In the world of business and entrepreneurship, the first impression of a company plays a huge role. Effective communication with customers and partners can significantly affect the success of your company. Implementing an auto attendant into your work is one way to improve your business image.
Auto attendant is a very powerful contact channel that can and should be used in business. It will increase the chances of making a potential client real, and increase loyalty to the company. In short, it will work for you.
Auto attendants are widespread in modern information technologies. They can perform their function 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, automating partly or completely the process of interaction with customers. In the business sphere, a phone system with multi-level auto attendant can be used as a virtual secretary, consultant, first-line technical support, call, and notification services. The development of intelligent technologies in the field of conversational artificial intelligence allows robots to communicate with customers on an equal footing with a human-to-human dialogue.
1. First Impression
You can create a professional greeting, describe your company’s key services, and provide contact details for communication. This will give the impression that your business is organized and cares about its customers.
2. Not A Single Missed Call
Anyone in business knows that just one call can be enough to close a deal or provide a loyal customer with the right level of service. If the operator does not answer the call, the client may decide that he is not valued in the company. On the contrary, if the call is answered by a highly professional, competent manager with relevant industry knowledge, it will say a lot about your business.
An auto attendant for business will be just such a competent manager. He will take the call, greet the customer, and provide information about the company’s product. If necessary, it will record the client’s message and his data for further calls or redirect the call to a specialist.
3. Feedback
Feedback plays an important role in customer service. How many points is the service evaluated, were there any hitches and problems, were there any suggestions to improve the quality of service? If you offer to respond in writing, most will simply ignore such a message. But in a speech dialogue, it is easier and faster to present information, and most importantly, a trusting emotional atmosphere is created. The interlocutor, most likely, will not guess that the questions are asked by the algorithm since the synthesis and recognition of speech by the robot occurs at a very high level.
4. Less Business Overhead
Hiring your own call-handling team can be costly and time-consuming. You need to find a place, and hire people, not to mention all the other HR headaches. And during low traffic hours, the operator team is effectively out of work, while receiving a salary.
The auto-responder service allows you to optimize communication with customers at no extra cost.
5. 24/7 Customer Support
Excellent customer service is a powerful competitive advantage. However, sometimes customers may contact the company during non-working hours or on weekends. Your managers didn’t answer the phone? Well, then the competitors will answer.
The auto attendant in the company does not need breaks, it has no days off or holidays. The robot is ready to answer customer questions 24/7, facilitating the personal touch that consumers value so highly. New customers will feel welcome and existing customers will feel valued.
If you serve the international market, a 24-hour telephone service is a must. When you communicate with clients located in different time zones, round-the-clock communication becomes an important factor in high-quality communication.
6. Keep Customers Informed
If you regularly update the auto attendant or voice greeting, they can be used to inform customers about a change in address, phone number, and business hours. In addition, you can unobtrusively inform them about new services and congratulate them on holidays.
This approach does not require large expenses, only creativity, but at the same time makes an important contribution to positioning the business as customer-oriented.
In order for the voice greeting to be alive, the following should be taken into account during production:
1. Get rid of stamps
In the text of the script, try to find an alternative to the hackneyed verbal constructions, upon hearing which many immediately hang up.
2. Consider the specifics of your business
Choose a script and announcer, focusing on your target audience and mission as a whole. Find your flavor and reflect it in the vocabulary and character of the message.
3. The background is not just a background
The musical composition or specially selected sound effects in the answering machine do not interrupt the announcer’s voice and do not draw attention to themselves, but work to create the mood of the entire video.
Three ways to create an autoresponder entry:
- Sound out on your own. Some companies choose the voice of the director or one of the employees as the voice of the brand. It is important that they have competent speech and a pleasant timbre.
- Use speech synthesis services. Special programs created on the basis of machine learning technologies are able to convert text into speech. The catalogs provide options for voices. You just need to choose the one you like, enter the prepared text, and click the button to convert. The finished audio file can be uploaded to the answering machine. It is important to choose trusted well-known speech platforms so that the recording does not sound too artificial.
- Engage professional speakers. This is a thorough approach that allows you to form the company’s image, and emphasize the status, reputation, and customer care.
Conclusion
An auto attendant is a serious step forward for a business of any size. And although it is not able to completely replace a person, its benefits can hardly be overestimated: it is able to save time, while increasing customer coverage, and form a loyal attitude towards the company. Thus, the introduction of a voice assistant can ultimately affect sales growth.