Telecom Services - Service numbers and cross-border success

Cross-border e-commerce is booming business. More and more companies cross borders and sell their products or services in several countries. Customer service accessibility is easy to arrange with digital channels. However, almost 60% of customers and prospects still grab the telephone when it comes to urgent or complicated questions. And they prefer to use local numbers instead of foreign ones. So, don't forget those service numbers when your e-commerce is crossing borders. We’ve listed several reasons why you should use local service numbers and 5 things you need to keep in mind when you start doing so.

Trust

As a new player in a foreign market, it’s important to build trust. If potential customers trust your brand, they’re more likely to buy from you. Having a local service number on your website helps to gain this trust.

According to?this article?from Accenture, almost 60% of customers ranked call support as their favorite channel for flexible communication, wanting an opportunity to ask, explain, reason, or negotiate with customer service. At these moments, people don’t want to type their story in a chat and wait for an answer but call for direct 1-1 contact. And they do not want to call abroad but rather use a local or national number. Abiding in those wishes makes your brand feel more approachable and trustworthy.

International routing

Many still consider the telephone to be the easiest customer service channel (check out?this report?by Shep Hyken). And with today’s technology, it doesn’t matter where your contact centers are located. Calls to local or national numbers can be delivered anywhere in the world. With the right routing, calls end up with agents who speak the same language or have the appropriate skills. This helps build up more of a connection and adds to the feeling of trust.

Efficient routing and distribution of inbound and outbound call routing can be done with smart overload solutions and/or SIP trunks. Examples of the solutions we offer are automatic call distributions (ACDs), overload solutions, cruise control, and outbound contact center services. You can find more information about these solutions on the Sound of Data website.

Things to keep an eye on

There are a few things to keep an eye on when using local or national service numbers:

1. Check whether you need a local address. In more and more countries it is mandatory to have a local address if you want to use a local telephone number. A good supplier can tell you more and knows what is required in which country to make your numbers compliant. Keep in mind that this regulation, but also other regulations on using and registering service numbers are constantly changing!
2. Know which number is common to use in which country. The common type of service number can vary from country to country. The easiest way to find out is to check with similar brands as yours and see what kind of numbers they use. Is it?geographic,?national, or?toll-free? We recommend you to use the same type of number for as many countries as possible.
3. Make sure your number is accessible to everyone. It may sound strange if you are not familiar with it, but phone numbers can’t always be called from every phone/provider. Depending on the type of number and country, it’s possible that a number is not accessible for (some of the) mobile callers. That’s why sometimes you need two numbers from two providers so you don’t exclude people. A good supplier can provide clarity.
4. Choose a reliable supplier. Service numbers are easy to acquire these days. Online with a (local) supplier or with the supplier of your contact center platform for example. Make sure the supplier knows the local regulations so that you don’t make mistakes.
5. Start on time. Service numbers are not as easy and quick to acquire and activate everywhere. These processes vary per type of number and country. If you have a deadline, start this process on time. The faster you have a number up and running.

Independent supplier

There’s one important thing you need to be aware of when acquiring numbers with your contact center platform supplier: Make sure you know if you can take these numbers with you if you ever want to switch platforms. This isn’t always the case and can be an unpleasant surprise if you find out afterward. You can easily avoid this by getting your numbers from an independent supplier with worldwide coverage, like us for example. This way you have one supplier for all your global number questions, without being tied to your platform.

Fast and personal

Service numbers are often the last item on the list when it comes to new cross-border activities. Instead of using a local number, a lot of companies communicate the telephone number of the country of origin instead. Be aware that this sends a “don’t call me” signal because most people don’t want to call foreign numbers and expect you to know that as well.

If you’re taking this new market seriously, make sure you can be reached by telephone for personal, urgent, and complicated questions in addition to your digital chat and social channels. This way you are truly omnichannel: effective, efficient, personal, and reliable.

A closing expert note…

When you want to start using several new service numbers in different countries, it is very common to work with different suppliers. It regularly happens that companies have to work together with new suppliers since their other supplier is not providing service numbers in the country they want to expand their business activities to.

If you choose to work together with several suppliers and start using new service numbers, we advise you to create (what we call) a master number plan. You can create this plan by yourself. It should contain an overview of all the inbound and outbound traffic and (in)activity of your numbers. By checking this regularly and keeping track of it in this one single overview, you can see far more easily which numbers are redundant and costing you money instead of adding value to your customer service operations. Cutting off these numbers can be easy wins for your business.