M5 Networks Releases Top 10 Tips to Ensure Phone Call Quality in a Challenging Business Environment

NEW YORK, July 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- M5 Networks (www.m5.net), the market leader in business phone systems, today announced their top ten tips for ensuring quality phone calls between company representatives and their contacts to guide businesses to more successful sales in a challenging marketplace.  

"It would be nice if the only metric that mattered in selling over the telephone was the number of calls," said Dan Hoffman, CEO of M5 Networks.  "We could double our calls and double our sales, but alas, this is not the case. Call quality matters. Today, with the right technology and processes in place, an objective measurement of call quality can also be achieved."

There are technologies available today that connect enterprise telephone systems and CRM systems that can generate an accurate record and gauge the quality of a call.  And while the ideal sales call will vary from business to business, there are a few universal truths. Typically, quality calls occur between a company representative and someone who is identified as a contact in your database. Knowing who your representatives are speaking to can give you insight into what type of sales activity is taking place.

Additional quality data that is available to businesses today include who the calls are to, who are existing or new leads, did they connect or leave a voicemail, are they receiving inbound calls, and perhaps most importantly, who is doing what calling and when. For example, you may want your sales people targeting new prospects during the first of the month, but focusing mainly on activities associated with open opportunities toward the end. Only a well designed CRM implementation with telephone integration can give you this depth of information.

"Generally sales staff who use their phone time the best are the ones who exceed quota, so businesses shouldn't be afraid to share call data with the team," added Hoffman. "Sales teams often see an immediate bump in productivity, and bump in sales. No one ever wants to be at the bottom of the list."

Once you have easy "on demand" access to the answers to these questions, you will have an objective way of measuring call quality. It is important to understand the quality metrics of each representative, department and team. Keep in mind the old adage, "That which gets measured improves." By simply understanding and beginning to track call quality, you should begin to see a trend in the right direction.  Here are the top ten tips to help achieve higher quality calls and results:

1. Hanging up before voice mail picks up doesn't count as a phone call
2. A quality call must be at least two minutes
3. Everyone makes personal calls from work, so make sure you can separate these from the total call activity
4. How many calls does it take to set an appointment? If your CRM and phone system calculate this metric, you'll get to know when to keep going and when to give up.
5. The metrics for inside sales are very different from account executives, so make sure you are measuring the right thing for the right team
6. Make sure your call activity tracks to your immediate and long term goals
7. Balance quantity and quality - find your sweet spot
8. Transparency is good. Share the data with the team and drive healthy competition
9. A missed call could be a missed sale. Make sure you have contingencies in place to be responsive to voice mail like voice mail to email with transcription
10. The best policy is, "If it isn't in the CRM, it didn't happen"

About M5 Networks

M5 Networks, the market leader in business phone systems, is redefining what a business phone system can do by offering a wide range of solutions for all types of businesses and needs.  From managing a sales force to a call center, M5 Networks' client-focused, cloud-based solutions allow businesses to work the way they want to, while connecting them to their customers and integrating their business-critical applications.  Headquartered in New York City, industry-award winning M5 Networks pioneered hosted VoIP in 2000 and today provides more than 1,800 companies with enterprise-class phone systems.  For more information, please visit www.m5.net.  

Contact:

Matthew Caldecutt / Courtney Greenberg
DKC Public Relations, Marketing & Government Affairs
212/685-4300
[email protected] / [email protected]

SOURCE M5 Networks