Are You Damaging Your Company by Using an Automated Telephone Service?

Does your business need a professional call answering service? Your company's phone line is the first port of call for the majority of your customers when looking for information, support or customer service. But is the way your business responds to these calls damaging your reputation and sales volume? As consumers become more accustomed to the instant gratification of the digital age, your efficiency in telephone answering and responding to queries is put under increased pressure.

One of the biggest customer service bugbears for consumers is calling a customer service line, only to be answered by an automated response. The maze of automated menus and diversion systems drives people mad, and usually generate one of three responses:

1) A frustrated customer who is angry and short-tempered by the time they get through to a real person.

2) A frustrated customer who tries to bypass the menu by pressing the zero or star key in order to get through to a real person, meaning they may not be through to the right person, meaning they are sent back into the maze...

3) A frustrated customer who gives up completely and hangs up the phone before they even get through to a real person.

Are you seeing the common theme? The customer is irritated, their query does not get answered and your company's reputation is damaged by word of mouth as the customer complains to their friends, family and co-workers about you. Even worse, the customer goes onto social media and publicly moans about your customer service, making this information available to anyone looking into your company's details.

Another potential reputation-killer is being on hold for too long. Customers don't want to wait - so don't make them. Being on hold for more than a minute or two creates - guess what? - a frustrated customer, and we know what kind of reactions to expect from them. Once again, consumers will often turn to social media to express their displeasure about their customer service - something that can be very damaging to your company reputation.

So what can you do to avoid these common phone answering pitfalls? Can you guarantee your customers will get through to a real person when they call your phone line? And can you guarantee your customers won't have to wait on hold to speak to someone? If the answer to either of these questions is 'no', then you seriously need to consider employing a call answering service to provide your business with a professional phone response team. 

At Zoom Answer Call, our Zoomettes answer every call quickly and expertly - with a smile. Our highly trained staff are able to manage, direct or route your calls, providing reliable customer services whenever you need it. Get in touch to find out more, or to try our 7 day trial, and never miss a call - or lose a treasured customer - again...

How To Make Customers Happy

At Zoom, not only do we answer the phone many (MANY!!) times a day in our virtual receptionist and call answering roles, we also offer a variety of call centre services. Often, people calling call centres are either already upset as they have a problem, or they do not expect anything other than adequate service. We like to prove them wrong! Here are a few tips to exceeding your customers' expectations.

• Empathise with the customer
• Putting yourself in the customer's shoes and treating them how you would like to be treated in the same situation is an easy way to keep the customer's interests in mind. If you manage to give the customer the impression that you truly understand, they are more likely to trust you. 
• Take ownership
• Customers hate being passed from pillar to post, so wherever possible you should aim to help them without transferring the call to several other people. If they have a problem you can solve, don't pass the buck just because it's easier for you.
• Don't follow a script
• Customers can tell when you are reading from a script rather than just using your own words, and they don't like it. It's not hard, just tell them what you will do and when you will do it (then make sure you do what you've promised!).
• Review things with your colleagues
• If you have had a difficult call, talk about it with your colleagues and manager. Perhaps you handled it really well, in which case other members of the team can learn from you, or perhaps other people could suggest different ways you could have dealt with it. Either way, learning from each other is good for the whole team, and the customer.
• Make things easy for the customer
• Whatever the reason for their call, the customer wants it dealt with as quickly as possible, and with as little effort required from them as possible. It's pointless to spend all your time trying to be the best call centre operator, delivering excellent customer service, if the customer gets frustrated at how long it takes for anything to get done.