Call center and auto attendant are the industry terms for those miserable recordings we hear when we call pretty much every business on the planet.
- Have you ever really given a thought to how your customers perceive your system?
- Have you ever really listened and navigated your own system?
- What kind of mood are your customers in when they finally reach a person?
As a consumer, I despise these recordings, as a marketing professional, I understand their value. Truth is, the OTELCO system makes me as crazy as any other place I call.
Remember the adage about the shoemaker who doesn’t make time to repair his own shoes…..?
A couple of months ago, I called one of our retail partners who provides Internet TV in our Vermont market and actually enjoyed being on hold. There was no muzak, but there was a pleasant voice sharing company history, product offers, answers to frequently asked questions, and advice about getting the best use of your telecom products. I was almost disappointed when my call was answered. That experience inspired me to do something about our own system here at OTELCO. Here are the basic steps:
Customers First:
What might I do to make the caller experience less annoying, and more interesting, and informative?
Company Second:
What information do I want to share with customers?
With input from our front facing personnel and our System Operations Manager, Chris Lander, we’re reorganizing the call navigation options to be more efficient, we’re ditching the muzak and including information that customers may find of value, and taking the opportunity to share OTELCO’s philosophy on local customer care and support.
The best part of the whole exercise is that I learned firsthand just how versatile and intuitive our Hosted PBX platform is. The call center and auto attendant functions allowed for complete customization for every incoming phone number. Our residential customers will hear information that’s relevant to them, and the same is true for business customers. Customers calling in with technical issues may hear troubleshooting FAQs that may help solve their issue before a technician even picks up the call. We were even able to customize those annoying intermittent “Please remain on the line we will be with you shortly” messages to something with a sense of humor and we hope a bit more entertaining.
If you share our commitment to local, in-house customer care and support, these advanced call center auto attendant functions can be a necessity. If you’d like to ensure that your customers have a more pleasant on-hold experience AND that they are in better spirits when your customer care staff takes the call, contact one of our hosted PBX specialists who can help you make that happen with a well-designed system with Call Center and Auto Attendant. And please be patient if on hold, this shoemaker should have all the OTELCO care center and auto attendant shoes repaired and operational in the next 6 weeks.
