Many businesses can’t justify the funds for a full time operator to talk with customers. But as someone who spends a great deal of their day on the phone I’ve had some of the most frustrating experiences with bad phone systems. This can be the first impression someone has of your business and should be considered part of your marketing budget. If you can’t even manage to handle phone calls why would I give you any of my business?
Here are some classic phone system errors that I have found on multiple systems.
Press the # key- I have been told to press # to get to the spell by name directory. When I do press that key instead it asks me for the individuals’ mail box. How does it expect me to know this when I’m trying to spell their name? I won’t even go into the fact that sometimes I don’t have the correct spelling of some names or if it’s a hyphenated name what is considered the last name. Name please- There is actually one system in operation and I don’t know who but it’s the same voice every time. No matter how clearly I say the name it will send me to another person‘s voice mail with no chance to stop the transfer and I have to hang up and try again.
Seek and find- This happens when you call and you patiently wait through all the choices to find the one you want. Then it tells you if you don’t want any of those options wait for an operator. But the operator is never found; instead it continues to ring and if you’re lucky then you at least get the operator voice mail. I have had some that you don’t even get a voice mail; you just have to call back.
Having a competent phone system to route your customers is your chance to show the level of service your clients can expect. If you can’t provide this basic level of service don’t worry, they soon will be calling your competitors.
What do you think? Have you come across any nightmare phone systems?
No comments:
Post a Comment