Today's customers are younger, more on the move, and more demanding than ever before. That means that if you want the customer to be right, you have to take a hard look at what their current expectations are – and one of the areas we're seeing a lot of changes in is what customers expect when calling up a company. Here are just a few of the wants modern callers have – and why they're important for every business.
1. Speed
All right, this should be no surprise to anyone who has worked with customers now or ever before: They always want phone calls to be fast, right? But the different is that modern customers are getting their way. Today's customer has instant answers and contact information at their fingertips. They can order anything from anywhere with a few clicks of a mouse. When they call a business, they are now expecting the same sort of speed. Robust call management and low wait times are becoming more essential for the modern company.
2. Call Back Options
Call back options are easy to implement and ideal for today's busy, on-the-go customers who may not have time to wait around on the phone. So offer an option to automatically call the customers back within a set period of time, and remember to include it in your scheduling. Some companies also let customers choose the time frame or method of contact for their call backs.
3. Relational Conversation
This is a tricky point: Customers expect more engagement and relational behavior than ever before. Busy phone systems aren't exactly the best place for the personal touch, however (especially if it conflicts with other goals, like speed). However, effective companies will both train their phone operators to be as friendly as possible, and include as many relational tricks as they can. That includes using customer first names drawn from customer databases, and offering to take care of other problems – basic signs of politeness that can count for a lot.
4. Automatic Ordering
Automatic ordering typically has two parts. The first part is voice recognition that can handily interpret a customer's commands to complete set tasks. The second part is an option to log customer orders from the phone based on this voice recognition system (including, of course, confirmation steps). This allows customers to order exactly what they want at any time of day or weekend.
5. Decision Makers
Your phone system needs a way to swiftly route customers wherever they want to go – which is usually right to a decision maker. Provide simple and fast call routing for all your employees: Today's VoIP solutions excel at this kind of routing, but many options are available based on your phone setup.