Telephone Systems in Small Business

To many smaller organisations their telephone systems are their main customer entrance. OK a car dealership has a forecourt but ask any motor trader and he will declare that most initial contacts start via the receptionist. Indeed the meter/greeter is key to their commercial success. VW/Audi and other manufacturers put great emphasis on financially encouraging the franchised dealer networks to employ an individual to meet and greet but in reality this means a reception manager with panache because most people ring beforehand.

We accept that a travel agency has a shop front on the high street but prospective travellers usually commence their enquiry by telephone. Agencies live or die by how they handle their telephone systems. If they want to elevate themselves from the international tour operators, with whom they compete, they simply have to answer calls personally. Survey any spender and they will tell you that it is automated attendants on telephone systems that make corporate appear so faceless.

Telephone Systems ARE the Shop Window

Hopefully, the message is evolving that telephone systems and the way in which we operate them is life or death in an entrepreneurial sense. After all, 1st impressions are everything. You only get a single chance to create a first impression. Old clichés are often rationally thought out and true.

If as a money making organisation you are serious about growth and development, become focussed on how you utilise your telephone systems. Is the human response well honed? Some extremely obsessive outbound telesales operations insist that telemarketers stand up to work. The theory is that a properly inflated lung helps the body to project voice more authoritatively. .

Utilising Telephone Systems to Eradicate Ineffective Advertising

Are you using DDI numbers to track where callers are ascertaining your contact details? Most firms expend more on sales effort and marketing monthly than they do in telecoms annually. If a firm can discover the source of an enquirer based on the number dialled this could save a fortune.

Let us take the example of a seller of land and property. There is the costs of things like; for-sale boards, store signage, website, directories, press ads, mail shots, leaflet drops, etc. Discovering the most successful by examining differential numbering can help to decrease investment into the wrong area, and then a penny saved is equivalent to one earned. This facilitates cash for greater spend in the most appropriate media. Simple but demands thinking outside of the box.

The methods of tracking should be a small expenditure on call management software. This CMS lives on a PC and captures data from the telephone systems port and offers analysis of date, time, DID, extension, etcetera. If you are on a tight budget you could just use a visual indication and mental recognition with suitable telephone systems.

Quality Control of your Telephone Systems Users

Measurement is the secret to managing. The ultimate is to record all conversations with realtime recording but if that is too costly you could earwig on some telephone systems. Depending on model this may be termed "barge-in" or "silent monitoring". There is a nice demonstration of this utilising the Samsung OfficeServ on YouTube.