Last week I made calls to dozens of catering companies. In too many cases a human being didn't answer the phones when I called. I was given opportunities to leave a message because "Your call is very important to us". I really can't be sure, but I do believe that by not having a human answering the phones during business hours a company misses enough new business opportunities that missses 10% of possible new business.
It may cost more money to have someone there to answer the phones, but it will more than pay for itself. At least you should call your main competitors during business hours to see if they use technology or humans on their phones. If they all use technology then forget about the human response. Otherwise ...
AMEN Mike! This was one of the first things I learned from you. When I dropped the technology and went back to answering the phone, I was amazed that my sales went up so quickly. We answer every call live, unless we are already on the line with a customer.
ReplyDelete