Is Your Phone Tree Costing You Business?

Can you afford to have a live per­son answer every call dur­ing busi­ness hours? The ques­tion might actu­al­ly be, can you afford not to?

Hey, remem­ber the days before cell phones? Ahhh… Sweet sim­plic­i­ty. Now com­mu­ni­ca­tion moves like light­ning, and your cus­tomers demand imme­di­ate atten­tion. On top of that, the younger gen­er­a­tion of cus­tomers that pre­fer text mes­sages is grow­ing old­er and like­ly needs your ser­vices just as much as their par­ents or grand­par­ents. You’ve got to cater to that blos­som­ing demo­graph­ic or else you’re miss­ing out…

When my dad was a painter in San Diego, his ​“cut­ting-edge” tech­nol­o­gy in the 80s and 90s was a pager. His office would send him a page with a num­ber to call, and he’d often ask to use a land­line (when he had a moment) to dial in. 

Can you imagine? 

Should You Use a Phone Tree for Your Con­tract­ing Business?

I get it. Phone trees and voice­mail are con­ve­nient, but can lead to lost prospects. If some­one decides to call rather than text or email, it’s cru­cial that they con­nect with a live per­son imme­di­ate­ly (dur­ing busi­ness hours, of course). A phone tree can feel imper­son­al, and voice­mail car­ries the sub­text that your call just wasn’t real­ly impor­tant enough to answer.

The major­i­ty of con­sumers will NOT leave a mes­sage or lis­ten to all their options, opt­ing instead to try a com­peti­tor of yours. 

Your Phone Tree Might Not Real­ly Be Sav­ing You Money

It can feel like a nice cost-sav­ings to not have some­one over­see­ing and answer­ing your phone, but some basic math can flip that equa­tion around pret­ty quick­ly. Do you have a way to quan­ti­fy how many calls (leads) are lost to your phone tree sys­tem? It can be easy to guessti­mate, and the math will prove the point bet­ter than this blog ever could. 

Pay­ing a friend­ly, pro­fes­sion­al, respon­sive per­son to answer the phone and field texts/​emails adds to your over­head, but can more than pay for itself with even just a few addi­tion­al won jobs per month. Plus you’ll build your price­less rep­u­ta­tion for excep­tion­al, old-school service. 

Bonus Tip:

Spend time train­ing the per­son answer­ing your phone. Every­thing is mar­ket­ing, includ­ing the tone of voice they use, their knowl­edge, respon­sive­ness, and the over­all expe­ri­ence they offer. Make sure you have a rock­star in place that’s ful­ly equipped to do their job. Your prospect will start form­ing their opin­ion about you as soon the con­ver­sa­tion starts!

The big take­away? Stand out from com­peti­tors by offer­ing a bet­ter, more per­son­al­ized point of con­tact. You want your prospect to be hap­py they called! Or texted.