Hello! Try making more time to talk to your clients
I hate automated attendants. Everyone does, including your customers.
In case you're reading this from under a rock, an automated attendant is a computer answering the phone instead of a human, and giving you a bunch of push-one, push-two options that make customers mad. There's a big difference between the automated attendant, which everyone hates, and voicemail, which only salespeople trying to make a sale hate.
Voicemail is the technology that allows for a message to be left in an individual's personal recording mailbox if they are unable to answer their phone.
So if everyone hates the automated attendant, how can you use it to build your business and your relationships with customers?
Enter Andy Dinkin, the CEO of Charlotte-based Tegra Telephone Systems. "Easy! Never use it on customers!" exclaims Dinkin, who is dedicated to better internal and external communications through the proper use of the telephone. "Use the automated attendant for employees and vendors. The purpose of an automated attendant is to route callers to an extension without human intervention. As you know, it is misused by companies that answer every call this way. These are the same companies that claim to be in the business of meeting customers' needs."
Come on Andy, what about the money? "I'm on a quest to be the best. I figure if I achieve 'best' at what I love to do, the money will just show up," Dinkin says. Good figuring. Now I'm interested in learning more.
"The best phone systems have call-processing capability," Dinkin continues. "This enables a company to utilize both voicemail and automated attendant technologies."
Important: What distinguishes a good call processing application vs. one that will cause your customers to call your competitor has nothing to do with technology and everything to do with implementation.
Below is Dinkin's method of integrating these technologies and building your business at the same time.
"I have called this the 'Andy Dinkin back-door automated attendant' application," says Dinkin with pride. "Here in the south, people use the back door if they know you well. Your employees and your vendors (all non-customers) should use your business back door."
Problem: ACME Manufacturing Co. is giving a poor response to first-time callers and customers because their receptionist is inundated with calls. The owner of the company is from the "I hate voicemail" and "I'll never have automated attendant" school.
But a closer review reveals that a large percentage (42%) of incoming calls are not from customers, but from suppliers, friends and family, vendors, and employees calling into the office to check messages.
What percentage of your calls are from people who don't need personalized phone answering? If you have no idea welcome to the club. Most businesses have never taken the time to find out.
Solution: ACME will continue to have a live human (the receptionist) answer the main line and a number of subsequent rollover lines. For those repetitive calls from employees and vendors, a secondary, or back-door number, would be answered by an automated attendant, and directed to the person requested or their voicemail.
"Since the back-door number is an unpublished number, only known to those you decide to give it out to, your customers will be answered by a warm human voice during normal business hours," Dinkin says. "Those that have the back-door number will also have been given the extension number of the parties they call frequently, and will be able to access those people without taking the receptionist's time. In the event that the person they dialed is not available to take the call, it will be forwarded to a personal voice mailbox."
Note: At anytime, a caller can dial "0" and be connected with a live person. By calling the back-door number, a company employee can also check their own messages without going through the receptionist.
"What has been created in the back-door automated attendant (BDAA) application is a situation that actually improves customer service by eliminating everyday repetitive calls," Dinkin says. "Now the receptionist has more time to deal with customers and prospective customers."
Triple win: The non-customer caller gets through faster, the customer has more time to be helped, and the company is perceived by the customer as "on-the-ball" and caring.
"This application works," Dinkin says. "Just ask one of my many 'I hate voicemail' voicemail customers."
There is a secret formula to determine if BDAA is right for your company. Every percentage of calls your company receives from internal people (your employees) or vendors is a percentage of time not spent giving attention to the person who pays the phone bill and the salaries of the people who answer it: the customer and his cousin, the prospect.
"The only question you need to ask yourself is the obvious one: How important is it for me to spend quality time with my customers so that they like me and order from me instead of my competitor?" Dinkin asks. "Then get a BDAA system installed as fast as you can."
