Excellence Customer Service | Answer Calls Quickly
Pick up that ringing phone now. Never allow any phone to ring for longer than five seconds.
A five-second telephone response received early fame in the lexicons of customer service practice. That’s sadly where it seems to remain—in the annals of customer service history. One of the near impossibilities of current customer service practice is trying to reach many companies on the telephone. Nothing can irritate a customer more than when the phone rings and rings and no human being answers. Companies can spend millions on marketing only to squander it through a failure with telephone responses. I tried to ring a locksmith who had a full-page advertisement in Yellow Pages. After 20 rings I gave up. The locksmith who got the business (Access Locksmiths) answered immediately.
There are some progressive companies that do get it right. For example, TNT Express has a clearly stated telephone policy. One of its salient features is that there should be no telephone screening.
The frustration of trying to reach a human being by telephone has partly been offset by the proliferation of cell phones. If customers are lucky enough to obtain the mobile number of their prime contact in a company, there is a better chance that person will talk to them—even at the expense of the people he or she is having a face-to-face meeting with. However, this is only applicable when a relationship has been established between a customer and someone within the company.
The time has come to remove the barriers of access to a company and to eliminate the waste of time and frustration suffered by millions of customers in trying to reach a human being in order to get their classified advertisement placed, their broadband connected, their computer mended, their copying machine serviced, their refrigerator repaired, the pothole in their sidewalk filled, their flight plan changed, their hotel booked, their insurance policy explained, their magazine subscription canceled, the query on their car lease answered, the wedding gift for their niece ordered, or the light bulb at the crosswalk replaced.
Addressing strategic issues relating to staffing levels for telephones, productivity targets, and cost-effectiveness might be beyond the reach of many readers. Even so, there are some little things that everyone can do to ensure that as many calls as possible are answered quickly:
Always pick up and answer a ringing telephone, even if it isn’t yours.
If you can’t address the issue there and then, ensure that you follow up on the call and that the person the customer wanted to speak to calls back.
Encourage your colleagues to work to the discipline of putting their phones on divert whenever they leave their desk.
If you work in a call center and too many customers are becoming frustrated with the length of response time, put pressure on your managers to improve staffing levels. Why should you take all the flak from irate customers who have been hanging on for a long time?
Create a game with your colleagues so that there is a penalty for any phone ringing on your floor for longer than ten seconds.
Initiate a “forward to the basics” campaign that focuses initially on ensuring a five-second telephone response throughout the company (for both external and internal calls).
Draft a telephone policy for your department (or possibly company) that incorporates world-class telephone practice—and then pioneer it yourself.
Be the first to answer the phone. And be the first to initiate a campaign to move forward to this famous basic of customer service.
EXCELLENCE CUSTOMER SERVICE PRACTICE
When away from the office, try posing as a customer and ringing yourself. Can you get through to your company’s switchboard in five seconds? When the call is put through to your extension, does someone pick up your phone within five seconds?
EXCELLENCE CUSTOMER SERVICE QUOTE
Keeping the customer hanging on is a value statement. It says: “Your time is less valuable to us than that of our employees."
