Business 101 – Customers Many Expectations Starts on the phone. The companies place a great deal of importance on meeting customer expectations. According to Forrester, nearly 95% of leaders say that providing a good customer experience is a top strategic priority, and 75% want to use customer experience as a competitive advantage.
But it’s a big, crowded marketplace out there, full of consumers that want different things at different times via different channels. Given that, you would think that it’s hard to make a sweeping generalization about what “all customers” want, where customer service is concerned. Luckily, research tells us that there are some commonalities we can look at when setting the bar.
Business 101 – Customers Many Expectations Starts on the phone.
Your most effective marketing tool to meet their phone expectations? Your Auto Attendant should be the first On-Hold Message your customer hears! Your phone message system or VOIP message system are the most effective, most direct and least expensive phone marketing tools available – if you are using “on-hold” messaging. It’s pretty safe to say that targeting your company information to pre-qualified callers that are contacting you directly to do business will produce the best results for your marketing dollars. The first thing they will hear when they call is what? A live person or an Auto Attendant? The phone systems Auto Attendant will always give the most consistent voice messaging, never takes a vacation and sound the same whenever called upon! Companies are finding out this is one area that has made them a ton of money and alleviated a ton of headaches on who and how to answer the phone.
One of the biggest areas in customer service is having the right media hook ups for you your customers. More than ever customers have expectations about how they are handled when they contact you. They call and you answer. They start judging you from the first word you say. They might get an Auto Attendant…Hi thanks for calling ________. Press 1 for service 2 for parts etc. So the first contact could be human or machine.
Make sure you put your best foot forward. Remember that customer is linked to others good or bad. Their first customer service experience is going to start driving their friends and family to you or away from you. Make sure you analyze your Auto Attendant and On-Hold Messaging. It represents you more that you do at critical times.
Remember! Business 101 – Customers Many Expectations Starts on the phone.