In recent years, the hotline has become a widespread form of informing the public about goods and services. It is actively used by large manufacturing companies, and retail chains, and representatives of medium-sized businesses. Such events are often organized by state institutions and federal and regional authorities in order to clarify to citizens an urgent issue. The essence of the “hot line” does not depend on the status of its initiator and boils down to the following: a person asks a question by telephone and immediately receives a competent answer.
You will need
- - premises;
- - a separate telephone number or telephone numbers;
- - staff.
Instruction manual
1
Determine how long your organization’s hotline works. It can be permanent, periodic or single, around the clock or with a fixed time for receiving calls. Duration directly depends on the goals that you want to achieve. For example, an Internet service provider is interested in providing its customers with constant round-the-clock telephone support. At the university, it is advisable to arrange a “hot line” during the entrance exams and only in the daytime.
2
Choose a method of receiving calls: on your own or through employees of specialized call centers. In the latter case, you will save yourself from many technical problems. However, its own "hot line" reduces the time to eliminate deficiencies in the work. Calls are received by your employees who are knowledgeable about production nuances and can quickly contact the right specialists to clarify disputed issues. In addition, starting with any option, over time you will be able to change the mechanism of the "hot line" to a more convenient one.
3
Having decided to use only internal resources, take care of allocating separate telephone numbers for the hotline for the entire duration of its operation. Visit several landline and cellular service providers in your area. Find out the following points: the cost of one minute of conversation, the availability of a subscription fee, the ability to connect a multi-channel number, the availability of easily remembered numbers, the discount rate for long-term cooperation, the conditions for early termination of the contract, a zone of reliable signal reception for mobile operators, etc. Conclude a contract with the most suitable company.
4
Allocate a separate room for the employees of the hotline. Equip the room with comfortable office furniture and computer equipment. Provide operators with Internet access, provide a separate email address. This will increase the efficiency of interaction between operators and other specialists of the company. If possible, organize electronic registration of incoming calls. If you do not have a special computer program, you can keep records on the basis of any spreadsheet editor, for example, Excel.
5
Train the hotline staff. Choose competent, proactive professionals with a good reaction and analytical mindset. Consider benevolence and stress resistance as an added plus. Your employees have to communicate with different people, quickly resolve complex, possibly even conflict, situations. Think over the work schedule of each, clearly define the start and end times, lunch break. Be sure to include a few additional 10-15-minute breaks during which employees can leave the office and, as they say, "take a breath".
6
Make recommendations for phone calls. The operator should be the first to greet the caller, clearly pronounce the name of the organization and his name or surname. Then ask, for example, "How can I help you?" and listen carefully to the person, without interrupting him and asking clarifying questions. Consider a unified wording for ending the conversation.
7
Provide each operator with a list of telephones and other contacts of employees of the organization and a list of issues that are within their competence. Try to predict the most pressing topics that may be encountered by employees of the hotline, analyze them in advance and prepare several answers.
eight
Advertise your hotline. Place ads in newspapers, magazines, on radio and television. Do not forget about word of mouth, which is not inferior in effectiveness to traditional media: tell your friends, buddies, clients about your plans, ask them to pass on the information to their friends. Print the hotline phone number on the packaging of your products or on special leaflets that can be stuck on bulletin boards or distributed on the street.
9
Analyze the work of the "hot line" a week after its opening. By this time, you will have accumulated enough material to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the event.
