How to Provide the Best Answering Services to Your Clients

Posted October 17, 2012 in business call answering, reliable answering services by admin

Most companies feel they make strong efforts to take good care of their clients. After all, their clients provide the revenue that enables these businesses to stay in business, thrive and grow. However, as an answering service provider, we find many companies fall well short when it comes to best practices for phone etiquette. The unfortunate outcome is that these companies end up alienating too many of the very clients they are trying to support. There is a long list of best practices, but companies that realize their need for improvement in this area should start with the basics. Instill these three phone answering practices in you, and all employees of your organization, and you can virtually eliminate the headaches and customer dissatisfaction issues that can arise simply from poor or overlooked phone etiquette.

1. Be Positive:

Most of us have a long ‘to-do’ list, a very full Inbox and constant interruptions throughout the work day. It is easy to get frustrated or run low on energy as the day wears on, especially on those really busy days. But when you are answering your phone, you need to put all those distractions aside and answer with a positive and confident voice. In the absence of visual communication (i.e. body language), our audio communication skills get even sharper. Through your voice on the phone, clients can actually sense your mood and if you are not at your best. The simple inflection of your voice can be the difference between service to a happy client, and one who doesn’t feel you are really focused on his or her needs.

2. Slow Down:

From the ‘to-do’ list noted above, as well as all the other tasks we may encounter during the work day, most of us have basically programmed ourselves to be task-processors while at work. This is a good thing for getting a lot accomplished in the course of the day, but a bad thing if a customer feels like he or she was simply ‘processed’. Clients don’t want to be processed. The reason they call in instead of using some other communication method (i.e. e-mail, web form, instant message, etc.), is to talk to a live person to resolve their question or issue. If you talk too fast or don’t give them the time to fully explain the reason for their call, they will get the sense that you don’t have time, or don’t want to make the time to properly engage them. This is one of the hardest etiquette issues to overcome for many busy executives because they don’t realize they do this to their clients on a regular basis, until someone calls them on it, or until it’s too late.

3. Show Sincere Interest:

This happens all too often: you get a call about an issue with one of your largest clients. Moments later, you are answering a call from a much smaller client, but your mind is still racing on the large client issue. The smaller client notices your distraction and becomes annoyed that you are not focusing on him or her. People can sense very quickly on the phone when you are not being sincere. Practice this one on every call, no matter who is calling, until it becomes second nature. Whether you get one call a day or 100 calls a day, each caller will be expecting your full attention and your sincere interest in addressing their requests.

Simple and Effective

Most people agree with us that these are some of the core best practices for phone etiquette. The problem is, they tend to assume they and their employees are already following these pretty closely – but they have no way of testing or measuring weather they are really following best practices when answering the phone. When measuring methods are put in place, they are usually surprised at how far off they have been. Whether or not your company utilizes an outside answering service, it is important to understand how well your organization answers the phone. This is a business process and a very important one since it involves direct interaction on a daily basis with your paying clients. Don’t just guess; put the steps in place to ensure you and your staff are utilizing these simple and effective practices.

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