31 Oct How professional greetings compliment your phone tree
One of the most prominent places businesses can use professional greetings are within their automated attendants, or phone trees.
We’ve all heard familiar phrases like “Press 1 to reach Sales, Press 2 for Customer Support…” contained within phone trees. Now it’s time to discuss why a professional presentation of those messages are important for the first steps of any customer’s journey with your business.
This guest post was written by business phone system developer VirtualPBX whose own Automated Attendant accepts professional greetings from companies like TelephoneVox.
Clarity of Voice
The primary benefit of professional voice recordings is that a clarity of voice is guaranteed with the product. TelephoneVox’s own site talks about its certifications and quality control that helps ensure the high quality of voice recordings sent to customers.
Consider two situations where a caller is reaching out a business for the first time: The CEO of a company might, for instance, want to speak to the Sales department about closing a custom deal. Or in another case, an individual consumer might call a business to reach the Customer Service department to resolve a product issue.
These types of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) interactions happen every day. Importantly, they each mark the first time that a person will interact with a business in a personal manner.
Use of a professional greetings in phone trees means that the clarity of voice is passed along immediately to listeners. The CEO and the consumer would have the opportunity to begin their time with a business either impressed or deterred. Clarity of voice sets the stage for everything that will happen beyond that point. A simple greeting that’s easy to understand can help callers navigate the phone tree and save time and frustration along the way.
Phone Tree Navigation
It’s important that callers can easily make their way through a phone tree. When they hear a clear message directing them to “Press 1 for Sales” and “2 for Customer Support,” they know exactly where to go.
Alternatively, if they encounter a long-winded introduction and unnecessary information about the brand, a quick phone call can become confusing and possibly cause callers to hang up.
Professional recording companies like TelephoneVox do more than just record the speech of a voice actor. They can also provide guidance and suggestions about phrases to use in a greeting.
If your business needs to create and record a message but is unsure where to turn, professional recording services can assist with both of those tasks. What results is an informative message that accurately represents your brand by leading callers through an efficient phone tree menu.
Combined with a guaranteed clarity of voice, the informative message lets your automated attendant perform its purpose well by guiding callers to the appropriate individuals and departments. The CEO can reach Sales and the consumer can reach Customer Service within a few seconds of dialing your number.
Help Prevent Frustration
One of the most important secondary benefits of using professional greetings is that it helps prevent frustration in caller-brand interaction.
To continue with one of our previous examples, think about the CEO’s concerns in their call. They want answers to their questions about a product, and if they’re satisfied with those answers, they will want to purchase the product.
The automated attendant plays its role here by being so easy to use that it’s almost forgettable. The CEO can dial the business and reach a Sales associate within seconds. Then the Sales call can proceed, hopefully, with haste as the caller asks about product features.
This same call could have started with a lengthy phone tree introduction that was fuzzy and hard to hear. Then the CEO could have had a difficult time figuring out which number to press to reach Sales. If he guessed correctly, he may have pressed correctly and reach Sales. But maybe he didn’t but instead reached a Services team member. Then the call would have to start again.
In the first example, the professional greeting led the caller gracefully to their destination. In the second example, the caller was led into frustration.
A Harris Interactive study showed that 75% of customers say it takes too long to reach a live person. You can avoid being a part of that negative statistic by making it less frustrating for customers to interact with your business.
A Wrap-up of Professional Greetings
Automated attendants are like another employee. They’re always at the front line of customer interaction.
Businesses set them and forget that they’re active at all hours. And unfortunately, they can fill them with messages that aren’t clear and serve only to frustrate callers.
Professional greetings are recorded and structured in a way that lets the phone tree assume its full potential. When used together, the phone tree and professional greeting lets callers make sense of what a business offers and easily interact with its associates.
If you haven’t listened to your own phone tree in a while, take a few minutes to call your business number. Then if you’re left wanting more, consider reaching a professional voice recorder to give you, and all your customers, what they need in an automated attendant.
