French Laundry

The Telephone is Making a Comeback

In today’s technology-driven world, voicemail may sound like old news. But combine a technologically driven consumer with fears around the current COVID-19 pandemic, and you may find that the telephone is making a comeback. Talking on the phone is back in vogue.

With changes in hours and services due to COVID-19, customers need you to be more communicative and do all the heavy lifting in reminding them why they use your services.

As a business owner, it may be time to dust off and update your current phone systems, policies, and procedures.

A well-scripted, professional greeting, and voicemail can instill your customer’s confidence in you and your business. It gives you a 10 second sound bite to talk about your services, personalize your business, and remind your customer why you are the go-to for their dry cleaning needs.

A greeting can be accomplished with the most basic telephone answering services or stepping up to use apps such as RingCentral or Google Voice with a phone tree system that allows you to save time and route calls to the best person to handle the customer’s request. A system that will enable you to answer a call from anywhere, communicate with your team in real-time, and tracking each call gives you valuable data to improve response times and customer service.

THE TELEPHONE EXPERIENCE

A great phone experience aids customer retention, allowing you to handle every customer even when you can’t get to the phone. Voicemail enables the customer to leave a detailed message, so you will call back with a solution, demonstrating your capableness.

Investment in a phone system or maximizing your current system is a cost-savings measure to improve your bottom line. You no longer have to have someone to be there to answer the phones or task an already busy employee to catch the phone between their other duties. The phone experience is so vital to your brand that it is better to let it go to voicemail than to have someone do it half-fast.

On the flip side, not having a greeting or a message that “voicemail is full” tells your customer that you are too busy or, even worse, are no longer in business. A missed call is a lost opportunity, so test your system to see if it meets today’s customer demands.

CALL YOUR COMPETITORS

Next, take a few minutes to call your competitors; Did the call instill confidence in the store and its services? How would you rate the customer service experience on a scale of 1 to 10?

How does your store rate? If the budget is tight, ask friends and family to mystery shop your store over the telephone and report back. You will improve your customer service by taking the feedback and creating your training schedule around their response.

Be sure to share your findings with your team and include them in making the necessary changes to your system to compliment your brand.