800 numbers and answering CS calls

Wondering about how other handle this

[Ledfish]

We are desperately wanting to add our toll free number to our website, however we just are not big enough to allow for having someone dedicated to answering the line 8 hours a day and we are also concerned about how to handle people that call after hours.

The solution really needs to have something like an auto attendant and then route the call to the appropriate department/person. I say with tongue in cheeky because we only have two people, but we do have about 4 different departments....customer service, accounting, purchasing, etc.

We have done some research and discovered business that offer virtual pbx auto attendant/voicemail system services.

We have narrowed our choice down to a company called gotvmail. Cost is pretty fair for outsourcing this service and range from about $10-$40 a month depneding on the plan and the provider.

Does anyone use a service like this and if so, has it worked well for you? what pro's and con's have you experienced and what things should we be thinking about that we might not have considered?

[jsinger]

we are also concerned about how to handle people that call after hours.

Why do you require after hours? Just tell customers to call during normal business hours. Works for us with never a complaint about lack of night hours.

Why don't you handle it yourself? We just get a few calls a day (heck, most are phone orders--we always have time for those)

[jwolthuis]

For a 2-person company, this sounds like overkill. Can you simply buy an answering machine, and route all calls to it? This would also allow you to screen your calls, and grab the ones from your suppliers or key customers.

This is OT, but I also wanted to comment on listing your 800-number on your website, because we just de-listed ours from our site today.

We are a 3-person company, and we ended up constantly walking "old ladies" (for lack of a better term) thru their order, with one employee spending an average of 4-5 hours a day on the phone (on our dime).

Here are typical calls:
- Do you carry pink widgets? (Answer: did you check the website?)
- How do I use this widget? (Answer: did you read the owner's manual we sent?)
- Can you recommend a widget? (Answer: yes the black one with spikes).

We finally came to the realization that these customers need to be calling our competition. My advice would be to really think twice about having a free-to-talk-as-long-as-you-want number on your site. They will use it often.

[grandmf]

The easiest is to do what was mentioned above and use a answering machine. To not list it will drive some people away. There are a good percentage of people that do not want to (or cant) do ordering over the internet. Some dont want to submit a credit card over a webpage, and some just arent familiar enough with computers to be confident to do it. Walking them through it may take time, but you may save yourself later if they screw something up ordering and want to return it. There are a lot of our customers that just like doing business over the phone. We also get people calling up just to see if we are an actual company. We sell consumable widgets so we get about 50% of our orders from returning customers, so this reasoning my not apply to you and what your selling. We would lose a lot of business if we got rid of our 800 number.

[jsinger]

Those walk-me-thru-your-site customers ARE very time consuming, but for us, rare.

Depends on average sale size. I might not offer 800 # if I were selling cheap costume jewelry, for example. Orders of less than about $50 need go online to be profitable.

Phone orders tend to be bigger than average in terms of size. You don't want to send those customers to a competitor.

[HRoth]

I too think that with a two-person company, just answer the phone yourselves. I found that limiting the time I took phone calls to hours posted on the site helped me be more efficient and feel less harassed.

I have noticed that people use the 800 number to place phone orders, for the most part. It is worth having. Once in a blue moon I get someone who was having trouble ordering online, but almost always it's because their browser crashed or something along those lines. Many people who order by phone comment that they don't want to order online. That is okay with me, because I too have noticed that phone orders tend to be larger - some of my largest, in fact. I also have gotten calls from people who are just checking to see if my biz is real. Then they are happy to go ahead and order online a lot of times. I guess it all depends on what kind of biz you are in.

[Wlauzon]

Many people who order by phone comment that they don't want to order online...

We have had an 800 number for 15+ years, and it just goes to the answering machine after hours.

But I find that comment above kind of funny - people will call in on cell phones that can be picked up in a variety of ways, yet are afraid to order online for "security reasons". And if people think that the law that supposedly prevents people from listening to the phone bands is effective...

[shri]

How would this work? (I'm toying with this idea right now).

Keep a paid contact number and keep a prominent email us if you need help.

In response to the email, send a faq back and say, if this does not answer your questions, call us on this 1-800 number.

(I don't have a US presence .. and phone calls are free in my shipping area.. just planning on implementing some autoresponders with a direct phone number that rings on my desk as opposed to an answering machine)

[Tourz]

We've been using a call-centre for a few years now and it has made a huge difference in capturing contact information from off-hour callers versus just having voicemail.

Switching to a small local call centre improved performance as well after an initial sign-up with a larger company. The smaller call-centre company is easier to train and has better customer service (you can talk to the owner in person and have a staff meeting)

During the normal weekday, one of our staff is answering calls but if there is a busy/no-answer it forwards to the callcentre who answers as our company, tries to patch it through to an alternate number, or takes a message and answers easy questions.

They answer "Thank you for calling... my name is... how may I direct your call?.. sorry, all sales staff are currently busy may I have one of them return your call or send info by email?..." It works better than voicemail as most people prefer to talk to a person rather than a machine. (Using a voip phone system gives us more options for call management, and its way cheaper. primus)

Having said that, the pro system Ledfish introduced, gotvmail, is definitely interesting as a live call centre can be expensive (ours is $150/mth for 150min and .89/min after) -- but if these kind of bills are high it should mean that business is good. But if you can have the same success with less costs... that is really great.

thanks for posting, I am going to give the automated system some serious thought. Perhaps a combination of the two would also be good.

People are used to calling these corporate systems so they would probably be quite effective for a small business.

Having someone/something answer the phone then patch it through to you really adds to your credibilty, there is no more "who is this scary internet guy?" It's now, "here is the expert".

[jsinger]

People are used to calling these corporate systems so they would probably be quite effective for a small business.

Compared with a mega bank, the average commerce site will look very impressive to callers. Tried to get thru to a local branch of the Bank of America last week. The call center kid, 1,500 miles away, couldn't find any record of it! Was easier to drive there than phone!

--
BTW, used to have a call center --more of a telemarketer actually-- 300 feet from us. Did you ever see the kind of people who work in those!

[Tourz]

Did you ever see the kind of people who work in those!

ha. but many of them having great phone voices which is what counts.

[ispy]

Most people who call a 800 number rather then order directly off the website are calling for only several reasons. They either want you to convince them to buy (the old days of car salesmanship), they are looking for an excuse to not buy, or they have some sort of distrust/paranoia of purchasing over the website. I dont buy the argument that people want to talk to a human voice, get extra product info etc etc. Its all right there in writing if the time is taken to read it which people should do anyway before an informed purchase and ordering is easy. In either case (unless you are in a position where product returns are not much financially damaging to your bottom line) this is a dangerous scenario. Salesmanship and convincing work if you have phone skill and are good at it, the problem is that it does not last. Does the car salesman take back the car when you camplain about the muffler falling off two weeks down the road? No. When the customer receives the item they often find that they bought it for all the wrong reasons (ie, you, your pitch etc), or that you left some detail about it out, and not because it was really what they wanted.

[HRoth]

"Its all right there in writing if the time is taken to read it which people should do anyway before an informed purchase"

Many people are very poor readers. Recently I read about research that showed that up to 35% of adults cannot understand the warnings on a prescription bottle because they don't read well.

Please note: ->That doesn't mean they're stupid.<-

People find ways to work around not being able to read well. One of them is using the phone.

I think there is a difference between schmoozing people and lying to them so you can pass off a crap product.

[jwolthuis]

Just to clarify, my comments were addressing an 800-number on the web site, not phone orders.

In our business, we have no problem taking a phone order for those that distrust the Internet, or cannot read the screen. We publish our regular phone number prominently on the web site, for just those purposes.

We de-listed our 800-number because of abuse; there are a lot of lonely people who want to chat about our widgets for 30 minutes, on our dime.

To the first poster eager to publish his toll-free number: be prepared to double or triple the hours you spend on the phone each day. If the call is free, people will use it for any purpose.