Setting up an inbound call centre: here's how to do it

If you want to know how to set up a call centre then we can definitely help you!
At least if you mean setting up an inbound call centre where you handle inbound calls.

In this article, we will show you what is involved and give you valuable tips.

Examples of inbound call centres

A telephone department that handles all incoming calls is called an inbound call centre. Customers and interested parties contact a company and are spoken to.

Below we show you some examples of inbound call centres. Perhaps you can see opportunities for your company right away!

• Customer service 
  A customer service number is a general number that customers can call with questions. In many cases, a customer service number is a central number that transfers callers to the helpdesk, administration or sales department based on the questions.

• Helpdesk 
  Users who have questions about how a product or service works are happy to ask the helpdesk. For technical issues, there are often different levels: first-line staff with broad knowledge and second- or even third-line staff with more specialised knowledge.

• Order line or reservation line 
  Ordering a taxi or pizza, buying a ticket or booking a holiday: a telephone booking line makes this possible. Since a call almost always ends in a sale, companies choose to make this number accessible: at normal, local rates or completely free of charge.

• Telephone consultation 
  For consumers, it is very convenient if they can get a telephone consultation. Especially topics for which you normally have to make an appointment with a professional first. Telephone consultations exist in the form of tax advice, legal help and medical second opinions, among others.

Requirements for an inbound call centre

If you want to set up an inbound call centre, the first thing you need is a phone number and people who will answer the phone at your home or office.

A first step is to take stock: how many callers do you expect? How many potential customers are going to call per day? How long are calls going to take?

On this basis, you can determine the staffing of the telephone department, set opening hours and choose a particular type of phone number.

Who answers the phone?

The logical choice is to answer your customers' calls yourself. You know the products or services like no other.

With our special call team page, you can easily create a virtual call centre yourself in 10 minutes.

List the people who can answer calls with their own phone number.

Then give access to this special call team page to your entire call team.
Anyone can set themselves to available and unavailable at any time.

When an incoming call comes in, this way our telephony platform can always see who is available to answer the phone at what time.

You may not expect many calls in the initial period. In that case, let your calls come in on your mobile phone.

You can also choose to outsource your inbound call centre or do part of it yourself and part externally.

We can programme this on our phone system so that callers always get someone on the line quickly enough. You can then see in the statistics how call traffic is distributed, and maybe you can also notice the difference in customer satisfaction per location.

With this phone feature, you can grow flexibly and easily respond to a growing need.

What kind of phones?

Then there is the question of what kind of phones you will use.

If you expect a lot of calls, it is most comfortable for your colleagues to call with a headset connected to the computer or a fixed desk phone.

But even if in the beginning you only use mobile phones, you can work perfectly with Belfabriek.

We make sure all incoming calls are transferred to all your and your colleagues' phones: at home, in the office or on the road!

Anyone can set up a call centre

You can go big when you want to start a call centre, but you can also start small. A landline or mobile phone is all you need.

With a virtual phone number, you transfer callers to all phones.

Thanks to the handy phone options we give you access to, you can set up your virtual phone number just like a big call centre would. For example, add a welcome text, a call menu, the option to record a voicemail, and a call queue. All these features you can enable, disable and change.

All this with the support of a dashboard where you see call statistics in real-time. Based on this, you then make decisions that positively influence the growth of your inbound call centre!