Your business phone and the assumptions we make

From time to time I am asked to make presentations on behalf of Paperclip to franchisees, trade associations, networking groups and others about how they use their Business Phone and how call answering ccouuld improve their revenue.

During recent presentations, I have focussed on challenging the audiences’ assumptions about the telephone as a means of business communication. The presentations focus on leaving the audience with five Learning points drawn from our experience with Paperclip. Wherever possible I support the learning points with statistics taken from reputable publications. I also like to give the audience a ‘takeaway’ that they can implement the next day in their organisations.

23 seconds: the ‘hang up’ experiment

I start the presentations with a short experiment. I ask the audience to stand. I explain that a phone will start to ring and that they should remain standing until they, personally, would hang up the phone due to the lack of response. When they reach the ‘hang-up’ point, they are to sit down.

After the first few rings, people start to sit down. This increases over time. I suspend the ‘experiment’ at 23 seconds because I read somewhere that this was the average length of time someone would wait for a call to be answered. In the ‘experiment’, after 23 seconds invariably all but one or two people have sat down. Both the findings of the ‘experiment’ and Paperclip’s experience indicate that the average length of wait time to hang up is likely to be considerably less than 23 seconds.

Expectations have changed

The lesson is that expectations have changed. As a society, we are becoming more and more impatient; we expect things to happen much quicker. You never hear anybody saying, ‘That website loaded too quickly’ or ‘I’m so glad my conveyancing solicitor is sending me a letter rather than an email’. The phone is no different, today’s callers want it to answer quickly; to give you an indication, at Paperclip we answer in 4 seconds.

Do you advertise your phone number?

I follow up the 23-second experiment by asking the audience to raise their hands if they advertise their phone number – landline and/or mobile – on their business cards, brochure, website and so on. Everyone’s hand is raised. This is followed by a deceptively simple observation. If you advertise your phone number, and the reason you advertise it is because you want prospects to call you, then surely both commercial logic and good manners dictate that it is important for the phone to be answered.

First learning point – Make the phone a priority in your business

Make sure you are capturing every customer call and every potential sales enquiry.

‘Introducer Today’, a publication targeting estate agents, used some basic mathematics to calculate that £30bn was ‘lost’ by businesses in the UK due to missed calls each year – that’s about £5,500 per business.

As I point out to my audience, whilst some of this business may have truly been ‘lost’, in most cases the missed call effectively created a customer for a competitor.

Second learning point – Missed calls create customers for your competitors.

When I am presenting, I ask the audience whether they agree with the first two learning points. The answer is ‘yes’. I then ask them whether they miss any calls (they all do) and what steps they have put in place to avoid missing calls. I tend to receive answers such as:

• It’s not a problem, Anne. We have hunt groups.
• It’s not a problem, Anne. We use voicemail.
• It’s not a problem, Anne. We rely on email.

Let’s take a look at each of these in turn:

Research undertaken in the US by AT&T showed that 70% of business calls that are answered are placed on hold – that is, you are in a queue (this could include being placed on hold after making a selection from a menu of options). When placed on hold, AT&T reported that 60% hung up.

Third learning point – Customers hate holding

Be wary about placing callers on hold and, if you do, be very clear with the caller about the actions you will be taking to deal with their call.

As far as voicemail is concerned, research by Forbes indicated that 80% of callers directed to a voicemail don’t leave a message. I think that is low. In my experience, people just don’t like or trust voicemail.

It is also important to recognise that, even when managed well, voicemail is a work generation tool; on average it takes three calls to re-establish contact with someone who leaves a voicemail.

Fourth learning point – Find an alternative to voicemail

Unless it’s an out-of-hours service, forget voicemail.

Finally, email. It is undeniably true that there are many more business communication channels today, and it is important to be responsive to all of them. As a general rule, existing customers may be willing to place orders via email or some other digital channel. If their requirement is urgent, however, they will pick up the phone. Reason enough to ensure your calls are answered.

For prospects (potential new customers), however, the most common B2B buying journey is Google research, followed by a visit to your website to confirm your credentials, and then a phone call.

Fifth learning point – Don’t underplay the importance of your business phone

For most businesses, the phone remains a rich and valuable communication channel. Don’t abuse it.

Take away – Mystery shop your own business

The takeaway I leave for audience members to implement is to mystery shop their own business: How long does it take for your call to be answered? Almost as importantly, how is the call answered? Is the person answering the call ‘on brand’?

I advise audience members to mystery shop at the pressure points of the day; lunch break, opening time, end of the day, Friday afternoon. If the mystery shop indicates long delays until a call is answered, and/or poor call handling etiquette: What are they going to do about it (see the second learning point!).

A question to ponder

I like to end my presentation with an open question for delegates to ponder. I ask them to think back to the ’23-second’ experiment at the start of the presentation. Why would you expect your customers and prospects to wait longer for their call to be answered than you would yourself?

What is your answer to this question?

Pause for thought?

Have the learning points and take-away from this article given you pause for thought? If they have, call me at Paperclip on 01246 418181. I’m happy to discuss the challenges you face and to investigate with you the potential role and impact call answering could have on your business’s customer service and sales performance.

Related Links
What is the true cost of a receptionist?
Could call answering work for your business?
The true cost of a missed call
How Paperclip’s services help businesses to grow

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