Some voice mail thoughts

Ford Harding makes some useful points in his blog entry: How to leave a voicemail message -- especially his suggestion that you leave your number early, rather than late, in the message.

I'll implement that strategy. I already slow down when it comes to leaving the callback number, and generally repeat it twice -- to make it much easier for the recipient to respond.

In practice, voice mail responses can still be difficult. Here is an example. Arriving in Raleigh, North Carolina, yesterday, I turned on the cellular phone/Blackberry and found a lengthy message from a good friend inviting me to lunch (in Ottawa!) that day. Holding my carry on bags, walking quickly through the terminal to meet the person taking me to lunch -- in Raleigh -- I somehow had to juggle the phone, the virtually inaudible message, and figure out how to answer.

This is one of the cases where I wish my friend had sent an email with his phone number and email for reply. With that information on the Blackberry, I could quickly scan his message and return his call (by phone) with one click of the dial.

Voice mail messages are inherently inconvenient to return. This is one reason why, while I have a practice of returning all calls within 24 hours, I sometimes fail to return promptly calls from salespeople with propositions of little interest to me, who 'rush' their voice mail message and make me listen to it again and again, to respond. Why bother . . . the answer will be 'no' and I'm not going to be too eager to do business with anyone who both inconveniences me, and makes it difficult to respond.

Who answers the phone?

Seth Godin references this Boingboing blog entry with a 1931 image showing students how the dial phone works. Perhaps we should relearn the basics.

Seth Godin has captured one of the most important marketing messages on the first ring in this blog entry, "Who answers the phone?" The question of how initial phone inquiries are handled can be extended throughout the business; rote, insensitive, and ill-thought (or no) response to phone calls/messages does absolutely no good for your business or brand;thoughtful, fast, and human rather than rote responses will work wonders for your brand, and will do a whole lot more for your business than the slickest brochure or website.

More and more these days, the phone is a secondary method of communication. Many mornings when I am working, I will be at the laptop, exchanging dozens of email messages. Although my phone number is widely displayed, I actually receive few calls. The reason is that the work involved in communicating at both ends is much higher than email -- which allows you to send your message at your convenience (and for you to respond equally at your convenience). The phone is an intrusion -- even when you are set up with a public number to welcome inbound calls -- so what do we do in business?

• We hire telemarketers (or worse yet, computers, to make outbound calls, to bug people, irritate them, and cause them to put up screens and set up answering machines to avoid inbound calls;

and

• We use the same screens (or ill-trained employees) to answer the in-bound calls.

The solution to this problem is to treat all inbound calls with respect, quickly separate the solicitation (or rote survey calls) for a polite decline, and then, listen carefully to the other calls, whether they be a client inquiry or a service request or (gulp) someone perhaps wanting to do business with us.

Perhaps the biggest challenge here is to have employees who can throw the script away and truly engage with the client. This isn't easy -- especially when in certain circumstances the inbound calls seem to follow their own predictable script. And clearly you don't want someone speaking spontaneously and carelessly -- you really don't know if the inbound caller is preparing a lawsuit or representing a competitor!

But I think if you look at the numbers, you'll see something interesting. Say you are a mid-size business preparing to spend $200,000 on a marketing campaign. Wouldn't it make sense to take $20,000 from that budget, pay it to the front-line person who answers your phone, and give the new employee a fancier title than 'receptionist'. And if you are a smaller business, without that type of marketing budget, please remember my previous posting where I advocate that brand is defined less by money than time -- that is your (and your employees') concern and respect for their clients.

P.S. Do we totally adhere to these standards: I wish so, but we have a less-than-perfect voice mail system, and too many of our calls find their way to slow-response limbo (including ones for me). It is something we will fix, and I will measure our progress. If you call me at 888-432-3555 ext. 224, will you get an answer right away (not now, I am at the OGCA symposium) and, if not, can you reach someone 'real' who cares right away (right now, only within business hours, but the phone rings to my home when I'm out of the office), and if not these two, will I return your call within one business day or at the time you request? Feel free to find out, and tell me how we are doing.

Paying for the live voice

This Advertising Age posting makes clear the importance of human contact in customer service. It focuses on consumer rather than business-to-business markets, but at times I wonder if businesses in the name of efficiency (and perhaps some misguided cost savings) have lost a key element in replacing the receptionist with the voice mail tree.
Of course, I risk being seen as speaking two sides out of my mouth -- calls to our office go right to voice mail! In perfect circumstances, you should receive an answer when you hit "O" but in practice I fear some messages find their way into a secondary voice mail trap. This may be fine for some routine things, and may help us to 'screen out' some nuisance calls, but what about clients with legitimate questions needing resolution? We can do better.