The phone rings. As a small business owner or salesman, you are in the midst of paper work or answering emails. You reach to answer it and say hello.
Now a female robotic voice starts with a script and you must listen to the entire message if you want to be removed from the caller list. The list, however, is then sold to another company and this time-wasting experience happens over and over again. Of course, you could decide to not to answer the phone and see if the caller leaves a voice mail message. But, you think, what is if this is a real person, a potential sale, and he or she just may call another small business without leaving a voice mail?
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According to National Consumer Law Center, robocalls have increased 285 percent in the past three years. In February 2018, consumers received over 3 billion calls.
The YouMailRobocall Index reported the top 50 cities receiving robocalls in March of 2018. Indianapolis ranked 41st on this list with 22,378,100 and Chicago ranked No. 4 with 111,816,400. Both cities experienced a 12 percent increase from the previous month.
On the other side of the coin are those automated telephone messages. You know you call some business and after pressing a series of numbers in response to the automated message with “options have changed” you may reach an actual person or department. Google did a study that suggested 61 percent of mobile users call a business when they are in the purchase phase of the buying cycle. High value purchases appear to generate more calls.
Businesses will only see this call volume increase. BIA/Kelsey advisory suggested by 2020, calls to businesses will exceed 169 billion per year. The good news is according to this same advisory these calls are 10-15 times more likely to generate a successful sale.
Voice communication in spite of the technological advancements will still be the primary bridge connecting the buyer to the seller. A Gartner survey from 2016 revealed that 89 percent of businesses expect to compete mostly on the basis of the buyer’s experience. Four years ago this percentage was at 36 percent. What all these data trends reveal is the customer experience will become front and center even more than it is today. Unfortunately, what this also means is crazy busy business owners and sales professionals will still have to answer their phones for those incoming “unknown caller” announcements because just one of them might be a qualified sales lead.
Leanne Hoagland-Smith is an author, speaker and executive coach. Her weekly column explores issues that impact the bottom line of firms with fewer than 100 employees. She can be reached at 219-508-2859.