Casey Hart

Medical Marketing Tip That You’re Overlooking

by

In the age of increasing costs and decreasing medical reimbursements by health insurers, both sole practitioners and medical groups are coming to know the importance of medical marketing for your practice, to survive, to thrive, … Read more

IT Marketing with Messages on hold

by

IT Marketing: what are your customers’ hot buttons? Experience shows that “IT Marketing” using hold messages that focuses on their customer’s hot buttons gets the best response.  Most hold messages start from the wrong direction: what the … Read more

Auto Attendant Greeting

Phone Greetings: are you making these mistakes?

by

You Phone Greetings are the first thing your customers hear when they call you.

For several years, just about business has recorded greetings for their phones.  In spite of the fact that it’s the very first thing your customers and potential customers hear when they call you, and that they could hear that same telephone greetings again and again on a busy day, most businesses don’t pay much attention to how their greetings sound.

Who usually records a company’s main greetings?  Not the boss. And the boss’ secretary usually fights off the task.  A phone installer friend (with a slight accent) told me that he’s usually the one whose stuck recording the telephone announcements, and he’s recorded hundreds of them.  Even he thinks this is a mistake.

No matter who records what your customers hear, here are a few suggestions to make it less painful for them:

Greetings and Prompts are easy to improve

  1. Automated Attendants and Telephone Answering Equipment were originally developed as a cost-saving measure.  But we all know what most people think of them! CallCenterMagazine and AT&T research have shown that the average call takes 2-3 times as long to be routed to the right place as when an operator answers the phone.
  1. We believe that the cost savings of using an automated attendant aren’t the only benefit they offer.  Instead, consider how an automated attendant can actually improve your customer service levels.  How?
    1. Consider what the majority of your callers needs.  Then set up your telephone greetings and prompts to help these callers as quickly as possible.
    2. Some companies give callers lots of different options about where they can go, and callers hear a telephone greetings and then have lots of different levels of prompts to go through to get to the option they want.  That’s fine if you really do have multiple departments the callers go to, but if you don’t, why make the process longer?
    3. Caller information:  some sophisticated telephone systems require callers to enter information, such as telephone number or account number, only to be asked for the same information when they reach a rep.  Wouldn’t it be more efficient (cheaper) for you, and less frustrating for your caller (your customer) to find a way to route the information to your telephone service reps?  Ask your phone installer about how this could work.
    4. Keep all your greetings brief.  Callers are busier and more impatient than ever.  So don’t waste their time.
    5. It’s easier for callers to follow directions if you put the “press 1” information at the end of the sentence.
    6. Night messages: if you offer the caller an opportunity to leave a message, make sure you return the call.  If you can’t follow up on all calls on your next business morning, don’t offer this option.
  2. You only get one chance to make a great first impression.  If possible, us a professional voice.  Make sure that all pronunciations are correct.

Click here for samples of phone greetings that are professionally recorded for our clients.

Let’s talk about the right  phone greetings for your office.

If your callers spend time in a “queue” waiting to be answered after entering their choice, think about putting that time to use, and giving your callers something that will be interesting to them, with Informer Messages on hold and professional Telephone Greetings.