When your business suffers from missed calls, you’re not just missing out on a single conversation. You’re also losing out on valuable opportunities to grow your business. Business communication rarely hinges on a single phone call, but there’s also no second chance at a first impression. When callers get your voicemail, they often decide to hang up and dial one of your competitors instead. This means lost sales opportunities and a revenue boost for your competition.
Your competitor may get the call
Missed calls represent missed opportunities to convert prospects into paying customers. When you let calls go to voicemail, you’re not just missing out on important conversations – you’re missing out on valuable business. For example, if you are a Medical Consultant and you charge €150 per consultation, missing 3 calls in a working day is going to cost you €450 a day in revenue. Assume you work 220 days a year, that amounts to almost €100,000 a year in lost revenue. This doesn’t take into account the ongoing repeat revenue from each lost customer or the referrals that lost customers may provide to you.
Unnecessary work returning calls
Missed calls can also create extra unnecessary work for you and your staff. You will spend valuable time returning calls, following up and playing phone tag just to get up to speed. And then possibly discover that the potential customer has already rang your competitor and booked them.
Common causes of missed calls
• Staff may be too busy with other duties to answer the phone with the result that calls go to voicemail.
• Sometimes, technology is to blame for missed calls. Without the right infrastructure in place to field high call volume, employees can quickly become swamped.
• In some cases, your employees may be too busy focusing on other forms of customer service to avoid missing a call.
• In an increasingly globalized economy, your competition may be open and available 24 hours a day. If you are not staffed to handle calls outside of the normal working day, you may miss valuable sales calls outside of normal business hours
Missed call statistics
A shocking 89 percent of consumers say they stopped doing business with a company after a poor customer service experience. While you might think letting your calls go to voicemail is a harmless decision, you might be alienating customers without even realizing it. it’s six to seven times more expensive to attract customers than it is to retain them. You can pour money into expensive marketing and advertising campaigns, but if there’s no one on the end of the line when customers dial your number, you’ve thrown that money away.
30 percent of people say the worst part of a bad customer service experience is the inability to reach a real, live human being. Indeed, the average person will spend 43 days of their lives on hold. There’s nothing that alienates a caller faster than sending them to talk to an answering machine or virtual voice attendant. As evidenced above, people hate leaving messages with a machine. There is simply no way of knowing if their message will ever be heard. In addition, people usually aren’t very good at leaving voicemails, leaving out important contact information and pertinent details.
The impact on your business’s reputation
The adage, “you never get a second chance at a first impression” is so true. A single missed call can leave a terrible impression on the person at the end of the line. Once you’ve become associated with poor customer service, the impression can be very difficult to shake. Because of the internet, business reputation matters more than ever. When a customer searches for your business online, they’re instantly shown reviews of your services and products. If your reputation is anything less than excellent, prospective customers may opt to do business with your competition instead. These reviews could say that there were lots of missed calls or delays in returning calls. This will impact on your reputation and potential for new business.
Improve customer service now
An outsourced answering service ensures quality call performance every time the phone rings. Receptionists have access to the latest technological advancements in the industry, allowing them to capably assist callers with whatever questions or concerns might arise. With dedicated agents covering the phone lines, your in-house team will have more time than ever to dedicate to their duties and projects. Importantly, callers won’t be aware that they’re speaking with an answering service. Agents are trained to work from customised call scripts that mirror the precise language, policies and procedures your own team follows.
Kendlebell offers affordable, reliable call service for companies hoping to improve their business communications. Professional representatives are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to be the friendly, helpful voice of your brand as they assist customers, offer solutions, take messages, route calls, schedule appointments, place orders and more. See for yourself how effective Kendlebell call services can be. The testimonials section of our website has first-hand reviews of our offerings. To truly understand the power of Kendlebell, though, you should try it our yourself. Try our 7-day Free Trial. For seven days, you can try our service with no obligation to continue once the trial period ends. With so much to gain and so many missed calls at stake, why not give Kendlebell a try?
Kendlebell Overview
Kendlebell was set up In Ireland in 2006 and now have 4 offices providing a diverse range of services to the SME market. We provide a range of Outsource Solutions to the Business Community. Kendlebell were awarded the Business All – Star Accreditation for the second time in a row recently.
Among our services are:
Business Telephone Answering / Message Taking.
We provide a personal telephone answering service for your business calls. All your calls are answered by your own PA, giving you peace of mind that you will never miss another new enquiry again. A call answering script is agreed in advance. All your business calls are answered in a professional and friendly manner as if we were part of your team. Our Business phone answering service is delivered at a fraction of the cost of employing staff, involves no administration and gives an excellent first impression. Messages are passed to you instantly by either text-to-mobile, email or you can phone in and speak to your Kendlebell PA at any time.
Virtual Reception services
The Kendlebell team will act exactly as you would expect any receptionist to operate. They will take all incoming calls and transfer them through to the direct dial or mobile of the member of staff sought. If these individuals are not available, they can give callers the option to leave a voicemail or simply take a message which the PA will send on immediately. They will do so immediately by text or email with an end of day report summarising all your calls being sent as well. All of this is done seamlessly and without the company’s customers being aware that you are suing a virtual receptionist from Kendlebell.
Customer Helpdesk / Order Taking
Services include capturing caller’s details and asking qualifying questions to get further information you may require. With each client, we agree call handling instructions to ensure our services benefit your company, freeing up your time to concentrate on running your business. We can link to your CRM /Sales Systems remotely and securely. We also provide cold call screening as part of our phone answering services. Messages will be forwarded on to you immediately by email or text, alternatively we can save and forward these messages at an agreed time. You will also receive a daily email summary of messages.
Visit www.kbell.ie for more information on all our services.
