It's one of the oldest forms of business communications, the telephone. Just the sound of it ringing in your business means whatever type of marketing you're doing is working. At least you hope so, it could also be a disgruntled customer calling with a complaint, and lord knows you don't want to take that one. Or my favorite of all, it's before hours or after hours and no one answers the phone.
Fact is everytime the telephone rings it's a great opportunity to either make a sale or develop a stronger bond with an existing customer, even an unhappy one.
I don't want to get into a big customer service educational post here, maybe we can cover that in the future. Let's get back to the telephone. Let's say you have put together a successful marketing campaign attracting hundreds of people to your website monthly. Being a Plumbing Contractor very few people are there just to browse your website. They are coming to your site because they have a problem that needs fixing. The average Plumbing company doing a successful Digital Marketing campaign should expect about 60 - 100 telephone calls per month. Now if this number is not resulting in sales then there is a breakdown somewhere.
The major thing to look at is the quality of the people who answer your telephone. Are they welcoming, pleasant, helpful? Or are do they have a little edge to their voice, maybe not as helpful as they could be or short with their answers. The person you have answering your telephone may not be the right person for the job or they may just need a little training.
Here are some things to avoid when answering the phone:
- Having a bad day, or not feeling very helpful.
- Avoid ever saying I don't know. You have to know, you are the voice of the company, you should have all the answers and if you don't, a better way would be to say "Let me double check on that".
- One word answers like NO are the worst, don't be short. If the answer is no, try "Not at this time".
- Don't interupt or argue.
- If you have to put someone on hold, never say "can you hold for a second"?, Anything you do will take more that a second, why lie if you know it's gonna be 30 seconds.
- Smile when you talk, it works people can hear it in your voice when you smile.
- Be the expert, people are calling you because they have a need that you can fulfill.
- If you have to transfer a call, get all the information and inform the person you are transferring the call to what the issue or question is. The worst thing is having a customer have to explain their situation all over again.
- Be able to answer some of the common questions about your product or service.
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