Educational projects are frequent Ringostat clients. After all, they always communicate extensively with customers by phone. Ideally, a prospective student should immediately connect with the right specialist. That’s why voice menu — IVR — is a highly demanded functionality. Read how this useful tool helped the Polish language school Open Mind distribute student inquiries among employees. The client also saves time thanks to the convenient calling application.
About the project
Open Mind is a language school from Szczecin where you can learn 8 European languages. The company also offers courses partially funded by the European Union. Additionally, Open Mind is an organization authorized to organize state exams in Polish as a foreign language at the elementary level. OPEN MIND is also a British Council center in the West Pomeranian Voivodeship, where you can take Cambridge English exams.
Marcin Miszniakiewicz has been running the language school and examination center for 20 years. Previously, the company dealt primarily with Polish people who wanted to learn foreign languages. But since 2018, many foreigners have appeared who want to learn Polish and pass exams to be able to stay in Poland. The most interesting challenge for Open Mind was that employees had to switch to conversations in Ukrainian and Russian, among other languages. Therefore, Marcin hired people who had arrived in the country in recent years, and together they develop their skills. Open Mind also implemented a separate curriculum for Ukrainians.
Like any educational company, a significant portion of customer communication happens via phone calls. Most often, prospective students call to make sure there really is a school in Szczecin where they can both learn a foreign language and take an exam. This question arises because previously such institutions existed only in Warsaw, Gdańsk, and Kraków.
Phone communication also saves the Open Mind team time and makes it easier to build trusting relationships with customers. During a conversation, you can sense the other person’s emotions and influence them — for example, dispelling a prospective student’s doubts.
Connecting Ringostat
The mobile communication the company previously used didn’t meet its needs. Therefore, Open Mind began looking for virtual telephony.
With virtual telephony, we could have everything in one place: statistics, data about missed calls, and the ability to manage call flow. We were interested in ease of use and accessibility for an employee wherever they were. I also wanted to be sure that phone calls were happening, and the team was making sure there wasn’t a single customer who couldn’t get through.
I learned about Ringostat when a platform sales manager called me. We agreed on a test during the holidays when the company has little traffic, and it turned out that everything worked well. That’s how I started saving time and money.”
How IVR helps distribute calls among managers
One reason why Open Mind connected business telephony is the presence of IVR. This is a voice menu that plays messages like: “To reach the secretary, press 1; for accounting — press 2.” This feature is extremely important for any company, but especially for small organizations. After all, in them, managers can simultaneously take on several roles, and the team shouldn’t be distracted unnecessarily.
Thanks to Ringostat’s voice menu, managers no longer have to answer “wrong” calls and then transfer them to the right colleague. IVR takes on this work, allowing students to immediately choose which service interests them:
- language courses;
- Polish language exams, etc.
If the customer doesn’t enter the corresponding digit within 30 seconds, they will be directed to the company’s general number. During non-working days and hours, an answering machine activates, informing that the company is currently closed and offering to leave a message.
With IVR, it’s more convenient to work because we connect the customer directly with the person responsible for the task.”
How the team handles calls and messages using the Ringostat application
If a customer has chosen the right department, but the manager is busy, the call will be directed to their colleague. If there’s no answer from them either, the call will go to the company owner. This allows not missing calls and not unnecessarily distracting management if employees aren’t busy.
To handle calls, the team uses the convenient Ringostat calling application. It’s installed on managers’ laptops and allows them to communicate with customers from anywhere. All you need is internet access and a headset.
When a customer calls, the employee receives a pop-up notification. And during the call — a convenient interface where you can perform additional actions. For example, transfer the call to colleagues, put it on hold, accept another call while the customer is waiting on the line, etc.
The Ringostat application also helps the company process requests that come through Telegram. The messenger widget is placed on the Open Mind website:
When a customer clicks on the Telegram icon, a chat with Open Mind opens. The prospective student writes a message in it, and they appear in the Ringostat application interface, where managers immediately see them. If several users write simultaneously, their messages will be added to the queue. Therefore, the manager can gradually take messages into work without missing anything. The employee writes their responses in the Ringostat application, and they arrive to the customer in Telegram.
Thanks to this, the manager doesn’t have to switch between the messenger and the calling program. Everything happens in one window, saving time on processing requests.
Bonus: monitoring missed calls
The company owner most often reviews the missed calls report, preventing them in the future. The sample shows when such a call occurred and which number to call the customer back on.
You can also monitor team performance using the “Active calls” and “Project employees” reports. There you can see which managers are online or offline, how many calls are happening now, how long each employee has been in each status, etc. This allows you to understand the team’s workload and take appropriate measures.
I didn’t make a mistake choosing telephony, and I know that Ringostat is a reliable company. I’m glad that platform managers are always there when we need them, and we can count on their help.”
