The cost of missed calls for your business can not be underestimated and here we look at ways to avoid missed traffic and provide support services for staff.
What are missed calls
You should understand that any missed call is a missed opportunity and it may well be a significant one.
In another life, I run a message service for business and one of my customers missed only one or two calls a month. I was chatting one day and queried his need for our service. He explained that each software project was worth over $15,000 so losing just one was really bad.
That got me thinking and I built my own missed call calculator to show others the impact of a call.
In general, we look at the real cost of calls.
I sat at a Swimming pool pavilion one day because my son was about to invest in a Pool. He knew the salesman would be on site so we went to sign a deal. He waved to us and said I will be with you in a moment, I will just finish this call. Finish he did but took another and then another. all long calls. As buyers we exercised our rights and walked out, never to return.
A good message service would have fixed that problem.
Another customer was late to work one morning and had a missed call, we had delivered the caller number but no message. She called the missed number and the man explained that he was buying a car stereo system and had since received a great quote from the competitor. The short end to the story was Tracy beat that quote and got the deal. All from good customer service.
How do missed calls happen?
The most common is out of hours of course but there are a lot more times.
Staff busy, customer overload, caught on long phone calls. The list is long and everyone misses phone calls.
Ways to avoid missed calls
Onsight answering machine. These are commercial grade services generally in larger organisations with sufficient IT to manage them.
Outside message service.
Live answering, when a real person answers the calls.
Virtual answering, when a commercial grade message service does it automatically.
Diverting to a mobile phone on busy.
Commercial grade services only to be used.
It is counter-productive to use domestic answering machines or Mobile message bank to act as your answering service.
In any business, you must maintain your brand at the highest level and inferior services just don’t cut the grade
Every call is an important customer
This is a fact forgotten by many and can be a downturn to business in the near future.
It takes time and money to get customers and to lose them for a simple service at a small cost could be detrimental to your business.
Remember the rule;
“One upset customer will tell 20 people, one satisfied customer will keep it to themselves.”
Make sure you answer every call.
Whatever system you use to make sure it is efficient and maintains your business image in the best possible light.
Conclusion
As business people, I am sure you are aware of the problem but like most, it is not a pressing issue.
That is because it is invisible to you. The thing with missed calls is you never know, so track them every day.
I have operated message services for nearly 30 years and still have a Virtual service that covers all of Australia.