Minimizing Sales Losses Due to Voicemail

Whatever it is you’re selling, when a customer calls with an inquiry, to make an appointment or for a purchase, if they are met with a voicemail or other electronic answering service, they are less likely to hang on and wait for the real, live person they wanted to talk to in the first place. Any time a potential customer calls and hangs up before buying something, sales losses caused by an answering service occur. While it might not be viable to have people working phones 24 hours a day, there are still some ways to minimize losses caused in this fashion.
First and foremost, the best way you can cut down on these kinds of losses is to hire more people for working your phones. This is probably the most expensive way to deal with the problem but it is also one of the best solutions for preventing sales losses caused by an automated business phone system. Trained people are much better at dealing with customers’ unique concerns quickly and efficiently than a machine will likely ever be. If you’ve ever sat on hold before, you know how annoying automated systems are.
The fact is, most companies will need to resort to using automated services because they don’t cost as much as hiring live people to answer phones and deal with customer service. If you streamline the process of dealing with a complaint or accepting a comment, people will be marginally less annoyed. Nobody wants to deal with mechanical operators but less time interacting with them is typically better than more for most people. Don’t give your callers a slew of options or make them deal with lengthy scripts; most people just want some information without a wait attached.
In addition, business phones should be accessible 24 hours a day. Some companies have answering services which only work during business hours. Consider for a moment just how useless those really are, since live people are working during those same hours anyhow. For all those customers who call in the evening or during other off times, there should always be a way to get through. Besides those two good ways to cut down on sales losses, you might also have some success if you include other ways to contact you, like through email or a company website. The more calls that are answered immediately, the less are at risk of being answered by voicemail and lost. More connectivity is always better.

If you are an organization of limited resources, Business Phones calgary can help implement phone features you already have or use new technologies to help you manage more calls with less people and for a lower cost. Call them and find out more!