Phone call best practices for service businesses
When you’re a service-based business like a law firm, accountant, doctor, or consultant, the way you handle phone calls can make or break your business. Every customer who calls you or who receives a call from you will judge your business based on their experience of your brand on the phone. You need to make sure that you’re providing excellent customer service to keep them coming back – and that’s where best practices and phone call centers can help. An excellent in-house customer service rep or call center will be able to answer your calls promptly, connect with customers on a personal level, and be an extension of your brand. In this blog post, we’ll discuss best practices you can set for your staff, what to look for in a phone center solution for a service-based business and how it can help grow your business!
Making it a priority to answer the phone starts with a solid setup
Running a service-based business can be challenging. You’re always on the go, and you never seem to have enough time to do everything that needs to be done. That’s why it’s so important to have an excellent customer service phone system in place that can handle your company’s call volume. This will help you manage your calls more efficiently and grow your business at the same time because people appreciate connecting with a live person when they call! You can use tools like Call Rail to route calls to different phone numbers, extensions, or even cell phones so that if one person cannot pick up, another will get the call. You can even program call flows in the system to route calls differently depending on what day and time it is with a click of a few buttons. For example, let’s say that your phone systems are down one day, you can simply log into your account and redirect all phone calls to a cell phone so you don’t miss anything.
If you can answer the phone, you will stand out
A recent study by Clio, a law firm case management software company, revealed that one out of every three phone calls to law firms are not answered by a live person. This is likely the case for other service-based businesses as well. So companies that actually make sure that live people answer the phone can easily distinguish themselves as more attentive and caring to potential new customers who reach out for the first time. This is especially true if callers have an urgent need because if they do not get an answer, they are likely to just move on to the next service provider on their list. This happens a lot with consumers who search the web for services. They may call in response to the service provider that serves them an ad on Google or has invested in SEO to rank at the top and simply move on to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, or 5th best option instead because they want to talk to a live person.
The phone center should be an extension of your brand
Whether your phone calls are being answered by your staff or if you’re looking for a phone center to help answer your customer service calls, it’s important that everybody understands the importance of representing your brand in a positive way. This means that people need to be well-trained on how to answer questions about your products and services, as well as have a good understanding of what makes your business unique. They should also know when it’s appropriate to transfer a call to another department or even schedule an appointment for the caller.
You should train your phone call solution
Hiring people to answer phone calls internally or through a call center without establishing goals and guidelines through some sort of formalized training can be a huge mistake. People need to be trained to answer the phone for your brand so they have the tools they need to be successful. You can provide a training program for the staff that will handle phone calls internally that includes strategies to connect with callers, best practices for setting appointments with minimal no-shows, and how to handle objectives to make more sales. If you don’t have a training program, you can download a copy of our phone etiquette deck below for free. We also offer custom training for businesses to help you actually deliver training for your staff based on best practices.
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Look for a call center that can deliver more than just a phone answering service
If you decide to outsource some or all of your calls, you should expect the customer experience to be seamless between you and the provider. Your clients and potential customers should not be able to distinguish between you and your call center. This is, unfortunately, a challenge because most call centers hire a lot of people to handle a lot of calls for various companies, and it can get tough to train them to really grasp your brand’s voice and the nuances of your business. Aside from getting an answering machine, there is nothing more frustrating to a caller to get an answer from a customer service rep that sounds like a robot and has no idea how to help them or answer any of their questions.
According to Adam Quevedo, founder of a law firm call center named Avilaba, you can successfully outsource phone calls to a call center if you look for specific qualities. His company provides law firms with phone call support as part of a brand reputation suite of services, and they put a lot of emphasis on training. “On average, it takes us about three weeks to onboard a new client because we put our agents through a lot of training on each brand we work with,” said Adam. He also recommends looking for a call center or reputation management brand that:
- specializes in your field
- assigns a set number of agents solely to your company
- can manage appointment software
- knows how to use your CRM
- takes initiative to answer common questions
- is trained in handling sales objectives
- understands your customer journey
- provides you with analytics of your calls
Adam explained that before taking on a new client, they take time to map out the customer journey in its entirety from the moment they contact a law firm for the first time through the end of their service, so their agents know exactly how to assist customers before they convert and after. In some instances, they include outbound phone call services to help law firms confirm appointments, give clients updates on their cases, and more. In addition, they help with intake through web chats, social media, and other digital channels. They also provide feedback based on what customers are saying to help our clients improve their services.
If your business is multilingual, your call center solution should be too!
There are many call center solutions out there that offer multilingual solutions, but you need to take steps to ensure that your customers are comfortable with the quality of the communications. It can be frustrating to get a customer services representative that speaks their language but has a thick accent that they can barely understand. One way to address this is to designate specific phone numbers to different languages. For example, you can have a customer service number for Spanish speakers that rings through a Spanish-speaking attendant vs. trying to find a fully bilingual agent who may speak poor Spanish. You can also use bilingual or multilingual greetings to identify their preferred language and transfer them to an agent based on their preference. Whatever solution you decide to go with, you should test it with actual customers to make sure they are comfortable and make adjustments if they are not.
Ask for help before you make a decision that can cost you time and money
If you’re looking for a phone center solution that can help grow your service-based business, make sure to keep these things in mind! You’ll be glad you did! If you need help or have questions that were not addressed in this blog, please set up a free consultation with us so we can help you work through your unique situation before you commit to a service. Finding a call center that can give your business the support it needs to grow is very challenging because most call centers out there are frankly not very good. You can also contact us for more information on corporate training on phone etiquette for service-based businesses and for help with getting a call center solution that is right for you. You can also click here to learn more about our live customer service workshop!
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