Call Handling Service is Integral Part of the New Communications Mix

Posted April 19, 2013 in after hours answering service, call handling services by admin

For many decades, the phone was the primary method utilized when you couldn’t communicate face-to- face. Then along came e-mail and by the late 1990’s adoption of e-mail was nearly universal. But in the last ten years or so, digital communications exploded and people now have literally hundreds of ways in which they can communicate. The ‘phone and e-mail only’ folks are now in the minority as most individuals have at minimum a half-dozen ‘channels’ through which they communicate every day in their professional and personal lives.

“Change, Or Else…”

Personally, I have been to a handful of conferences in various industries over the last several months and noticed they all had a reoccurring theme: “You need to adopt new ways in which you communicate with your clients, or you may not be in business much longer…” No matter what business you are in, the buyers of your services or products have more control over the buying process than they’ve ever had. This includes how they prefer to learn about, and communicate with your business practice. Obviously it is not practical for most businesses to be in every channel, but if you are not at least doing an annual communications review and gap analysis to understand the growing channel preferences of your clients, you may be falling behind.

No, the Phone is Not Dead

As a professional call handling service, we have been keenly aware of the digital communication revolution and how it impacts our industry. Fortunately, the phone is still a vital part of business communications; it just needs to be utilized on a more strategic level to enhance client engagement. People tend to use their preferred digital channels for standard and non-urgent communications, but when they get close to a buying decision, or have questions that your digital channels are not able to address, they want to speak to a live person. By providing a live person (instead of the dreaded voice-menu/voice-mail box) at a critical time in the communications process, you are able to provide effective service to those callers even when you and your staff are not available. The proper integration of digital communications and live answering services is being used as a competitive advantage to grow revenue, improve customer retention and generally be more accessible to your target audiences.

Usability Counts

It is important to keep in mind that the basic concepts of communication have not changed; we just have a lot more unique tools with which to perform the communications function. In recent years, we have seen many companies over complicate the process because they get too wrapped up in the technology and/or the new digital channels. They tend to overlook the important question of “am I easy to do business with in the eyes of my customers?” For your communications review and gap analysis exercise, that question should act as a starting point, regardless of the size or function of your business. Please share your thoughts, have you done a thoughtful communications review recently? If so, how often do you revisit your communication plans or policies? We’d like to hear from you.

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