Do you use a mobile phone for business?  Is it the only number listed on your business card or is it one of many? 
If so I would like to think that the information I am about to share might make you rethink.  Having asked people for their opinions about the use of mobile phones in a business environment, the following shares some of these views.  As well as pointing out some pretty obvious downfalls of using a mobile phone for business.

New Technology

Now don’t get me wrong mobile phones are great and the advent of new technology means mobile phone can be a brilliant tool in business.  You can use it as a GPS device, respond to your Email, access the internet and keep up in the world of social media.  Who knows you might even be reading this blog post from your phone!

A Practical Solution or Not?

 However there are some problems.  If you only have a mobile phone number listed as your contact number for your business, for some it raises issues.  From a purely practical point of view using a mobile can be tricky.  If you are away from your landline phone, you are probably engaged in another activity, perhaps a meeting or performing task for a client so probably unable to answer your mobile phone.  It may also be unsafe to do so especially if you are driving, even if ‘hands free.’  If you are out of the office and can answer your mobile phone, it is unlikely you will be able to look up details a caller needs.  It is also unlikely that you are able to make coherent notes, so that you can return the call later.

 Understandably you may think that using a mobile prevents people from having to use voicemail.  If your phone is in a bad signal area or you cannot answer, the issue you were trying to avoid rears its head again.  Callers are forced to listen to that dreary monotonous voicemail recording.

Professional or Not?

Consider also; how professional it is to speak to a client or indeed a prospect when you have little signal and the sound quality is poor.  Worse still if the call is dropped.

 Factor in also that the public perception of a business operating with just a mobile number is fairly gloomy.  Having asked a variety of people it throws up lost of issues of trust and experience.  Clearly the trust factor is huge and for many the thought of paying a company who operate with only a mobile number is a big cause for concern. Questions such as ‘will they be there tomorrow, or if something goes wrong?’ start to crop up.

In fact someone I discussed this matter with told me that if you accept credit card payments the merchant services provider requires the business to have a landline.  Another I spoke to said simply that they found the practice screamed, home office, and unreliable.’ Also making the point that these numbers as well as 0845 or other non geographic numbres can be pointed enywhere.  Others also commented that calling a mobile phone from a landline is or at least perceived to still be expensive by many.

 If many numbers are listed you do risk sending callers of on a bit of a treasure hunt to be able to contact you, dialling number after number with no success can at best be annoying and at worst why should your customers have to ‘hunt’ for you?

Damaging to the Business and Brand?

So the image and branding of you and your business may also be put on the backfoot if you are only displaying a mobile phone number or indeed a list of numbers.

The Answer?

We may be biased but wouldn’t it be better to advertise / display just a landline number, and have it answered efficiently and professionally each and every time someone calls your business?  There are other solutions but we think that http://answer-it.co.uk fits the bill and judging by our testimonials so do many of our clients.

Until next time.

Would your business survive a CRASH Test in customer service?

Contactability

As a business are you contactable.  Can customers reach you when they need something?  Or do they leave a voice mail or have to dial one of the many numbers listed on your business card?

Reliabilty

Can your customers rely on you for consistent service? Surely this is the key to turning them into advocates of your business and recomending you to a contact.

Acceptability

Are your terms and Conditions and they way you trade acceptable to your customers.  Is the way you resolve issues acceptable?

Speed

Do you act quickly in your business.  Are any issues resolved swiftly and without delay?

Helpfulness

We all like to think that we are helpful to our customers, but is it the right kind of help.  Is everyone in the business empowered enough to be able to help?

In recent discussions with various people about ‘Customer Service’ the biggest issue that people complained about was  not being able to speak to someone on the telephone.  People found it very frustrating either listening to the phone ring out or reaching a voicemail. www.answer-it.co.uk can help!

‘What’s that? or How does that work?’

When I meet people at various events and networking meetings, they invariably ask what I do. When I tell them about ‘Answer it’ a Tele PA / Telephone Answering Service. These are the 1^st questions I get asked.  So I thought as it was such a popular question, I would attempt to answer it here on my blog.

Essentially Answer it takes telephone calls for businesses when they either cannot or do not want to, including overflow calls.

More than that, the people that take calls for these businesses do much more than perform as a human answer-phone, call centre, contact centre or call handling facility.

At ‘Answer it’ we pride ourselves on being an extension of the business we are answering for.  We are in the business of building great relationships and communication with our clients.  This in turn, means that all callers receive a great service from an informed ‘thinking on their feet’ individual on the other end of the phone.
Our team are able to not just take a name and number and have someone ring the caller back.  They gather all relevant information and details so that our clients are informed and can call back with the relevant information to hand and at a time that is convenient to them.
Where required the team is able to give information to callers or take bookings, payment, even gather information and send out brochures, applications or other marketing material callers.

So how does it work? This is the clever technical bit!

Clients divert their business phone and or mobile to a dedicated phone number Answer it supplies.  They are in complete control of this and can switch the divert on and off as much or as little as they like.  They also have a variety of choices (depending on telecoms supplier) of how to divert their calls. This can be permanently, on busy or no answer or a combination.

Once the call is diverted our system uses a combination of ISDN CTI and CLI Technology does the rest in a matter of milliseconds to alert the team to a call for a particular client.  The Answer it process then leaps into action.  Once the call is completed the call details are sent by the client’s chosen method almost instantly.
‘Answer it’  is totally committed to outstanding customer service, communication, reliability and trust.