By Jamie Lowary
The rise of the Internet has opened up new communication channels far beyond the traditional phone call. With tools like live chat, click-to-call, and online forms, consumers have more ways than ever to connect with a business.
But guess what? It’s not just your Great Aunt Nancy who prefers to speak with a real, live person when contacting a business. In fact, there has been a significant increase of calls placed to businesses due to the mass adoption of mobile phones.
And when they call, they’re likely to buy; 61 percent of mobile users call a business when they’re in the purchase phase of the buying cycle. Those calls are 10-15 times more likely to generate a successful sale or follow-up action than online form submissions.
Phone traffic is a great revenue source, but there are other ways phone technology helps create growth. Here are three more ways phone technology can give your business a much-needed boost.
- Call analytics allow you to make better decisions
Utilize call tracking to measure the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns to improve your ROI. You can do this by using a different phone number for each advertising method and compare the number of calls coming into each number via real-time online reporting.
Other metrics that can be gathered from call data are call counts, call durations and the times of day your calls come in. These measures can help with staffing decisions or quality control.
- Send your callers to the right place
It sounds simple, but how often have you called a business and been stuck in that never-ending automated loop? We’re less likely to purchase or buy again from a business when it takes too long to reach the right person or a live person at all. Using a cloud-based tool like an auto attendant allows you to route callers to the right place right away. It also makes your company seem more professional.
- Your customers still want to talk to a person
While automation is efficient, the lack of personal interaction means you’re missing out on an opportune moment to connect with current and prospective customers. However, for most small businesses, having a person available to take calls around the clock is near impossible. The good news is you’re not alone, and it’s more affordable to get good help than you think. A 24/7 live answering service like PATLIve allows you to:
- Provide better customer service.
- Never miss a phone call, or important opportunity, again. Did you know that 80 percent of callers who reach voicemail hang up without leaving a message? It’s true.
- Focus on your actual business and not your phone calls.
On the flip side, when you or one of your employees is available to answer the phone there are a lot of great and simple tips out there to ensure you’re delivering the best phone support possible to take advantage of that valuable phone traffic.
Ditching the phone is like ditching opportunities
Sometimes it feels like technology has advanced to the point where the telephone has become as obsolete as the 8-track player. And perhaps that’s true for your home; who needs a landline when you have a perfectly good cell phone right in your pocket?
Businesses are different. Without a phone, customers lose an entire communication channel–not everyone prefers email or social media. Without a phone, you miss opportunities that ultimately turn into profit. Without a phone, you automatically create more work for your customers and more work makes for a bad customer experience.
Modern phones aren’t like they used to be; you can now put your phone to work for your business. In fact, you don’t even need special phones or hardware. With today’s cloud-based business phones, such as those provided by companies like Tresta, you can set up and manage your phone system entirely online and use them from anywhere, on any device including the cell phones you already have today.
Now you can measure the ROI of your marketing dollars, send calls to the right person every time the phone rings, greet callers with a friendly, live voice 24 hours a day, and use your business phone system from anywhere the work day takes you.
So, what was that you were saying about business phones being obsolete?
• • •
Jamie Lowary is the Channel Relations Manager at PATLive, a 24/7 live answering service. PATLive answers calls for thousands of businesses nationwide. Using their proprietary software and top-notch agents, they answer. In business since 1990, PATLive offers a service range from basic message taking to a full customer service solution for businesses so that they never miss a call again.
