Automated phone prompts can assist with business continuity during crisis

Franz

Mar 25, 2020 • 2 min read

The Covid-19 virus has swept across the globe, and its impact has been widespread. Most businesses have sent their non-essential employees, and in some cases, all employees, to work from home as we ride out the crisis. With temporary lay-offs and empty workspaces, many businesses are working on a skeleton staff. Fortunately, we are living in an age of digital communication and business-assistive technology that can help businesses continue during the crisis.

One of these technologies is an automated phone system.

Customers get through, even when there is no one to answer the mainline.

An automated phone system ensures that all callers are greeted and attended to, even when there is no human present to answer the phone personally. The truth is that most people would prefer to be greeted by a person, but with a well-organized automated phone system and professional greetings and phone prompts, they will be able to find the information they need.

With an automated phone system, no caller is left unanswered. Automated greetings and pre-recorded information are always better than a busy signal.

It allows your employees to focus on their core competencies.

Your essential staff will remain on to keep the business running during a disruption. An automated phone system will free up their time so they can continue doing that. It’s also likely they are doing more than their usual job tasks as well. Instead of having to juggle inbound calls and messages, they can trust that customers are receiving the information they require through the phone system and its recordings. When the caller needs to speak to someone, they can be directed to the right person or a voicemail so their call will be returned later. We talk more about that in the next point.

Customers can be directed to the right person or voicemail.

You could designate one or two of your staff to assist customers in person if they could not find the information they needed through recorded greetings. You can also direct callers to a central voicemail, and make sure that messages are checked and responded to once or twice daily. Filtering calls like this ensures customers get service, but your employees are not spending most of their day fielding calls instead of completing their main tasks.

Creating the right messaging is critical.

The tone and content of your message are essential to excellent customer service always, but especially when you’re running on skeleton staff during a stressful time. Your greetings need to be warm, friendly, and informative, not cold and robotic. Your phone prompt system needs to be up-to-date and needs to contain the most recent information regarding how you are serving customers during the crisis. Useful and warm messages will put your customers at ease and decrease frustration by helping them find the information they need.

On Air can help.

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, On Air has moved operations to our homes. Our clients can rest assured knowing that there will not be a disruption in services and that we are available to help create or adjust their messages on hold, greetings, and phone prompts.