How To Keep Your Customers Happy Over The Phone

Phone manner is very important for keeping your customers happy and representing your brand in a professional way. Your manner on the phone matters, and will change how your customers feel about you and how effective your business can be.

Here’s what every business owner needs to know about managing phone lines, whether you’re a one-man-band using your mobile phone, or a larger business with an insurance voip CRM.

Keep It Consistent

Make sure that anyone who answers the phone does so in the same way. When a customer calls you, they want to know quickly that they have called the right place. Keep your greeting brief. Choose something professional that mentions the company and then your own name. Don’t waste time with extras like, “How can I help you?”. Saying, “Hello, Gordon’s Garage, Gordon speaking,” is plenty. 

Don’t Interrupt

Never interrupt a complaining customer. It can be tough to resist, but listen to the whole problem, no matter how long the customer talks. Even if you use a call centre that will hand off the call to a member of your staff, listening to the whole problem will make the customer feel as though they are being taken seriously. 

Use The Hold Button

Make sure everyone who handles the phones knows how to use your phone system properly, including the hold button. Nobody should ever put the phone to their chest to muffle the mouthpiece so they can talk to someone else in the office. Clients might hear things that you don’t want them to. 

Use The Transfer Button

Everyone needs to know how to transfer someone to another member of the team. Say something like, “The best person to handle this is Anna, so I’ll transfer you.” If you need time to find Anna or talk her through the customer’s query, tell the customer what is going on, and put them on hold, so they understand why they’ve been left waiting. Make sure Anna takes the call with a good idea of what the problem or question is. 

Keep Customers Up To Date

Your team needs to give the customer a list of what they are going to do, then a longer timeframe than they actually need to get it done. This is a good idea because when you solve their problem faster than you said you would, the customer feels pleased and thinks you went above and beyond to solve their issue. If you take longer than you said, they’ll feel irritated instead. 

Smile

You can hear when a person is smiling. When you smile as you’re speaking on the phone, it does make a difference to your tone of voice. Smiling makes your team sound as though they’re in a good mood when they’re on the phone. If a member of your team sounds bored or miserable, it will sound worse on the phone, as the customer can’t see their body language. Words and inflexion are very important over the phone, even more than they are in a face-to-face encounter. Smile, and keep your tone friendly and professional.