Who Answers Your Phone?
I love it when a human being answers the phone.
Over the past few weeks, I have had the pleasure of trying to telephone a list of 67 people. I’ve spoken to five of them. In the process I have encountered every imaginable type of answering system. Among them:
- The automated voice gives you options that make no sense–designed to make you hang up–presumably because the people who work there don’t really want to get phone calls.
- I know you’ve heard this one: they give you six options you don’t want, and don’t give you the option you need or the option to speak to an operator.
- The digit maze: You are asked to press this button and that until your fingers ache. AND YOU STILL DON’T GET TO TALK TO ANYONE!
- The automated voice asks you to speak, but rarely understands what you say.
- No answering system at all, and the shock of the phone ringing 10 or 12 times makes you question your sanity and recheck the number. (I guess voice mail is a good idea!)
- The surly human operator who is obviously annoyed that you interrupted whatever he or she was doing. They are particularly put off by any questions you many have about who or why you are calling.
- A really nice human operator who helps you and puts you through to the person you are calling, or more likely their voice mail.
- The actual person you are calling answers the phone (this causes such elation; you sometimes forget why you called!)
The old adage that you only have one chance to make a good impression still holds true, and the person or machine who answers your business phone may be the most important ambassador of your business. If you are leaving the first impression to a system or machine, I say tread carefully.
Do you have a phone story to share? Or maybe a list of important things one needs to consider when buying a phone system for their business? Share it here!
July 12th, 2005 at 6:25 pm
Hi there,
While we use a voicemail system to answer and route our calls, I personally recorded the messages and quickly greet and introduce myself to callers.
We also try to put a bit of humor and sincerity into the messages, such as "we’ll get you out of voicemail as quickly as possible".
We host a weekly barbecue at our office, and in order to insure all departments attend, we (gasp) don’t answer the phone for an hour. We simply tell our callers this by letting them know were out back rewarding our employees with our weekly BBQ. The positive feedback we get when people here this far outweighs anyone being upset because they had to leave a message. Callers genuinely like to hear that you’re treating your employees well.
So, in a nutshell, most callers expect voicemail/auto-attendants, by making your message different than everyone else’s, you can turn what could be taken as a negative into a positive. When’s the last time you had a customer tell you "I just love your voicemail system!" Happens here all the time.
Best,
Shannon Jean
Founder & President
TechRestore, Inc.
[em]Help is on the Way[/em]
July 13th, 2005 at 12:04 am
20 years ago, when I installed my first answering machine on our home phone, I got so tired of people calling, but not leaving messages (the machine would dutifully record 20 seconds of dial-tone), that I added the following statement: "…If it’s important enough to call, it’s imortant enough to leave a message, so please leave a message."
After that, my sister-in-law, who’s from the Philippines, suddenly stopped calling. After a week, we asked why. She said, "Your message said if it’s not important, don’t call."
After that, I decided it was important to be more diplomatic in my choice of announcements.
Tim Mauch
Mauch 5 Services
Puget Sound Bookkeeping Services
Radio Broadcast Administration Services
timothy.mauch@ptk.org
http://mauch5.accountweb.net
July 14th, 2005 at 12:28 pm
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Andy Grindle
Almond Hill Enterprises, Inc.
Phone: 888-398-6100
Cell: 714-225-6053
August 9th, 2005 at 3:54 pm
I think we all want to scream when we hear "please wait to hear a list of our menu options." However, a sense of humor in your voicemail options definitely helps, as well as a soothing voice reading them to us.
The other day when I needed to contact an on-line vendor I had one of the best voicemail menu options ever read aloud…and this is NOT a lie…after a list of 5 normal choices it said "To hear a pirate read these options press 6"
I was taken aback and said to myself, "Did I just hear him say something about a pirate?" So out of curiousity I pressed 6. Low and behold the same menu options were then read to me again, not only with a "pirate" accent, but using "pirate" jargon as well! I was still laughing when the human voice answered.
And this from what I would consider a rather large & corporate company. It was nice to hear that some companies in the business world can still take some time out to laugh!
Kathryn A. Burton
Kitty Kat Graphics, Inc.
http://www.kittykatgraphics.com