Hat-tip to my colleague Rob Hancocks, who has been telephoning a lot of companies recently on our behalf, for today’s thought. Rob says: “It’s obvious that many businesses are putting more time and effort into making their websites more human, and representative of the type of company they’d like to think they are. But I wonder how many are monitoring the image presented to telephone callers?” Rob reckons that as many as 1 in 5 calls are answered so poorly that – as a prospect – he might even think twice about doing business with the company. While it’s not necessary to have every call answered by an effusive sales representative, there’s no excuse for a surly response, or one where the person concerned appears to know less about their company’s products and services than the caller.
Have you rung your own company recently to see how it comes across to telephone callers? Have you tried both the direct sales lines and the switchboard?
Chris,
You and Rob Hancocks are 100% correct. How many times do we all phone a company to find the telephone response is so bad (on a consistent basis) that it is obvious their own management never phone their own switchboard as an ordinary member of the public would do.