
When people call your company, you have their unwavering attention. Their minds are open to any messages you tell them because they want to do business with you. They didn’t call because they just want to have a chat, otherwise they would have called their friends. But, no. They called because they want to do business with you. Customers call because they want your brand to fill a need to solve a problem. How well your business work around these situations can make or break your brand.
Let me tell you this. Have you tried doing spy calls? Those types of calls where you pretend to be a prospective customer to a certain competitor? You might be surprised at how customer representatives entertain calls and handle customer queries. Some of them even have food in their mouths while answering the phone. Other agents, of course, sound enthusiastic and happy helping you with your requests and needs. However, there are others who sound bored like they’ve got better things to do.
Now, agents are not the worst part. How some customer representatives handle the call, I’m sure you can handle. But, what’s quite unforgiveable is the fact that they have a radio station playing as their music on-hold but running a commercial about the competing company? (…this makes absolutely no sense what so ever? In fact, its taboo in business!!)
That said, you need to make sure that you’re on-hold marketing includes important information such as updates from the company, latest offers, even frequently asked questions by callers – anything that would persuade callers to put an order.Remember that they have called because they’re interested. When you don’t pay attention to them, they can simply hang-up and call other companies who’d be more willing to make them happy.
On hold messages are created to make the customer’s on hold time worthwhile. It should be a wonderful experience. Of course, nobody wants to be put on hold; remember even the most patient caller can still get annoyed with unprofessional on-hold messages. But, if truth be told, nobody likes to be put on hold and hear nothing, or worse, listen to a poorly tuned radio station.
Pay attention to your on-hold message script and make sure that your message is worth listening. Some owners are too busy running their business that at some point, they fail to consider how customers and prospects perceive the brand. Always think about your customers and how to make them happy. After all, without them there is no business!