A missed call = a missing opportunity.
You’re losing potential business leads and hindering the expansion of your business. Most importantly, missed calls affect how your customers perceive your business.
Take a step back and look at it from the customer’s perspective:
- It can be frustrating when you can’t reach the person you’re trying to phone.
- If the call diverts to voicemail callers are likely to hang up.
- They may even ring another supplier or competitor instead.
- Leading to further lost opportunities and potential sales revenue.
- Most importantly, the ability to connect with customers and foster long-term relationships with clients is missed.
In fact, approximately 85% of people whose calls are missed don’t call back.
For example:
If you’re an accounting firm that charges an average of $500 per service and you close approximately 50% of incoming phone enquires – each missed call is costing you $250. As a result, missed phone calls can mean lost opportunities to convert prospective callers into paying clients.
You might be thinking, “It’s fine my business has a voicemail!”
When you rely on a voicemail, you are missing out on valuable conversations and time. These callers are likely to phone other suppliers in the interim.
The same logic applies to all businesses. From large government organisations through to one-person sole traders.
Despite the strong presence of digital communication and social media, 80% of all business communication still takes place over the phone.
Yes, that’s correct, 80% of all business communication takes place via phone call!
Missed phone calls can create a poor experience for prospective clients. This leads to a snowball effect of short and long-term implications.
- Message banks can increase workloads as your team must spend time deciphering voicemails.
- Returning these calls will become another chore on the to-do list.
- Time will be spent returning calls, following up and playing phone tag with callers.
Why are calls missed?
Missed calls can be attributed to an array of factors. Some of which include:
- A lack of staff availability.
- The mere reliance on a traditional voicemail system.
- The staff in your business may be unable to tend to every call due to a high workload.
- Two calls may even come in at the same time!
- Employees could be on a lunch break, in a meeting or simply away from their desk.
I’m sure we can all agree that the old school trading hours of 9 – 5, Monday – Friday are a relic of the past. With:
- globalisation,
- the growing integration of technology &
- social media presence
> businesses are needing to establish a 24 x 7 presence.
You need to be readily accessible to existing clients, prospective clients and new opportunities in order to stay competitive. Some people may call during periods of closure or after-hours. It is therefore imperative for businesses to manage incoming calls outside the traditional 9 – 5 pm trading hours. However, this doesn’t mean staff should be working after-hours or into their personal time.
How can your business reduce unanswered calls?
We understand that resourcing a team to deal with extra calls can be cost-prohibitive for many organisations. This is especially true for businesses with unpredictable call patterns.
Partnering with a 24-hour phone answering service can:
- cut costs,
- enhance customer satisfaction &
- improve your overall customer service reputation.
A live answering service guarantees that your clients always have a point of contact with you. This can be a strong asset to any customer service business. With the right outsourced support partner, any business can be present 24 hours, 7 days per week.
A Phone Answering Service employs a group of trained customer service specialists to answer calls on behalf of your business. The agents use a customised script tailored to your business. They take a detailed message and relay this information straight to you via SMS, email, telephone call or via your client portal.
It’s time to stop diverting missed calls to an automated message bank. Work smarter and partner with a Phone Answering Service instead. This ensures that businesses of any size:
- Have a real human answering calls.
- Never miss a call or business opportunity again.
- Let customers contact the business and speak to someone at any time of the day.
> This service will ultimately allow your business to manage calls more efficiently and enhance customer satisfaction. In turn, improving your organisation’s customer service reputation.
What happens if the Live Answering agent does not answer promptly?
At the end of the day, we’re all human. Even when you engage a live answering service, like any business, they may face challenges dealing with peaks and troughs in call volumes.
With any professional and established live answering service, it is important to first establish service levels around average call handle times. For example, 90% of calls may be answered within 10 seconds.
How can we avoid customers hanging up?
To buffer the calls that are not answered within the 10 second time interval, a business introduction can be implemented. It is a simple audio recording used to introduce the business.
- This allows the caller to know they have called your business and that a customer service representative will be with them shortly.
- Hold music can be composed for you.
- Or a menu selection option can be designed and customised to your business needs.
- Following the audio introduction, the call is answered by a live customer service representative.
This simple and cost-effective solution can help mitigate the possibility of unanswered phone calls within your business.
Get In Touch
TMC’s ability to deliver measurable business outcomes is backed by over 45 years of experience. We have a proven record of working with all types of businesses, from large organisations to sole traders. TMC has the best people and technology to ensure optimal delivery and performance at affordable prices. To discuss a personalised solution for your business – Please fill out the website form or alternatively call 0800 230 000 to discuss your options with our experts.
