An auto attendant describes a feature in a telephone system where a voice menu system helps the caller reach the intended party without having to deal with a human telephone operator. Businesses suffer losses when there is no one to handle the phone. Whenever customers call your business, and they don’t receive a reply, they omit to leave a message due to frustration.
Therefore, having someone to answer and direct calls all the time is a significant business boon. Since you cannot have a receptionist available 24/7, you should consider having auto attendants. This decision can warranty you very many benefits.
Faster Call Handling
As stated earlier, picking up phone calls is highly essential for your business. Using an auto attendant offers a wide range of features to take advantage of. These features take the pressure off of having a human operator. An auto attendant answers phone calls and gives instructions to callers.
The attendant is able to filter callers through to the right department as well. This means you rarely have to deal with misplaced calls. You will have a lot of free extra time you can use to focus on more value-adding business activities. For instance, your personnel will spend less time trying to analyze what a caller wants and determining who they need to speak to.
Furthermore, if your auto attendant is well structured, you can ensure that your callers can reach the appropriate parties faster. The answer to increasing the worth of your auto attendant is making sure it addresses the most common reasons customers call you. This can translate to more sales due to better customer service.
Monetary Savings
Maintaining a call center can be very expensive for businesses. Again, it is not cost-efficient to hire multiple receptionists to handle all the calls you receive. This is because of the extra costs involved, including training costs, wages, and so on. By using auto attendant services, you can include them with your AgileIP service for free.
There is no training or onboarding required, which translates to huge cost savings. Most importantly, an auto attendant doesn’t need a salary or days; thus, it helps businesses save huge amounts on overhead costs.
24/7 Call Handling
Your business may receive hundreds or thousands of calls every day. This can take a lot of time from you and your team. It also complicates the process of directing and screening calls. This also significantly increases hold times, leading to customer dissatisfaction. When you utilize an auto attendant, you can easily and effectively pick up calls from your customers at any time of the day.
This helps you resolve the needs of your customers promptly, leaving them satisfied.
Consistent Quality of Service
An additional merit of using an auto attendant is that you can give a consistent experience to your customers. Since the auto attendant is a computer, the call-handling process remains the same. Your business can additionally have its calls handled outside business hours in the same consistent manner.
Even after you and your employees leave the business premises, you can always be assured that the needs of your customers are always well taken care of. This is excellent for international businesses that need to take calls from varying time zones.
Creating Quality Experiences
It is vital to understand that your employees are human. Therefore, even your best staff can get distracted and fail to pick up your customer’s calls. Your staff may also let a lousy interaction affect how they speak to customers on the phone. In addition, if your employee has stress from home, they might pass those frustrations to your customers.
Thus, you should invest in an auto attendant. An auto attendant can represent your business the same way all the time. Since its technology, you don’t have to worry about how the auto attendant can handle their emotions. An auto attendant never gets cold, irritated, impatient, or forgets what to say, no matter how rude a customer is.
When interacting with your business becomes predictable, customers who call your business often become familiar with the options, and they can easily navigate to all the services needed.
Enhancing a Professional Image
When using an auto attendant, you can customize your automated greetings to meet your current business needs. For instance, you can customize the message to highlight current promotions, holidays, and more. This is a great way to leave a lasting impression on your customers.
Callers also never have to deal with a live attendant, which often leads to complaints about how they handle the call. An auto attendant eliminates errors and helps in efficiently completing all tasks associated with routing calls.
Simplifying Customer Experience
Every time a customer makes a call to your business, you want them to get what they desire quickly. When an employee answers, your customers have to try to articulate what they want, and they don’t know if they are speaking to the person that actually gives them the help they want.
Customers at that moment have to be polite and friendly while trying to decide how to communicate their needs. They also have to try and figure out how much detail they need to provide. This is different from auto attendants as they give every caller a clear and simple menu for getting the services they need.
The options provided to customers are already clearly defined. Therefore, customers know that even if they end up speaking to a person, it will be the person who can help them. An added merit of auto attendants is that they are not new, and customers expect them when interacting with a business.
Endnote
Businesses can’t allow themselves to make mistakes when it comes to phone call handling. This is because phone calls allow businesses to conduct business and attract new clients. Having someone to answer phone calls all the time ensures that you get real-time feedback and concerns from customers.
This helps you improve your services and improve the satisfaction of your customers. In addition, you can easily enjoy all the above merits by opting to invest in an auto attendant.
