Recording vs a Live Person

Here is an actu­al quote from a paint­ing cus­tomer of one of my clients after a recent­ly com­plet­ed project.

“When­ev­er you call them you always get a per­son, not a machine.”

This is not the first time I’ve read this state­ment while review­ing cus­tomer report cards. This is actu­al­ly a pret­ty com­mon quote. Have you ever heard a con­sumer say, ​“I love being placed on hold!” or ​“I always look for­ward to the music on hold at XYZ com­pa­ny and remem­ber­ing all the num­bers and exten­sions to sched­ule an esti­mate!” I know why the big com­pa­nies have this fea­ture: to save their oper­a­tors time. Just think, if Ver­i­zon had a live per­son answer­ing every sin­gle call the moment the phone rang, our Ver­i­zon bills would be a lot high­er. Their over­head would sky­rock­et. There­fore, the call screen­ing fea­tures are a must for a large com­pa­ny to stay com­pet­i­tive. I also know why the small com­pa­nies have these fea­tures: to save time! Am I right? Think about it: you are work­ing on an esti­mate and do not want to be inter­rupt­ed, yet your phone does­n’t stop ring­ing. How can you get any­thing done? Live Per­son Still Is Best for a Small Business Your cus­tomers will always want to talk to a live per­son. It is just the way we are all wired. If that is what your cus­tomers want, you need to see how you can deliv­er this request. It might seem like a lit­tle thing, but the lit­tle things always mat­ter. I’d rec­om­mend either hav­ing some­one answer your calls in house or use a call cen­ter. I men­tioned a call cen­ter as opposed to an answer­ing ser­vice. There is a dif­fer­ence! An answer­ing ser­vice just takes mes­sages and sends you emails and text mes­sages. A pro­fes­sion­al call cen­ter can actu­al­ly trans­fer calls to you, take mes­sages or even sched­ule appoint­ments. What­ev­er you decide, make sure you are read­i­ly avail­able for your cus­tomers. They are the lifeblood of your busi­ness. One final thing — make sure who­ev­er is answer­ing your phone is also pos­i­tive. I recent­ly lis­tened to a voice­mail record­ing that made me sick. A brand new lead came through, a live per­son answered the phone but had no pos­i­tive emo­tion. She answered the prospec­t’s ques­tions but did not seem hap­py to get a phone call. Guess what hap­pened? The prospect I think sensed the cold voice and end­ed up not sched­ul­ing an esti­mate. So two things to take away from this blog post: 1. Do what you can to answer your phones and 2. Make sure who­ev­er answers is well-trained.