Had you noticed how answering a ringing telephone nowadays, can be something of a lottery? Chances are, the caller could be a call centre employee, confident of your right to insurance compensation, lower energy costs or a better phone deal.
Have you also noticed how it’s increasingly difficult to pre-identify them from the caller identification number? Many have shifted from 0800 prefixes, a dead giveaway, to city landlines. For businesses like ours, second-guessing whether-the caller is a customer is impossible, so answering the call unavoidable.
Instead, the tell-tale sign is now an initial silence, set against a background noise of busy voices. Presumably this is to allow your caller time to write down the name you introduced yourself with five seconds earlier. “Hello, Bill speaking”--- 5 second pause--- “Yes, could I speak to Bill please?”
If you are sufficiently pressed, you could always try terminating the call during the pause. Anxiety that it may yet be a customer will typically hold you back, until you are left with the dilemma of how to bring matters to a rapid conclusion, retaining the politeness that your parents and grandparents drummed into you as essential to good character. “Everybody has a job to do”.
Mind you, previous generations usually possessed more time than telephones, or disposable incomes. My grandmothers would while away pleasant afternoons at front-room windows, contentedly observing the comings and goings of passers by. How they might have welcomed such a cold-caller, eagerly turning a newcomers canvassing into a life-story investigation. For every six call centres established, my nans and their generation could have put three out of business.
The strange thing is, call centres aside, for many businesses the telephone is now an almost anachronistic marketing tool. Take our water bottle business for instance; information technology is such that if you so wished, you could find, learn and order everything you require on-line without ever needing to speak to us.
For those of you more disposed towards an obliging word however, don’t despair. A good business recognises the value of a telephone as a listening tool. So, whilst we’re modern enough to serve your online needs seamlessly, we’re still old fashioned enough to know the value of helpful personal communication. It may be product excellence that helped build our business but it’s customer excellence that holds it together.
Sometimes it takes a simple phone call and a pleasant conversation to remind us that the company we are relies on the company we keep. Customer calls are welcomed and help make our working day more enjoyable too. So if it’s easier for you to phone us to talk through your needs or enquiries, feel free. Just ring 01792 863331 and ask for Margaret or Mario.
One small request though, no five-second pause after we have introduced ourselves. Please!
