Reaching a generic voice-mail greetings is one of my great frustrations (pet peeve?)…and I don’t leave messages, typically, if I can’t determine if I’ve gotten the right number. Why do so many people fail to program a simple greeting? I know we’re all concerned with security and privacy, and I am too, however if you’re using a number for business, you absolutely have to let people know they’ve come to the right place. All the websites, business cards, email, print advertising and social media work we do, etc. are NO good whatsoever if we lose customers because we present our potential customers with a mystery to solve when they call us.
Thanks for reading this post and Brass Ring also thanks those whose content is shared here on our website. We present it in order to pass on their knowledge to our small business clients so it can help them remain informed, healthy and growing their businesses. Please bookmark our site, subscribe to our newsletter and come back for more marketing, small business & WordPress tips, advice, tools & news! - Edward A. Sanchez
Grease Your Sales Funnel
One of the things I always talk to clients about is the importance of having a solid “sales funnel.” By that I mean, every step and possible way that clients can (OR DON’T) come to your doorstep. Your sales funnel is how you guide people from being part of the mass of humanity into doing business with specifically you and not the “other guy.” Take every opportunity to make that as smooth and intuitive a path as possible. As a small business owner, more than ever, we have the opportunity to use great tools to massively increase our footprint on the world. We can serve more people, and really can present ourselves as or better than Fortune 500s spending millions on public relations & marketing. We can at the very least try to emulate them very well. Without great expense, we can have excellent, informative websites great printing materials and a number of time-saving productivity-enhancing tools to wrangle business in the information age.
Always Show Professionalism…It’s Not Hard!
Your voice-mail is so basic, yet SO important…don’t waste this opportunity to show your professionalism. People do make quality decisions based on how you present yourself in all regards. As far as cost…you’re already paying for it if you have telephone service, whether it’s a landline, cellular or online…typically, most communication providers give you the opportunity to personalize your services. Take the time… and give people some basics with a decently recorded message. Give them basic info. so they know they actually reached you and not someone else who now has your number. Don’t simply accept the generic greeting…an anonymous voice telling people “This person cannot be reached at this moment. Please leave a message after the tone” will lose you business!
My current greeting:
“Thanks for calling…you’ve reached 858-228-6003, Brass Ring Enterprises and MyWordPressGuy.com. This is Edward Sanchez. I apologize for not taking your call personally, but leave a detailed message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Again, thanks for your call!”
That’s just basic voice-mail…I KNOW I can get more complex with different messages and mailboxes, etc. etc…all part of the services I pay for, but I’m a big fan of the K.I.S.S (keep it simple, Sanchez!) principle. Maybe I’ll get fancier some day, but, nowadays, this is better than most calls I seem to make!
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.