Does your business employ an automatic call-handling system? If so, perhaps it’s time you tried it out for yourself, suggests business growth and development consultant to the retail home furnishings industry Gordon Hecht, writing for US trade magazine Your Source News …
From pizza shops to medical offices to retail stores, it seems every business has one these days. It’s those darned computer-generated phone answering systems. The ones that require endless button pushing just to get connected to the wrong person or department (press one to place an order, press two for pick-up, press three to add pepperoni …).
The concept is to save time and money. One fewer person paid to answer incoming calls. Every call is answered quickly, and routing becomes more efficient. That’s how a CFO or VP of sales prevention may see it.
The fact is that most calls to businesses are from prospective customers who want to buy, or current customers who have dished out hard-earned bucks and have already bought. In these days of reducing the hassle out of the buying experience, auto phone systems are having the reverse effect.
If your company still has a real human answering phone calls, congratulations! Nothing beats interactions between two people. But even that system can add hassle to your callers’ experience.
Auto system or live person, here’s a challenge to you. Reach out and call your business this week. If your voice is recognisable, like mine, or if your shop’s phone system shows the incoming number, have someone else call and listen on another line or speaker.
Tune in to hear if your company is guilty of these frustrating roadblocks:
• A greeting with an indistinguishable company name. Whether machine or person, sometimes the name is said so fast or garbled, and callers won’t know if they reached the right company. The greeting should start with “Thank you for calling...” and continue with “my name is (state your name), how can I help today”
• Asking callers to repeat the same information each time they get transferred. We all get tired of repeatedly giving our name, reason for calling, last four digits of our Social Security number and blood type.
• For digital systems – more than four button pushing prompts to get to the right person. For live operators – more than two transfers. The first prompt of any digital system should be for the sales department. That’s what generates revenue. Having service or repair preceding sales tells callers that your products break down (a lot)
• Not getting the caller’s number in case of disconnection
• Keeping callers on hold for extended periods. If you need two minutes to gather information, inform the caller that you’ll be off the line for that period. Retail stores can get busy. Rather than keep callers on hold for more than two minutes, ask if you can call them back to resolve their request. Some auto systems have that feature built in
• Continually playing dreadful hold music. Or worse, repeated commercial messaging while callers are on hold. They drive your shoppers nuts. A simple beep or tone every minute lets callers know they are still connected
Incoming calls are vital to your business, whether you have one shop or 100. There are efficient ways to corral those calls that may work well for you, but not for the buying public. Rather, look for effective ways to answer and direct calls that are pleasing and encourage shoppers to become buyers, and buyers to remain loyal.
This article was originally published by Your Source News. Gordon can be reached at [email protected].
