Since the Covid epidemic hit, tens of thousands of businesses have made the jump and embraced VoIP or IP Telephony. Unfortunately just because you deploy a technology, it doesn’t mean that it works. Most business owners never call into their own phone system or test if it is handling their calls properly and so have no idea that they are missing so many phone calls.
I have lost count of the number of companies of all size and description that I have tried to contact this last year, only to be hit with a brick wall of automated attendants that don’t route the call where it should, or where I need.
Or my call might route to a faceless, nameless voicemail boxes where you don’t know who will be picking up the message (and from my experience nobody does as messages have been consistently un-returned).
Or even more than that, my call has been met by a phone system that simply rings and rings giving no indication if the business is open or closed. Is the ringing even being heard anywhere at the other end??
At a time when surely every potential customer is more important thean ever, ensuring that ALL calls are handled and answered most efficiently is a must. Most of these companies will be spending money on marketing of some description with the aim of generating new business and this money is being wasted if their company isn’t even receiving the enquiry.
Indeed, this is the same for enquiry email addresses or enquiry forms on a companies’ website. And again a lack of response is something that I have sadly experienced when enquiring using both these methods this past year and before.
My advice to any business owner large, small or one man band is to test your email and web enquiry forms and email addresses. And regularly make test calls to your own phone system, choosing the various auto-attendant options if the system offers this, and at various times of day as well as out of hours.
And if at any time when testing this you get an engaged tone, it means that you do not have enough channels/lines.
For more advice on any of the above or to discuss improvements to your businesses telephone set up where we can ensure that you receive EVERY PHONE CALL, please contact us on 01793 863450 OR VISIT WWW.SOUTHERNVOICEANDDATA.CO.UK