Your shop has caught a potential customer’s eye. Great!
Now, they’re likely to call for more information or to schedule an appointment, but this … could present a problem.
Many employees aren’t exactly experts when it comes to answering the phone and can be prone to making common phone etiquette mistakes that could discourage customers from ever coming in.
On this week’s upcoming episode of Ratchet+Wrench’s Inside the Consumer’s Mind video series, editorial director Anna Zeck talks with Leigh Anne Best, marketing manager of Mighty Auto Pro in Medina, Ohio and a cross-country formal business phone trainer, about that first phone call and how important that conversation is in bringing customers in.
Sure, not everyone is going to be a natural on the phone, but that’s why it’s so important to have a specific, trained employee answer your shop’s phone every time.
By having an assigned employee who is trained on the phone and knows how to confidently answer customer questions, you can ensure your team will take the time to talk each customer through everything they could need and won’t lose customers before they’ve even walked through the door.
If you don’t already have a dedicated employee answering your shop phones, you may be thinking another hire isn’t exactly a responsibility you can afford to take on. But, as Best explains, you really can’t afford not to. That employee will bring in so many customers to your shop that it is worth the extra payroll expense.
“You’ve got to take control of that phone call, and you’ve got to guide that customer into your shop,” Best says.
In order to bring in that potential customer’s first call, you likely spent a lot of money on your shop’s dedicated marketing efforts to pique a customer’s interest and prompt that call in the first place. That call is then a critical next step to motivate that customer to actually visit your shop. Ideally you want to avoid putting that customer on hold, have a recorded greeting locked and loaded, and can keep that call clear, concise, and consistent with each customer.
“That first point of contact is so important. It really sets the tone for how I, as a customer, think I’m going to be treated,” Zeck says.
That call could be the customer's first impression of your shop, so make it a good one. Stay tuned for this week’s upcoming episode to hear more tips from Best.
