Students know the meaning of frustrating. Just thinking about waiting in what seems like never-ending lines or waiting on the phone line for far too long makes one cringe. Knowing that school representatives, like yourself, are responsible for answering the questions that all these students in these endless lines may have is rather impressive. How you do it, who knows. For that, you deserve a high-five (or two).
You have probably noticed that most banks, corporate stores, and many industries are now using an automated receptionist, an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, to transfer you to whichever department you may need to speak to. Some people like it and some people don’t.
As it is becoming an increasingly popular tool, people are worried that we are contributing to making human interaction obsolete. But, with the world being in a constant state of busy, is it really a harmful move forward?
If you take a moment to absorb your surroundings, you will notice that we are in a constant state of virtually connecting with one another. Think about it, with the ability to create a campaign that broadcasts messages instantly to hundreds or thousand of people at once, it is a step into progress. Services like Voice Broadcast, SMS Texting, Hosted IVR, and Cloud Call Center (CCC) quickly connect people to masses during time sensitive periods. So, you college representatives who are swamped with paperwork and questions, can use all these services to streamline efficiency and ease up on the Advil.
On cloud nine
To give you an idea of how colleges can scrape off minutes and confusion with CallFire, consider these uses:
- Instead of students waiting on hold for an hour to ask a simple question, a student can call into the school, be greeted by an auto attendant, input their student ID, and go through a Press-1 menu to be directed to a representative. Or, they can be given personal information via an automated attendant through a hosted IVR
- If an emergency arises, you can use Voice Broadcast and SMS Texting to notify students and their emergency contacts instantly
- f the outcome of the emergency requires donations, you can solicit donations through a Hosted IVR with the option to pay through the phone
- You can use either Voice Broadcast or SMS Texting to send a mass message to students who were accepted to the school. Or, if you want to keep it personal, you can use CCC to power dial all the accepted students
- You can also use CCC to contact prospective students that are being offered a scholarship
