A Phone Call

In spite of being well within the digital age, with comprehensive online information, patient portals and social media instant posts; sometimes, it can still take a phone call for the customer to make a buying decision.

What happens on that phone call is mission critical.

Does your directory get your customer where they need to go to find out what they need? Is it straightforward and intuitive at the same time?

Once the (potential) customer selects their option – “Press 25 for the pool” or by saying “Other Options” for, well, something that is so specific your comprehensive directory did not offer what was needed – they want to be helped. By a real, live, knowledgeable person. Yup, that is what it takes…every time.

Customers don’t want to fall out of the norm, needing special attention that will take much longer or connect them to a department who just can’t help them. Even worse, being connected to a department who 1) doesn’t say your company name, 2) the associate doesn’t offer their name but demands the customer’s name and –  worst of all… 3) disconnects the call because they don’t know how to answer the question.

Perhaps in the case of number 3, it would have been better to not even answer the line, but 1 and 2 are not much better.

It sounds so simple. It actually is. My parents taught me and my siblings the phone etiquette our father’s company needed. If we weren’t prepared to answer the phone the right way, we weren’t allowed to answer it…but we HAD to learn quick, the calls had to be answered and you can’t help a customer unless you talk to them to find out what they need, who they are and be able to offer your assistance.  We were all under the age of 16 – so I know that there are working aged employees out there who can learn how to do this.

Sometimes all it will take is a phone call to make or break a customer. Be ready when they call.

~ Dawn aka Hat Girl

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