How to better manage your business phone calls

Business communication is incredibly important when you have your own company. It’s how you can connect with your employees, business partners and, more importantly, with your prospective and existing customers. One vital instrument you use to keep communication with your clients is your phone. Aside from the internet, email, or personal engagement on your stores or branches, phone calls also play an essential role when dealing with your clients.

Inbound calls are one of the most unpredictable ways used when dealing with clients because they may come at any time, or any place. Outbound calls, in contrast, may be performed at a scheduled time or with urgency, depending on the purpose of the call. Either way, as a business owner, you must always be prepared to handle phone calls whatever the situation may be and even if the time and place is inconvenient for you.

Over time, you’ll most likely be expanding not just your sales, your service areas, or the scope of your products and services, but also your target market and number of customers. When this happens, you’ll probably find yourself handling more business phone calls. Keeping up with these calls is necessary since open and effective communication lines can lead to having more customers and, ultimately, more sales.

You need to follow good management practices when handling business phone calls. Whether it’s an urgent, unexpected, or a scheduled call, your company must always be ready when answering and entertaining them. How you manage and answer your calls will decide how your customers feel about your brand. Remember, mismanaging business phone calls is one of the major ways a company could lose their customers.

To ensure a top-notch service, here are a few ways to better manage your business phone calls:

1. Select the right tools for the job

Aside from making sure that your customers receive satisfactory assistance through your phone call services, you also must ensure that you and your personnel can handle these calls smoothly. When your clients contact your company, it often means they’re ready to do business with you and/or settle deals. In return, you must make sure their experience with your services is pleasant and welcoming, even if it’s just over the phone. This won’t just help the clients stay in touch with you again and again, but it can also create a good name for your company. If you fail to cater to their needs or concerns, it may be hard to gain back their trust again.

To ensure smoother call handling, your company needs to use phones and devices that are user-friendly. Consider investing in a virtual phone system that offer tools and features that can make your life so much easier. For instance, Call Cowboy auto dialer enables you to automatically choose from a list of customer phone numbers and dial them. It’s the perfect tool if you’re doing numerous outbound calls every day. Features like this will help boost your customer service team’s productivity and ensure customer satisfaction.

2. Know your clients’ basic information or records

There are times when you’ll get repeat phone calls from the same clients. It’s particularly important that by their second call, you already know their name, the purpose of the call, and other records which may be related to your earlier transaction with them. Make it a priority that every time a client calls you for the first time, you must be able to record their basic information. This includes their name, address, company name (if applicable), purpose of the call, and other details which may be essential for future reference. After that, make sure to save their contact details and notes on your system so whoever from your team picks up the next call will know what to do. By doing this, you’ll be alert and prepared when they reach out to you again.

In situations where the caller is a brand-new prospective client, it’s understood that they may appear as an unknown number on your screen. Train your customer representatives to be calm and to focus on the main details. Start it off with an inviting and positive greeting, as it can make a good first impression on the client. Sometimes, these greetings will signal to the client if they’re talking to someone who can help them, or if they’re dealing with that type of person who’s unpleasant and unwelcoming. The latter could scare them off and make them never want to contact your company again.

Overall, knowing your clients better is the way to make your relationship with them more personal and long-lasting. Clients love it when they’re treated as if they’re valued and their time is important. On top of building a good relationship, it also builds trust which is a key factor in creating a reliable brand and boosting sales.

3.Be easily accessible

As your business grows, your customer service team should be able to keep up with the changes. This might mean that you’ll need to use not just one business phone number, but several ones. Your customer can choose from them, depending on the type of service or product that they’d like to avail. However, this can also be disadvantageous for your company. Releasing multiple points of contact can be a hassle on the client’s part. It might be inconvenient and time-consuming for your customers to dial multiple numbers to see which one fits their concern.

What’s more, when you have clients worldwide, they need you to be immediately accessible. In cases like this, a non-fixed VoIP system can come in handy. Non-fixed VoIP numbers are numbers that are not linked to a particular business address. These virtual phone numbers can be accessed through a wide range of free services. Non-fixed VoIP numbers offer more flexible features for you and your company. They allow you to contact your clients anytime and anywhere worldwide. They’re also very affordable and extremely easy to use. The important thing is that they help make sure that your clients can reach out to you anytime, while also making it easy for your team to handle these calls.

4. Reduce waiting times

Not everyone knows that answering phone calls quickly can create a positive impact on the client. It shows that your company is very keen and ready to assist your clients, and it would reflect on your service and products. It’s also not just about answering the call quickly within 3 rings, but also picking it up with a confident and assuring tone that whatever the case is, your team can assist the customers with their inquiries or needs.

Another tip is to make sure that you don’t hold your clients on the line for too long before transferring them to another line. No one wants to wait on the line for even more than 30 seconds, hence being quick and on time is essential when managing business phone calls.

5. Customize your script

If you’re really determined to manage your calls better, it’s highly recommended that you customize your own script. Your team also needs to be acquainted with the main points to be said when receiving calls, expected or unexpected. This will minimize or even eliminate the possibility of your staff answering the calls with umm’s or ahh’s, which can give the clients the impression that your team is not well-informed or prepared to discuss your products and offerings.

Implement a standardized greeting when answering a call, taking messages, or forwarding them to other lines. This shows uniformity, and lets the client know that whoever may receive him on the line, the company is ready to help them out.

6. Connect with your clients well

It’s ideal that you make each of your callers feel important. Avoid answering them in a bored or robotic tone. Ask them questions which can help you learn more about their buying habits or what type of product or service would fit them best. You can also give them advice or be their guide when they’re having a tough time choosing over which of your products to purchase. This will help you build a good relationship with your client and make them trust you, which increases the chance that they’ll buy from you and come back again.

7. Properly endorse to your team 

There may be cases when you are not available to entertain calls at all due to your hectic schedule or because you’re in a place with bad reception. When these things happen, it’s best to endorse your company phone to your staff. This way, your number will still be available. Any calls will be received by your team for you. Bringing your company phones where there’s poor reception can have a negative reflection on your company. The line may get cut off, it’s easier to misinterpret things, or you may relay misleading information. The safest way is a proper endorsement of company phones so customer problems and concerns will still get entertained and addressed right away.

If there are instances that your client is calling to intentionally and specifically talk to you on the phone, your staff will have to leave you messages and endorse a list of persons who are waiting for your call back. Remember, you must return the call within one to two business days. After all, one of the few things that annoy some clients the most is trying to reach your business a lot of times and not getting returned calls within a reasonable time. It’s even better if the callback is done within the day the client called. The earlier you call your clients back, the better it is for them and the faster you may get your sale or resolve your problem. This technique can reinforce a favorable impression of your business that you want to foster.

8. Supply email options

Sometimes, there are topics or information which may be hard to communicate or talk about over the phone. You may offer them the option to email you instead. In many cases, the client will choose the email over the call as you both can go through the details multiple times and double check everything. When providing your email address, verify that they got it right or spelled the email correctly to avoid bouncing messages.

9. Summarize and end on a positive note

Before ending a call, summarize what you and the caller have talked about. If you’re talking to brand-new clients, verify whether you have their personal information listed down correctly. Summarize the key points that you have discussed. It’s important you both go over the details to avoid relaying wrong information. As for complaints, make sure that before you end the call, you’ve provided a positive outcome or resolution for the client. If it still needs further investigation, make sure to inform the caller about what will happen next or when they can expect the next call for updates.

10. Consistency

Managing business phone calls is not a one-man job, it’s the responsibility of the entire company. You have to ensure that everyone in the company answers the phone in the same standardized way. When your company is known to be very responsive and action-driven, you can attract more prospective clients and entice your existing customers do more business with you in the future.

Good customer service skills are crucial to every business and organization. Whatever type of business or company you’re managing, handling business phone calls efficiently is essential. Your company’s business phone is one of your most powerful business assets. If you don’t have enough knowledge and patience to control and manage your business calls, you may often view this as a nuisance to your daily operations.

However, it is important that you and your team learn how to handle these business calls professionally. This is one of the ways that a company can make or break a deal with their clients. Sometimes, people make simple mistakes when answering calls, but the seemingly minor errors can have a long-lasting effect on your business. With the right tools and proper employee training, you can take your business’s call management to the next level.

 

01/12/2020