A quick story:

I recently made my way to the local alterations store in South Yarra, almost walking into the see-through glass door with the small hand written sign “Back in 5 Minutes”. This sign is never a true reflection of when they’ll return, but I did return 5 minutes later and to my dismay the store was still locked. They lost my business that day!!!

So why is this story important? 

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a brilliant pull marketing technique exposing your business all day, every day, to your prospective customers through high search engine rankings. But are you greeting and engaging your customers 24/7? 

Today’s customers are very switched on, highly judgemental, and act more quickly and decisively when choosing one company as a product or service provider over another. So when the prospective customer contacts your company by phone and you’re truly ‘unavailable’….don’t lose the opportunity to engage them the first time, or they WILL in most cases choose your competitors over your company.  

Solution: Live Answering

In a nutshell, a ‘Live Answering’ service is where you contract an external company to answer the calls you’re unable to…all day, all night, all year long. The call is professionally greeted with your company name (thankfully by well spoken, no heavy accented male or female) with the staff member taking the name number and message of your prospective customer immediately. 

So I hear some of you asking “What is the great advantage of someone taking a message when I have an answering machine at a fraction of the cost”?

Advantages: Instant engagement with your prospective customer, better service and better conversion opportunity.

1.        I and perhaps many others not only hate answering machines but rarely leave a message for a company that I don’t have an established relationship with.  So when someone human answers and appears to be a representative of that company I do leave at least my name and number.  

2.        With many landlines and mobile numbers being silent nowadays you won’t know who called you, when they called you and how urgently they need your company’s product or service.  Live answering solves this very quickly.

3.       Impress your new prospective customer with quick turnaround time in responding to their enquiry. With live answering both the contact details and the message are sent instantly via SMS or email or BOTH….great when you’re on the go and not at the office desk. For you ‘Crackberry’ mobile users you know the drill…just scroll over the number and two keypad hits later and you’re on the phone to the prospective customer…much to their surprise and satisfaction. 

4.       Acknowledging to your prospective customer that you’ve received their message (even after working hours) can reflect very well on your company. I can reflect on my own interaction with a client just this Sunday. Within minutes of the client expressing interest with Top Rankings on a Sunday I already scheduled a phone discussion for Monday at 11am. Not only was the prospective customer very impressed with the turnaround time, we were both set for a productive start to the beginning of the week. 

Investment:  

Signing up with a live answering company does not cost through the nose and generally there is no lock in contract. Here are indicative cost for the service….yes I Googled it of course:

I am sure most of you will agree that the investment in live answering far outweighs the cost of losing a potential customer to your competitor.

Yes yes…there is a notable disadvantage to live answering too and it is of a serious nature…somewhat: 

Disadvantage:  

You’ll hear it from your wife, partner, family that you’re mind is always at work or you literally do work longer hours than most…because you never really switch off…..especially you ‘Crackberry Mobile’ users!

We’re blessed to be living in an age of very advanced technology that can enhance our life and that of our prospective customers….but be true and honest to yourself and your loved ones by adhering to an acceptable and agreeable definition of ‘work life balance’. 

 Noam.

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