From email marketing to text messages and personal referrals, small businesses are making use of every available channel to source new business and interact with customers and prospects. But juggling a variety of traditional communications and new media channels is creating enormous challenges for small businesses.
This is especially true when it comes to documenting and tracking customer conversations, often hindering efficient and effective customer service.
CallRail’s newest research study Making the dream work with team work surveyed 601 small-to-medium sized businesses across a variety of industries. Our goals were to identify the communications tools and technologies used by small businesses and to identify the challenges they face when trying to enhance the customer experience while also growing profits.
Top 3 takeaways
This post provides a quick overview of the three key findings from the survey. To get the full picture — and compare the results with your own organization’s approach to communications. Get the complete report now.
#1. Small business relies on both modern and traditional technology to communicate with customers
Customer queries
Small businesses enable customers to reach them via traditional communications channels such as email (77%), phone (72%), and text (56%). Many also offer newer channels as options:
- 39% Live chat
- 32% Video calls
- 27% Social media messaging
Fielding calls
Businesses mainly use automated answering services (41%) and assistants or receptionists (41%) to field inbound phone calls. Less common options include:
- 8% After-hours number
- 7% Direct to voicemail
- 3% Routed to a staff member
Sourcing new business
Small businesses use a wide variety of communications tools and technologies to attract prospective clients and gather leads. These include both online and offline sources:
- 46% Search engines
- 44% Organic social media
- 43% Direct referral or former clients
- 38% Word of mouth/name recognition
- 36% Professional directory
- 34% Online review sites (like Yelp)
- 34% TV advertisements
Learn more in the full report on how small and midsize business teams handle customer communications.
#2. Most small and midsize businesses want better customer communication tools
As the number of marketing channels expands — and with it the number of ways customers can communicate with businesses — many small businesses find themselves struggling to keep track of it all.
- 95% of business leaders want to improve their customer communications tools
- 89% believe existing tools are difficult to integrate
- 87% often or sometimes miss prospect or customer calls
If communication channels aren’t integrated, organizations lack a centralized registry of customer interactions. As a result, employees lack the contextual information they need to deal efficiently and effectively with customer calls and messages.
What are the consequences of disconnected tools?
When questioned about the business ramifications of their current communications tools, respondents had this to say:
- 91% say valuable call time is wasted trying to understand why a prospect is calling
- 95% say customers often receive the same information in separate conversations
- 87% say calls are often or sometimes put on hold while employees search for caller information
- 90% have received negative feedback as a result of long hold times
- 89% report that misalignment around customer communications is an issue
Learn more in the full report.
#3. Poor communication is costing businesses
With so many separate communication tools in use at the same time, customer service staff answering or returning calls have no way of knowing where a particular call is coming from or what drove a customer to reach out. Often, the only option is to ask the caller for this information. This is time consuming — and frankly, unprofessional. It’s also unlikely to be a conversation a customer wants to have.
In addition to unwanted conversations, communication issues cause small businesses to waste time and miss out on revenue.
Professionals report losing:
- 16 hours per week tracking down information
- $161,594 in annual revenue as a result of missed calls
- $149,035 a year due to slow response times
#4 Better technology is increasingly necessary to run a profitable business
Small and midsize businesses want better technologies and features. Still, most businesses know that despite hesitations, they need to make a bigger investment in improving their communication tools.
- 78% of small businesses wish the tools they needed were more consolidated
- 74% of small businesses wish the tools they needed were aimed at smaller businesses rather than enterprise-level companies
Disconnected tools create disconnected communications
Many small businesses acknowledge that communications are an issue. Yet, fewer than half use technology to track interactions with customers and prospects. To get the full picture, learn about potential solutions, and see how your organization stacks up, download the complete report now.