When you are on the phone with a customer, you are probably thinking about how you want to get their questions answered, that meeting scheduled or your sales pitch done so that you can move on to the next call or task. You may have never realized that if you were to make every phone call about the caller, you’d actually see more success with the call and retaining their business.
It’s hard to make every call about them when you are trying to accomplish so much in one day. You are a jack of all trades when you run a business and there isn’t always time to make small talk, to pry for more information or to answer every single question your customer wants to chat about. Instead, you want to get it over with, make it brief and move on to the next thing. When you are this busy, it’s time to bring in some extra help in one way or another.
You don’t need to go as far as hiring a full-time receptionist that you don’t have the office space for or the money to provide a salary for; instead, just bring on a virtual receptionist that can take care of some of the quality phone calls you don’t have the time for. Here is a look at how your virtual receptionist can make your phone call about the caller better than you can.
How can they help me?
Your company is getting calls left and right throughout the day and there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to be able to take your time to give a quality response to your customers that call. They may want to inquire more about your product or services or they may discuss an issue they are having with a recent purchase.
Rather than give them the time they deserve to chat, you want to brush it off to just offering a discount for when they stop in or taking a message and hoping to remember to call them back. Your customers don’t feel heard or appreciated when they go to voicemail, get told they will get a call back or aren’t being treated like royalty when they have a complaint or issue that customer service should be handling promptly.
Rather than trying to make time in your already busy schedule, it might be time to bring in a virtual receptionist who will take that time you don’t have to spend with your customer on the phone. They will make sure their needs are met, their concerns are addressed and their questions are answered.
They can transfer to the right person if the call is urgent and they can take a message if it’s a not-so-urgent situation. Whatever you need specifically, they can customize that to how they take the calls. Plus, they can schedule and reschedule appointments as needed or answering frequent questions so that you aren’t taking these mundane calls as you’re in the middle of several other tasks.
How professionalism can increase
In addition to not having to worry about anymore missed calls or worrying about having enough time to talk to your callers, a virtual receptionist can up the professionalism level that you may have let slip through the cracks. You might be used to saying “I need your name” rather than “May I have your name,” or “You’ll have to set up an appointment” rather than “I’d love to set up an appointment for you to stop in.” Phrases like these that you’re used to using in a rush will be changed to sound more professional and positive to your customer base.
If a call is more urgent, your virtual receptionist can transfer the call right away to the correct person which will make your urgent callers know they are being handled immediately. Your customers won’t have to hear you say “Hold, please” or “You’ll have to talk to so-and-so about that” anymore; instead, your virtual receptionist will use phrase like “So-and-so would be the right person to talk to you, may I try his line for you?” and “May I place you on a brief hold?”
By bringing on a virtual receptionist, you are proactively making every call about the caller because you understand you aren’t available to do so with everything else going on. Bring one on and watch how your customer service rankings increase and your customer base expands.
