Your company’s phone system plays a huge role in your brand, making it an opportunity to connect with customers and to showcase your reliability.
But a faulty phone system can turn off customers and create a negative impression of your company.
According to a recent phone system survey by Software Advice, many customers reported frustration with reaching employees by name and with employees taking too long to find information, not knowing how to transfers calls or routing calls to the wrong person.
Surprisingly, those who participated in the survey had more issues receiving calls from small businesses than with making calls to them. Their top problem was receiving calls from businesses with unrecognizable phone numbers, which they typically won’t answer.
Other customers said they were tired of having to explain their issues multiple times to multiple employees, and that businesses often failed to respond to voicemail messages.
It’s fairly easy for small businesses to overcome these obstacles. Here are some tips on how to do that:
- Think critically before setting up your call routing and call cues to ensure your auto attendant directs customers to the right place.
- Many phone systems benefit from what’s known as the waterfall call flow. It starts by directing the caller to the ideal employee. If no one answers, the call rings through to a technician or sales agent, and then ultimately the president.
- Use a dial by name directory that lets customers enter the first few letters of the employee’s name or use a voice response.
- Set up a caller ID for your business for outbound customer calls.
- Make your business seem more approachable by using a toll free number or a phone number with your customers’ local area code.
- Forward voice messagesto your email box, where you can synchronize them with your contact management system to respond to customers more quickly and accurately.
Halloo offers these services and many other professional tools to help with all your phone calls while saving you valuable staff time and expense and optimizing your potential sales.
Caren Burmeister is a retired newspaper reporter turned freelance writer who enjoys yoga and caring for her two fat cats.