Improving your business phone image has always been important for established or start-up companies. With the mass migration to remote working and working from home, maintaining a unified business image has become more of a challenge than ever.
Today, it is common when calling for customer service to occasionally hear a dog barking in the background or a baby crying for attention. Many, including myself, have come to accept this as our new reality and the bi-product of the COVID19 pandemic.
Striving for a professional interaction experience with customers on the phone should always be the goal of every company that works to be a leader in its field. As the workforce continues to stay remote, customer service values need to stay at the top of the list.
Just as you would not have a Zoom video conference with piles of boxes or dirty laundry behind you, special care should be taken to maintain a high company phone image. From the smallest details of how your mailbox greeting is recorded when callers need to leave a voice message to the first impression, customers receive when calling your company for the first time. Yes, first impressions still are important. Especially if you want to gain new customers and or not lose the ones you have worked so hard to acquire.
Here are some ideas you can implement that will greatly improve your phone image.
- Keep voice mail greetings short and to the point. Nobody wants to call a business and be subjected to a War And Peace version of voicemail. Try to keep voice mail options to no more than three departments with minimal fluff about “how important your call is”.
- Implement a custom on-hold message instead of using the system’s default canned music-only option. This will give your callers a powerful impression that will go a long way to influencing their buying decision. Customized hold messages make you sound big, professional, and organized. Take advantage of an otherwise wasted time and turn it into an image-enhancing and marketing opportunity for your company.
- Use an automated directory and avoid the temptation to record a laundry list of employee names with extensions. The auto directory option is the one that sounds like this: using your phone’s keypad enter the first three letters of the person’s first or last name. This will save time for the caller and will help you remove employees from the directory while making it easy for new ones to join. One of the steps for new employees setting up a voice mailbox and greeting on the phone system is to become part of the name directory.
- Use department titles instead of individual names. Instead of saying “for Bill in accounting press 1, for Maria in sales press 2”, just keep it to “for accounting press 1, for sales press 2”. This way when Maria leaves or is terminated you won’t have to re-record the greeting all over again. Yes, it may be more personable, but you will be surprised with today’s high employee turnover rate and how time-consuming and expensive this can be.
- Please stop saying, “Please listen carefully as our options have recently changed.” No, they have not! You have had the same options for years and stop lying about it.
- Have your auto attendant voice mail greetings recorded by someone who speaks clearly and sounds upbeat and cheerful. Here’s a pro tip: Smile when reading your voicemail script. It will automatically brighten the tone and provide a more positive delivery. Here is a guide to setting up an auto attendant on Ring Central.
- Don’t use a text-to-voice application to record your voicemail! The image this gives callers is one that screams “We don’t care how robotic she sounds, it was free!”. Siri and Alexa can do wonders, but not when it comes to helping your business sound professional. Spending a little money on a professional voice talent to record your phone greetings can yield dividends in higher customer satisfaction and new customer acquisitions. Let the first impression be the best impression for your callers.
- Stop giving callers the silent treatment. Putting callers on hold with dead silence is a sure way to alienate people and give them the opportunity to start browsing on their smartphones for another provider. 60 seconds on a silent hold, actually feels like 3 minutes. Activate a custom on-hold message with music that talks about your company, its products, services, and unique qualities that distinguish it from your competitors. This strategy is proven to keep callers engaged, informed, and entertained during peak moments of caller activity. A custom on-hold message can keep you connected to your customer when you can’t.
Today more than ever, customers have more choices for providers of the products and services they need. In many cases, the small details are what will give you the opportunity to earn their trust and business. Make sure you take advantage of a better business phone image to gain the edge in the highly competitive world of high customer expectations.
Carlos Garcia, founder, and president
Please Hold Advertising, Inc.