ABC Bonding* has created a “virtual franchise” bail bond operation. Without increasing human resources, ABC now serves multiple counties, seamlessly and efficiently. ABC previously used a call answering service which it shared with its competition. However, the call transfer process along with the number of message inaccuracies was progressively choking its growth, and keeping ABC from getting ahead in the marketplace. Continue reading
Ari Law attorneys focus on small business, litigation, intellectual property, contract and defense. Located in the financial district of San Francisco, they serve the entire Bay area as well as numerous other locations, including China.
Ali Aalaei, the Principal of the firm, noticed a discrepancy between the number of calls directed to the firm by a referral agency and the number of calls that the firm was registering. The referral agency indicated that they were missing three to five calls a week. Mr. Aalaei and his colleagues were shocked by the realization that they were losing potential business. This prompted further investigation into the customer experience of a caller to the firm. Continue reading
Are your customers getting frustrated and hanging up before leaving a message or listening to the options? Your company’s auto answer features might be driving them away.
Mistake
Often, small business owners set up their auto attendant with options like: Press [1] for Suzy, the President, Press [2] for Mike in Marketing, Press [3] for Mary in Accounting…Press [43] for Jake.
Sally wants to return a shirt that doesn’t fit. She calls your company during her lunch break (which also happens to be yours) and is greeted by your generic voice mail. Sally lacks the patience to wait for the option directing her to the returns department, so she hangs up.
Customers that have to repeatedly call to find answers get frustrated, particularly if they have a simple need, such as a mailing address or hours of operation. Solving a customer’s issue on the first call can build higher levels of customer loyalty, reduce aggravation, and lead to time and money savings.
What does your company do when a customer doesn’t want to leave a message? Losing potential touch points with customers can come with a high cost. By using features included in a cloud phone system, you can overcome some of the barriers keeping you from communicating with your customers.
According to recent studies, nearly 4 out of 5 people calling into a small business who get voice mail do not leave a message. And it’s likely that this trend will only increase in the era of text and instant messaging features built into smart-phones.
We know you have lots of choices when it comes to choosing a virtual phone provider for your small business, but only Halloo combines the sales and marketing power of social media with an easy-to-use phone system that’s built specifically for your needs. Not convinced? Here are some of our more popular features that will not only make your work life less stressful, but also help you track and keep customers happy and coming back to your business again and again.
Bring a Social Media State of Mind to Your Virtual Office
Halloo is the first social phone system ever created. What does this mean exactly? You can get all of your employees on the same page in a few simple steps. With Halloo, you can share and take notes, respond to live calls instantly, and pull up past conversations during current calls. Everything is organized, accounted for, and easy to navigate through Halloo.
Make a Note of It
Did that customer just call you ten minutes ago and drop the call?
Imagine conducting and tracking business calls anytime and anywhere. With Halloo as your secret weapon, you can get organized and keep tabs on your multiple clients, see how you’ve interacted with them before, and nurture your existing relationship.
Halloo’s many features allow you to keep all your business contacts, calls, messages, and notes in one place. It’s easy to pull up information, reroute calls, and make notes all through a collaborative workflow.
Simple, Hassle-Free Set-Up
Now you can take business calls anywhere, anytime and still keep track of them. Halloo can route any calls to your existing mobile, office, or home phone instantly. An added bonus: You don’t need any special equipment or a specialist to come and install anything! It’s all done through our easy-to-use site.
Come check out Halloo for yourself and see why everyone is talking!
If you’ve been thinking about upgrading to Windows 8, but like me have been putting it off, today might be a good day to pull the trigger. Today, January 31, is the last day that you can download the upgrade for $39.99. Tomorrow it goes up to $199.99.
You’ll need a pretty modern computer with plenty of RAM for the upgrade, so forget about trying it out on that old 10 year old Pentium 2 that’s sitting in the corner.
With all the changes happening in the computer industry, Microsoft was pretty much forced to modernize it’s venerable operating system. Time will tell whether customers and businesses embrace it.
Should you upgrade? It’s probably worth checking out on at least one machine to see how it fits in with your mix of programs and workflow. And, with the $160 that you can save by upgrading today, you can sign up for a year of Halloo service and still have change left over.
The idea of making changes in something that already works well, like a phone system, is often scary. But when it comes to social phone service from Halloo, it’s a commitment that’s well worth making.
Recently, Halloo unveiled a new feature called “social phone systems”. While Halloo already has plenty of great cloud-based telephony services, the addition of social phone systems is about to change the game quite a bit.
The other day, I needed to shop for health insurance. I hate shopping in general so health insurance was a double whammy of misery. It’s interesting, though, that when I do need to call around, the best phone systems for customer support become pretty clear.
What I wanted to mention today, however, is the greeting I received. The way you answer your phone can make a huge difference in your customer support. So, here it is. The representatives at Blue Shield Blue Cross, or Independence Blue Cross, say:
“I help people like you everyday.”
Yup, I was immediately at ease, impressed with their phone support on demand, and more than interested to hear more about their product. That one little greeting told me I was in the right place. No matter what the person said after those words, I was prepared to answer their questions – I was in the right place.
When you consider what the best way to answer the phone is, consider what you do for a living. Think about how you’ll put your customers at ease right away:
You can be funny, interesting or very unique – but be honest. Even a how can I help you works well if it’s delivered in a happy voice. For more attention, get outside of the box with something funny like the examples above.
The best phone systems for customer support help you by providing clear sound so it’s eaier for the caller to understand you. They allow seamless features, too, so your caller never has to guess what you’re doing when you answer the phone.
There’s one other pointer for you to think about: What you say vs. what callers hear. This is important when you’re doing customer service since, well, not everyone hears very well.
Make sure you appropriately pause before you deliver your message:
“Good Morning … Life’s a beach at IT solutions … this is Bob … how may I serve you?”
Those ellipsis represent where you should take a slow, long pause so the reader can hear what you’re saying. If that doesn’t make sense right away, practice a few times. You’ll know you’ve got the hang of it when your caller doesn’t have to ask your name ten times but automatically remembers it.
