Consistent Phone Procedures - Do Your Employees Know How You Want Them To Answer The Phone?

It sounds simplistic… We assume that everyone knows how to answer the phone. The reality is that proper phone etiquette really begins with a unified approach to how the phone is answered.

That’s right. It’s critical to your telephone customer experience that you help your customers “begin on the right foot” by setting an expectation that they can count on.

Are your phone procedures standardized?

Does each team member understand and use a single approach to how the initial telephone greeting is delivered? Or do you offer many different versions of your organization’s telephone customer service?

Walk into any Starbucks. When you do so, you will know you are in a Starbucks. The décor is similar and how you are treated is very consistent across its thousands of stores.

Walk into a Target store. You will see the same consistent presentation of its brand. The aisles are wide and clean.

Starbucks and Target are branded concepts that are much more than trademarked logos. They are experiences that are consistent.

The difference between a Starbucks, Target and your organization’s telephone customer service experience is the number of “senses” that your customer will use to categorize your organization into one of two categories – likeable and unlikeable.

Consider your five senses. They are:

- Sight
- Hearing
- Taste
- Smell
- Touch

When a customer calls your organization on the telephone, they don’t have the ability to rely on their five senses. They channel all of their energy into one sense – hearing. Therefore, it is critical that your team members not only be well-trained in using proper phone skills, but also on how they are expected to answer the phone.

Do you have and enforce a consistent approach to answering the phone? Is your team’s phone technique similar or vastly different?

Never underestimate the power of a first impression and the impact it can have on your organization’s bottom line. Consistency is the key. If your team needs assistance in developing a standardized greeting that will establish the level of service your customers can come to expect each and every time they call, we can help.

Give us a call today or use our online form to request more information.

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