or not you choose to outsource, telephone prospecting is and will always be a way to differentiate your prospecting efforts. However, it must be carried out in a respectful and targeted way, complying with applicable regulations. You also need to train your teams, set clear objectives and provide the necessary resources.

Contact us for your prospection

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