Sales Prevention Departments… How is Your Phone Answered?
How is your telephone answered? Are you using a real person or an automated attendant with voice prompts?
Either way, I’d encourage you to “mystery shop” your own company. Mystery shopping is the process of pretending to be a prospect and calling, e-mailing, or visiting your business to see how well customer service is handled.
What I’m focusing on here are your phones… I hate it when I call my bank, get forced to go through all sorts of prompts, only to sit on hold forever before being transferred to a rep who doesn’t speak English fluently and who can’t help anyway. So many reps these days seem completely untrained, unempowered, and inept — it amazes me. Then there are the voice-automated attendants that if not configured properly send you to “voice-mail hell” where you’ll freeze over before you get any help.
