On The Phone

You’re sat there tasked with writing scripts for your company’s telephone messages. You’re not a writer – never have been, never claimed to be – yet somehow the responsibility has fallen on you to generate a series of messages that link together seamlessly and reflect your brand.

Your mind goes blank, so you do a little research on the Google machine to get the creative juices pumping. This backfires when you learn that the telephone is still most customers’ preferred means of communication. You also discover that if callers aren’t satisfied by their experience on the phone, they’re highly likely to take their business elsewhere.

Whew! Is it hot in here?

You take a walk to clear your head and see Julie preparing to read your scripts into an old answering machine. Unable to drown out the noise of your busy call centre, some bright spark suggests that she reads the messages under her desk to provide some form of sound barrier.

You sit back down at your desk, the weight of the world now firmly on your shoulders as your boss insists you need to start recording like now! “Oh, and by the way, you absolutely must say this,” says your boss as he slips you a list of bloated phrases that could make an insomniac sleep for a week.

Sullenly, you ask yourself how life came to this.

Believe it or not, this situation arises in offices all over the UK every single day. We know because we’re the ones people call to fix their problems, often after many customers have fled due to poor customer service.

So how about some good news? Here are 5 top tips to help you structure your regulatory messages so they don’t sound quite so gloomy.

1 Understand the importance

If you hate what you’re writing and you script the words begrudgingly, your audience will be able to tell. It’s a magic truth of writing that the author’s feelings somehow come through, and if you write feeling bored and angry, then poor Julie is highly likely to sound that way, too.

2 Seize the opportunity

Any great writer will tell you that no word on a page should be wasted. It’s a chance to convey an emotion and deliver a precise message to your audience. You’ve been given a stage, and your words are your instrument, so knock ‘em dead!

3 Show your callers you care

It’s a given that you’d rather write just about anything else other than tell your callers that your messages have to be recorded because of blah, blah, blah. But what if you highlight your reason for doing this: to offer them the best possible service? Suddenly, the caller will start to feel a little warm inside.

4 Timing is everything

Take a look at how many regulatory messages you have. Is it a lot? Does everyone need to hear them? Might it be easier to subtly slip one on the tail end after the customer has chosen their option, than bored to tears in the welcome message? Put yourself on the receiving end and ask yourself not only if the message sounds okay, but that it’s definitely in the right place.

5 If in doubt, cut it out

The first thing your caller will value is being given accurate information. The second thing they’ll value is time. As beautifully as you may be able to construct a Shakespearian sentence, this is not the time for a work of art. Be direct, cover your points in a way that sounds like your brand, and keep your options as succinct as possible. Never is this more relevant than with your regulatory messages.

If you ever become the unfortunate soul who is forced to write against your will, we recommend you grasp these little nuggets of advice with both hands. Or better still, get your boss to give us a shout so we can do it all for you.

To make sure you’re up to speed on your regulatory requirements, e-mail us on sayhello@onbrand.co.uk or give us a call on 03333 220 022.

OnBrand | Smart marketing using customer knowledge for digital, audio, social and events

When trying to get through to a company, there’s the amount of time actually spent on hold, and then there’s the time you feel like you’ve been on hold. Believe it or not, these are generally two very different numbers.

As an agency with a ‘customer first’ ethos, we have developed the art of seeing your channels through your customer’s eyes. And in response to our findings, we’ve developed specialist ways of working that leave your customers in no doubt about how important they really are.

Here are five top OnBrand tips for making those calls feel a whole lot quicker than they sometimes are:

Nobody likes their time wasted. If you pre-warn them of this and they hang up, they’ll feel they haven’t wasted any time at all.

1 Be transparent

For many callers, clarity is key. If they’re calling with twenty minutes left on their lunch hour and it will take fifteen minutes to get through, it’s better to activate a message that informs them the wait is long and that it would be best to call back. Otherwise, you risk making a caller wait on hold, and then still not being able to resolve their issue. Nobody likes their time wasted. If you pre-warn them of this and they hang up, they’ll feel they haven’t wasted any time at all.

2 Get to the point

With today’s advances in IVR technology, getting your options right is non-negotiable.  If your system reels off nineteen different options, most people will have zoned out after five. Clunky options lead to people selecting the wrong choice, just to get through to someone, which doesn’t help anybody. Therefore, you’re better off having five options and then providing some music for the caller while they wait. At least this way, you all know they’re in the right place for resolution.

3 Music to their ears

The general expectation of your caller is to be forced to listen to elevator music.  Dull at best. Outright infuriating at other times. However, with the right phone technology, you could provide your own jukebox, and give your caller their own choice of music.  Quite a way to make an impression.  Just by opting for up-to-date music, you can catch your callers by surprise and even change their mood. Good music choices are often referred to once the caller has been put through to an agent.  For one client’s complaint line, we even provided a particularly cheeky track. This delivered a positive result: having listened to the track, callers engaged with friendly banter with the agents, a welcome difference to the frustrated tones the staff had generally been used to dealing with previously.

The pace and tone of the voice on your pre-recorded messages can make a great difference in keeping the caller engaged

4 Promote self-serve options

Often when we analyse our clients’ data, there are callers waiting in line who are able to help themselves, but they’re just not aware of it. Therefore, by inserting pre-recorded messages informing of what can be done online, or by answering any other questions your callers ask historically, it can lead to positive abandonments. This also lessens the waiting time for callers who genuinely need an agent. It’s just a case of being in tune with what your agents are telling you and creating short, informative messages that play at certain points of the callers’ journey.

5 Be interesting

There are simple things that can be done to make the call more interesting. The pace and tone of the voice on your pre-recorded messages can make a great difference in keeping the caller engaged, but we’ve also found there are often interesting bits of trivia about a company that are rarely told. For example, a DIY company we work with originally started out in the trenches of World War II, with two men who agreed to form a company together when they returned to England. We created a message around this story, which we felt callers would be interested in, and would even inspire brand loyalty. All the while, we were also disguising the fact they were on hold.

To get an expert opinion on your telephony channel, simply e-mail us on sayhello@onbrand.co.uk or give us a call on 03333 220 022, where we’ll be delighted to hear from you.

OnBrand | Smart marketing using customer knowledge for digital, audio, social and events

The incorporation of Interactive Voice Response (IVR) into telephone systems was an exceptionally innovative idea. Somewhat surprisingly, the technology began as far back as in the 1970’s, but the first editions were far too expensive to be used in the mainstream, and the complexity of the technology meant it didn’t really take off until the 80’s.

Once developers got used to creating IVR technology and when everyday companies could finally afford to implement it in their business, it soon became the norm for people to be talking to recordings on a machine.

As with any technological advance, IVR had its sceptics, and still does today. The fact is, an automated system dealing with your callers and filtering down the ones who really need human attention is incredibly good in theory. However, making this system work to the best of its ability requires a great deal of knowledge, experience, understanding, and – perhaps the most underrated factor – execution.

If you have IVR in place in your business, take a moment to ask yourself this:

• Do you know, at call centre level, the reasons why most people call?
• Are the most popular reasons catered for with their own IVR option?
• Are these options placed at the beginning of your IVR options, therefore reducing caller time and effort?
• Is the “feel” of the call in-keeping with your brand?
• Do you play the right music at the right times?
• Are you aware of the problems your IVR design causes your business?

Also, when IVR was first integrated, it was mainly used to segment calls to different departments within a business. Now, many companies use IVR even though all callers are being routed through to the same agents, creating unnecessary actions for the customer.

The fact is, there are at least 20 areas where your IVR can let your business down and to address them takes a great deal of time and care.

But have you ever wondered why callers can reach boiling point before your agent has had the chance to say a single word? The answer is simple. Your IVR options aren’t providing a pleasant customer journey, and these negative experience may be harming your business more than you thought.

When we worked on a white paper that focused on caller behaviour, we learnt that:

• 93% of callers don’t speak to the right person first time
• 55% of callers are likely to hang up if this happens
• Of the above, 47% are “unlikely” to call you back, going elsewhere

When you consider that you could lose 24% of customers to a competitor for something as simple as your options didn’t allow them to reach the right person on the first attempt, it really does drum home how important your IVR options are. What’s more, statistics show that 80% of customers stay loyal to companies that get this right.

In short, what would you have to lose by having telephony experts look at the format of your IVR journey? It’s an OnBrand custom to offer a caller audit for free, and we can then score your journey out of 200, letting you know how this compares to your closest competitors, as well as offer advice for both short and long-term wins.

Our belief is that a company’s IVR should be reviewed annually, and updated every 1-3 years. The reason for this is the change that naturally occurs within businesses, such as fundamental changes in business functionality, alterations to departments, updates in the brand’s Tone of Voice, and also migrations onto different platforms. With all this in mind, it’s fair to say your IVR can soon become dated, and lack the functionality it did when first delivered.

So don’t delay. Apply for your IVR audit today!

Get my free IVR report                      Get the white paper

Got a question? Get in touch by e-mailing sayhello@onbrand.co.uk or give us a call on 03333 220 022 to find out more about how we can help your business.

OnBrand | Smart marketing using customer knowledge for digital, audio, social and events

One of the most effective ways to improve your telephony channel is to simply think about the main reason your customers are calling. If you record data on incoming calls, you can often see patterns emerge regarding when customers are calling and why. Even if you don’t record data, it’s worth talking to your call agents as they’re the ones on the front line and will have the most accurate idea of what people are saying when they get through.

With the data to hand, all you need to do is ensure that the caller can get through to the right department to resolve their query quickly and simply. Repeat: quickly and simply. Let’s explore that a little:

Quickly

As modern people, we all value our time above anything else, so being able to get things done quickly and effectively always makes us feel good and leaves us feeling energised. It’s true that you may have extremely high call volumes, so waiting for a little while may be inevitable. This is generally accepted and easily forgiven, provided that the caller feels they’re being treated fairly, and they are well looked after once they get through, at the first time of asking.

Simply

It’s important to remember that your callers don’t work for your company, so any slang words to do with your brand or industry should be avoided at all costs, as they’re only likely to confuse. Callers want to easily identify what button to press so they can get through to the right place with no hiccups. And if a large bulk of your callers want the same things, it’s best to ensure the option comes sooner rather than later.

If you have a whole host of options, ask yourself if they all need to be there. Can any of them be condensed? Does pressing 2 actually take them to a different department than if they press 3? If not, why not just drop them straight through to the agent?

Stats Don’t Lie

If your customers are often agitated about the same things, take a moment to ask how you can put this right. Often, the fixes are pretty simple when you take the time to look at the choke points in your journey and consider alternatives.

As a company who prides itself in viewing your business through your customers’ eyes, it’s possible we may see ways of simplifying your caller journey that don’t occur to you because you’re simply too close to it. If that’s the case, get in touch and let us find ways to humanise your telephony channel, helping win customer loyalty.

OnBrand | Smart marketing using customer knowledge for digital, audio, social and events