Question

Inbound sales call from new customer

We believe subscribers should be able to call their ISP and quickly get help for any issue, regardless if the issue is related to sales, billing, or technical support. Just as an in-house admin team for an ISP is capable of handling every type of call, the outsourced telco call center should also be able to handle every type of call. Callers should never get the run-around and they should not be told to call back during regular business hours. TurnkeyISP staff are trained to live-answer and help with sales, billing, and technical support issues. This blog post explores how we doing it.

Prospective ISP and telco clients often ask how our call center, which specializes in ISP technical support, handles inbound sales calls. Most of our smaller ISP clients have an in-house admin team which handles all types of calls including sales, billing, and technical support calls. TurnkeyISP functions similar to an ISP's in-house admin team. TurnkeyISP trains our technical support specialists to handle sales and billing calls as well.

Here is a summary of how we train our staff to handle inbound sales calls:

1. Get complete caller contact info
2. Reference the ISP's website
3. Use the website signup form
4. Reference TurnkeyISP's client documentation
5. Calm confidence
6. Schedule a site survey
7. Send complete info to the ISP's local team

Here is the question we posed to our team:

You get a call from someone who wants to know more about an ISP's services. The caller wants to know if the services are available at their address and what service plans are available. This is for a newly onboarded WISP or telco account. You don't know the answers. What do you do?

Answers from TurnkeyISP customer service representatives

1. Get complete caller contact info

"It is given that in every call, no matter what the concern, we always take the basic info from the caller like Full name, phone number, email address, and service address." -John

TurnkeyISP customer service representatives are trained to always get the full name, email address, phone number, and service address of every caller. While this information is important for billing and technical support calls, it is especially important for sales calls. This isnformation is the minimum information necessary to determine serviceability, follow up with the customer, schedule a site survey or installation, and create a customer account in the billing system.

2. Reference the ISP's website

"I would search on the client's main webpage and try to find the relevant information." -Luis

Our clients typically have websites which outline their service plans and availability. Even if our staff are not familiar with the ISP's services and availability, we can still reference the client's website and answer questions for callers. If the caller doesn't have internet service, then calling the ISP may be the most convenient option for them to quickly get answers to their questions and determine if the ISP's services will be a good fit.

Also, some customers want to be sure that the ISP will answer the phone when they call and prior to choosing a service provider they may call around and use the responsiveness of the phone support as a selection criteria. We get many phone calls from prospective customers just testing out the ISP's phone support.

3. Use the website signup form

"If the client has an online form, I will fill out the form on behalf of the customer, if needed." -Alwen

TurnkeyISP trains employees to input the customer information into the webform. This keeps all the new customer signups going through a single channel and creates a single repository of signup information that can be easily referenced in the future.

4. Reference TurnkeyISP's client documentation

"In case I was not sure, the first thing I would do is go to the notes on the TurnkeyISP document for that client and also check the documentation. If there is no notes or documentation available, I would get the caller's info and reach out to the client via email, chat or phone to let them know about the call and ask them about the steps I need to follow next." -Vladimir

During the onboarding process TurnkeyISP creates internal documentation that our support representatives can reference. Our onboarding process includes common scenaros such as sales, billing, and technical support. Our staff will be able to reference our documentation to get more information about inbound sales call processes for all of our clients.

5. Calm confidence

"If I don't know any answers about the services or coverage I would be assertive and confident with the customer 'Most definitely, I can assist you with that,' to avoid losing control on the call." -Abraham

Exceptional customer service starts with confidence. It is one of the most important components of delivering great service to your customers and developing quality employees.

After all, customers want to know that the employee they are dealing with knows what one is doing and they get served in a professional manner. If they have a question, they need prompt and honest answers and if an employee does not have an answer, they want to be sure that the representative is committed to getting it.

The question presupposes that we don't know the answers to the caller's questions. However, that doesn't mean we are inexperienced and unable to help. We have already trained for this exact scenario and we have probably encountered a similar situation before. We can use on our training and our past experience with similar situations to be confident that we will be able to assist the customer even when we don't immediately know the answer.

6. Schedule a site survey

"Regarding your question about a call from someone who'd want to know more about ISP services - before receiving calls I'd read what the ISP tells on the website in order to be able to tell at least something.  But I guess that our main role is to get the customer's address, contact information and send them to the ISP's staff, because availability and exact prices often might be known only after a survey." -Igor

7. Comminicate with the ISP client

"I would ask my coworkers at TurnkeyISP and, if we have the ISP client's contact information, then I will also reach out to them by phone, email, or group chat for answers. I will then add the answers to the client documentation." -Edgar

TurnkeyISP staff are trained to work the same way your in-house team works: We will use our coworkers as resources and also reach out to the in-house team if they are available. When we find answers to common questions then we document those answers for future reference.

8. Send complete info to the ISP's local team

"If a customer is calling asking for service in his area, depending on the client, I would create an account for the cx (customer), gather his or her information, address, phone, full name, email and add the account to create a lead. I would then escalate to have the sales team reach out. In the case of one ISP we can schedule a site survey visit to make sure that services are available. They will continue from there." -Alexis

Summary: Team Lead Answer

"Get customer contact info: Full name, physical address, best callback phone number and email address. Check if there is any documentation from the client about handling these types of inquiries. Follow documentation. If not, check the website and see if they have a signup form or a page that shows their plans. You can have the customer look at that page and check if there is a plan to their liking. You can also offer a callback because you will double check some information regarding their inquiry. Reach out to the client on what needs to be done for this call and ask if the plans on the website are still accurate (if there was a page that had up-to-date info) and include the contact details of the customer . Follow whatever instructions the client gives you about the inquiry." -Cherrie