Can You Hear Me Now Is You Phone Killing Your Business

Writen by Meredith Gossland

This is a really cranky article, but someone has to write it!

Why do business owners continue to invest in automated phone mazes when we all know everyone hates them? Mom and Pop or multi-billion dollar company, growth is dependant on customer satisfaction. (…unless you have a monopoly)

It is beyond belief that as many times as we all have hung up on automated phone service, that business owners still think it is better to have a machine answer questions than to have a live, friendly, intelligent human being answer the phone who can quickly take care of a clients needs on an individual basis.

Haven't these business owners had to deal with voice mail hell? Don't they hang up in frustration when they hear "Press 1 for English press 2 for Spanish, Press 3 for locations, press 4 for business hours, press 5 for our web address, press 6 for payment locations, press 7 to leave a message, press 8 to return to the main menu press 9 to speak to an operator." Then when 9 is pressed you hear "All agents are currently serving other customers. Your call is very important to us. Your estimated wait time is 15 minutes."? AUUUUUUUUGH!

The automated phone system purchasers seem to assume that all phone calls are either stupid questions or trivial issues, such as my account balance at a bank ( I don't think that's stupid or trivial), or where the business is located (especially important for retail stores and not trivial if the caller is going there to buy something), or the calls are complaints(Better solve the problem with a live person than create a furious and frustrated ex-client who's going to bad mouth your business all day, or all week.)

These office managers, C.E.O.s, and entrepreneurs assume you already know the person or department you want and most important they don't want to use up an employees valuable time ($7.75 per hour) taking care of a customer or making a sale when they can have a cheap and brainless machine answering their phone and losing customers left and right.

Automated phone systems have even gone so far as to make sales calls at dinner time! Telling the poor soul on the receiving end to then call the company and ask about their products. ???????? (Of course the company didn't even want to spend 30 seconds on the phone with the prospective customer until the prospect called them!) What is wrong with this picture?

This article was written for the victims of these systems. No... not the customers...the business owners.

I can think of at least 10 calls that I have made in the past month that could have resulted in a sale for the company if someone had just taken the time to answer the phone. Ten phone calls that will not be made again. I am one of the silent lost customers. I won't call back. I won't write a letter of complaint. I simply will not come back. Period!

There are at least 30 companies that I will never do business with because of the kind of service I get on the phone. (They all have competitors who are willing to speak to me personally on the phone without making me wade through 15 minutes of button pushing sludge that slows down my day and makes me really cranky.)

Can you hear me now?