Fixing the most common call answering mistakes we see

Phone calls are often low on the list of communication priorities for businesses today, especially when they’ve got emails, chatbots and instant messages.

But customers are still more likely to pick up the phone when they have an urgent or sensitive enquiry, or when calling a small business.

In these circumstances, they prefer the personalised feeling of having a real person on the end of the phone who they can talk to.

But for businesses not focussing on how employees are handling phone calls, this can lead to a number of problems. And many businesses fall into the same mistakes with phone calls.

In this guide, we’ll tell you what those mistakes are so you can identify if your team is making them.

1 – Not having a professional tone

You might have the best phone voice when you answer your own phone, but when you’re busy, or feeling rushed and that incoming call is more of an inconvenience, it’s easy to answer with a tone that makes you sound annoyed or, at the least, not professional.

Answering in a rushed, or annoyed tone can put the call immediately on the back foot and – if the customer is calling with a complaint – you risk escalating the situation.

The answer…

If your employees will be answering calls, you should set clear expectations on how you want calls to be answered.

If you have the capacity to record customer calls you can use these as training tools to guide how call management can be improved.

2 – Not having a proper call-routing plan

Depending on which employee answers the phone, the caller may need to be passed on to someone else to resolve a problem (tech support, for example)

But it’s not always obvious who the best person is to transfer the call to.

This is made worse in businesses that don’t have a specific call routing plan for certain calls – for example, sales or service calls.

And it’s even more difficult today with employees split between working in and out of the office.

The answer…

The best way to fix this problem is to take time to understand the department calls you could receive and assign a number for calls to be forwarded to.

3 – Not taking messages properly

The information taken in a message is key in order to not only return a customer’s call, but to do so effectively.

For example, without the right context over why they were calling, the customer will have to repeat themselves when you call them back (not a great impression).

Or you might not even get the right details to return the call at all (many employees today, for example, instinctively ask for an email address, but often fail to ask for a phone number).

In which case you’re relying on the customer calling you back – or them thinking you’ve simply ignored them (again, not great).

One of the problems with messages is that many offices don’t have set standards for what information should be taken.

This leads to different employees taking different information, and often in different formats.

This can be dealt with on a one off, but when it consistently happens, or the information needs to be input into a CRM (which works better with standards of data entry) it can be chaos.

The answer…

Every business should have a defined standard of what information should be taken for every message, including what format it should be recorded.

The key information should include:

• Name

• Company

• Phone Number

• Email

• Why they were calling

• Time they called (this is in case you have call return obligations within an SLA)

4 – Leaving callers on hold for too long

There are some instances when a customer has to be put on hold – for example, if an employee needs to step away to find information.

The problem is, no-one wants to be left on hold for long periods of time.

It creates a situation where the customer either thinks they’ve been accidentally disconnected, or that you’ve forgotten about them.

Leaving customers on hold for too long also runs the risk of escalating problems when a customer becomes more frustrated the longer they’re left waiting.

In fact, accordingfact according to one study, 60% of callers will hang up if they’re left on hold for more than one minute.

The answer…

If you are in a situation where a caller needs to be put on hold there are a few things you should do:

• Inform the caller you’re putting them on-hold

• Return to the call frequently to provide updates if finding the information is taking longer than you planned

5 – Not knowing how phone systems work

You’d be surprised – given that most offices have a phone on every desk – how many employees don’t actually know how their company phones work beyond picking up the receiver.

Whether it’s using the hold button, or transferring calls to another phone, these are all basic functions many employees don’t know how to use.

This may not be that surprising, given that more than three quarters of employees who are expected to answer the phones in UK businesses say they’ve had no training on how their phones work.

The answer…

If you’re expecting employees to answer the phone they should be given basic training on how your phones work.

Solve your call management with a telephone answering service

If you’re finding yourself making call management mistakes like the ones we’ve mentioned here, a telephone answering service is the answer you’re looking for.

With a telephone answering service you get a team of professional PAs who can deal with your entire call management function, or simply help with overflow during busy periods.

Your trained team works as a part of your company, ensuring all calls are dealt with as professionally as possible, that accurate messages are taken and passed on, and that all customers are left with a great impression of your customer service.