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Simple to set up. Easy to use. Powerful integrations.
Get free accessIn the transportation industry, communication is vital, and a transportation call center keeps all the necessary parties well-connected. The transportation industry never sleeps — It’s common for transportation companies to have people working 24/7, every day of the year. This ensures other businesses get the materials and products they need to operate effectively or get people where they need to go.
Efficiency and great customer service are the difference makers between making money and losing money in the transportation industry.
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How Does a Call Center Work?
A transportation call center is a team of people that receives inbound calls or makes outbound calls to manage logistics or other administrative tasks. It’s common for transportation businesses to set up call centers to manage communication between the company and other parties to improve customer service.
For example, here are some of the activities that a transportation call center can help with:
Logistics
Help desk support and problem solving
Billing and payment support
Collections
Sales support
Order management support
Call center agents manage calls and keep track of the details and interactions on their accounts. Call center software is highly beneficial in transportation because it’s a fast-paced industry where lightning-fast communication is the norm. With call center software, transportation businesses can keep their teams organized and interact with customers all over the world in real-time.
Technology brings many new tools to the transportation industry to keep the flow of supply and demand moving efficiently. As the transportation industry has evolved, the dynamics of transportation logistics have changed dramatically, and customer expectations are higher than ever.
Agents working in a transportation call center have to be able to think on their feet, be flexible, and act fast to meet customer’s needs and fulfill the company’s goals and objectives.
It’s vital for call center agents to stay strongly connected with others so they can provide timely updates and be responsive to transportation providers, often at all times of the day or night. A multi-channel call center assists transportation professionals to keep all the appropriate parties informed and engaged.
Various software solutions, along with a cloud-based phone system, join together to facilitate seamless interactions between your employees and the people they talk to every day. Transportation call center software provides consistency and transparency for your customers. Uniform communication processes go a long way toward improving customer satisfaction.
Over time, call center agents become very proficient in using software tools to access data from various sources to hold informed conversations with important clients and build trust in their brand.
The Benefits of a Call Center for a Transportation Business
Regardless of whether you’re transporting products or travelers, your business is a hub of activity. In every transportation company, call center agents need information in real-time for a variety of different roles including some of the following:
Sales – Time management is essential for salespeople in the transportation industry. A 2017 Transportation Marketing & Sales Association study showed inside sales contributed to 41% of their sales revenue. A CRM software program and other sales software solutions streamline sales workflows significantly. The study also showed that 60% of transportation businesses used CRM programs and about 25% of the companies said they plan to implement a CRM system over the next year.
Support – Call center agents are the middle people that keep the information flowing between transportation providers and other companies. When a transportation provider is scheduled for a drop-off or a pickup and something goes wrong, they need information in a timely manner to figure out their next move. A call center agent is the conduit that relays information to the transportation provider, so they know whether they have to wait or be rescheduled.
Collections – Transportation companies manage a massive number of pickups and drop-offs every day. That means invoices are always building, and they need to stay on top of collections. Transportation call centers keep revenue flowing.
Schedule pickups – An inbound transportation call center is a valuable service for scheduling pickups. Inbound call center agents answer customer questions about whether their services are available at a certain time or location and how much they cost. When customers schedule service, the call center agent can schedule a pickup time and location that works for the customer right while they’re on the line, eliminating problems with misinformation.
Cancellations – One of the costliest problems in the transportation industry is last-minute cancellations where information doesn’t get to the transportation provider in time. Poor communication wastes fuel. More importantly, the lack of communication costs transportation providers valuable time. A transportation call center facilitates swift communication between parties, so transportation providers get the right information at the earliest opportunity.
Breakdowns and equipment errors – Drivers or other transportation providers get frustrated when vehicles break down. Your transportation call center gets help to vehicle operators quickly and helps you reschedule pickups or delivery in a timely manner.
Overall, a transportation call center allows your company to be available any time of day or night when your customers need your services.
Important Call Center Software Features for Transportation Businesses
Call center software gives transportation businesses a huge advantage over their competitors. The right call center software lets call center agents pull up a variety of data on their screens and use it to communicate with multiple parties at the same time. A cloud-based phone system and software integrations form the basis for the most efficient tools to get the job done.
Take a look at some of the cloud-based phone system features that are highly useful in the transportation industry:
Call routing – Customizes call distribution and ring rules so calls are answered by the person that can help them best.
Interactive voice response (IVR) – Allows you to set up a smart voice directory, so callers are guided to the person they need on the first try.
Voicemail – Record a script so callers know what to do when you’re away. It also tells you that a customer called.
Personalized 3-digit extension – Sends regular customers directly to the extension of the person they trust and have a comfort level with.
Call center analytics – Keep track of your call center’s performance including wait times, missed calls, and call volume.
Warm transfer – Call center agents have an opportunity to speak briefly with another employee on the line before transferring the call.
Call commenting and assignment – Streamlines workflows by allowing call center agents to assign a call to another team member and leave a comment for them. The call automatically pops up on the teammate’s activity list, which improves your workflow.
Call queue – Set up your customers in a queue so their calls are answered in the order they were received.
Parallel calls – Puts a call on hold, allowing a call agent to simultaneously call another person. This is a valuable feature that eliminates waiting time for transportation providers.
Call recording – Call recordings and transcriptions give managers an opportunity to better understand how call agents handle calls, identify problems, and it assists in training call agents.
One of the greatest advantages of cloud-based phone systems is that they work in tandem with other business software solutions for a single source of data. Take a look at how these software solutions can benefit your transportation call center:
Sales automation
Generate leads, Log calls, and track activity.
CRM
Connects your-cloud based phone system with your CRM system.
Helpdesk
Connects your cloud-based phone system with your helpdesk software.
HR & recruiting
Connects your phone system with software for recruiting and hiring transportation providers.
Payments & billing
Allows your contact center agents to send invoices and collect payments confidentially and securely.
Improving the Customer Experience
Customer satisfaction is especially important in the transportation industry where there is an immense amount of competition.
It seems simple enough to schedule pickup and delivery. However, to give scope to the issue, consider the amount of pressure that businesses are under to process and deliver orders quickly due to their customer’s demands and expectations. Retail businesses rely on logistics within the transportation industry to help them to fulfill their promises of fast delivery to their loyal customers. In essence, transportation businesses have to keep their customers satisfied so their customers can deliver a good customer experience on their end. A breakdown anywhere in the process hurts everyone involved.
The right software solutions for transportation call centers join phone system features with business software solutions. This is an important relationship because transportation companies need the benefit of automation and online tracking to run their businesses well. That said, transportation companies rely heavily on voice calls and customer interactions to keep their operations running efficiently. The connection between the human voice and software integrations facilitates timely pickups and drop-offs and keeps everyone continually in the loop.
No one likes delays or unexpected changes. If problems arise, as they often do in the transportation industry, software solutions help keep everyone informed and call center agents can access the information they need to keep things flowing smoothly. By giving good explanations about the progress of shipments, transportation providers can better keep their customers satisfied. Good information helps both parties make informed decisions when they’re stuck in a tight spot.
Good customer relationships will keep your repeat customers coming back again and again. Customer satisfaction equates to customer success. In addition to helping your business grow and thrive, great customer experiences will inspire brand loyalty and prevent negative online reviews.
Transportation call center software gives you the ability to deliver a personalized customer experience while being agile and responsive to customers’ needs every step of the way.
How Call Center Software Improves Customer Satisfaction
Recent research by Statista tells us that 61% of customers still prefer phone communication. Automation and digital tools certainly have their place to create efficiency in the transportation industry, but good communication also requires regular phone contact. Loyal customers generally prefer to deal with the same people by telephone day in, and day out. A cloud phone system greatly enhances voice interactions.
Aircall’s cloud-based phone system gives your transportation call center agents immediate data in real-time to resolve problems as quickly as possible because it gives them all the details they need, right on the screen in front of them. With multi-channel capability, call center agents can be on the phone with a customer and text information to a driver or other transportation provider at the same time. There’s no lag in communication. Its efficiency at its finest!
Aircall’s call center analytics gives your call center managers live insight into call center activity so they can scale call agents according to the call volume.
Self-service options like IVR and other phone system features like call routing quickly get calls to people that can help customers fast.
As you seek to improve your customer service operation, you’ll be providing a great customer experience for your loyal customers. Aircall’s phone system works with automated survey software so that you can get timely feedback from your customers, and also, gauge their level of satisfaction. If your ratings and feedback aren’t what you expect, it gives you a chance to make corrections before you lose valuable business.
Aircall, along with the software solutions in the Aircall App Marketplace, supply your transportation call center with everything it needs to keep your customers happy which is paramount to the health of your business.
Published on November 20, 2020.
