First Impressions Count!
Posted on 5th August 2021 at 12:07
Here at it'seeze Colchester & Ipswich, we support hundreds of businesses and because we like to keep in touch, we phone regularly as part of our service. Together with new website enquiries and recommendations that come our way, we can safely say that we communicate with a lot of businesses! One thing that we often notice is that we cannot get hold of people, and there is no back up or way for us to reach that company. What impact does that have on their business and clients and what steps can they take to rectify these issues? We hope that this article helps with some straight talking advice and suggestions.
We know that small and medium sized business owners, like us are busy doing what they do best. So whether you are designing websites, plumbing, fixing cars or landscaping gardens, you simply cannot answer the phone all of the time. Therefore, you need to field those calls and here is how,
Your website should be designed to answer questions both in the text and through more detailed FAQs pages.
Chat bots like Tidio, can provide respite for busy people and may help to reassure callers that they are through to the right place and that you are open for business.
Hire someone to reply to calls and emails or do you have someone who works for you already, who could take on some of this workload?
Outsource to a company who provide business support.
Have a professional voicemail, informing callers that they are through to 'your name and your business' and that you will endeavour to call them back as soon as possible and within a certain timeframe.
Put a contact form on your website, gathering all preliminary information, so that you can call or email back with information and get the client booked in.
You may decide to field calls on the go, but if you think about when you speak with someone who is in a car or in a noisy place, it isn't always the best experience. You may be better placed putting a process, like some of the ones above in motion, so that you can make callbacks in a suitable place.
If you do one thing today, we would urge you to record a professional voicemail message, telling clients who they are through to and when they can expect a call back. Honestly, we phone so many businesses and hear the following,
Welcome to Tesco mobile..
The mailbox of the the person that you are calling is full...
A phone that rings out every time we call.
Someone answers but they are busy, distracted and its noisy.
We are calling these businesses repeatedly and although no business gets it rights 100% of the time, imagine you are a potential client looking to talk to someone about a product or service and reached any of the above. You would most likely ring someone else. Even more eye opening is the thought of your existing clients who are calling you, as will they recommend you and use you again if you are notoriously hard to reach?
Therefore, your business could be missing out on new clients and a better reputation due to not having a nice welcoming voicemail message and you sitting down at one or two points, during the day, somewhere quiet and calling people back.
So if you know that you are stretched and are wondering what you can do to help stem the calls and improve your service as a business, here are some ways that it'seeze Colchester can help,
Ask us to perform a free website health check, where we will look at whether your website is user friendly. You want call to actions and for people to contact you, so in the short term this may exacerbate your issue, which is more of a reason to get the service side of your business sorted.
Add tido chat to your it'seeze website by clicking here.
Think about adding the answers to the questions that you get the most, in a prominent place on your website. What are the top 3 callers asking you? No time? We can add this information for you at a reduced rate for it'seeze clients.
If your website just isn't fast, modern or you cannot edit it then please book a consultation in with us. The investment will pay dividends in terms of ease of use for you, your clients and for your brand.
If you are in a place where you are so stuck for time but know that action is needed then please bear the following in mind. We can meet early or late in the day and on some weekends. If you have an old website, we can take the content, your logo and design a new website without much work from you. Once designed you will need to review the website, we make the changes, like updating the text that you may give us and then set it live. So perhaps we can take away some of the headache for you and start with an all singing all dancing website to wow visitors and help to answers some of their questions.
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