Last week my firm’s website was down for a frustrating 8 working hours. Nothing I could do except field the calls to the office as our eLearning packages are linked to the main server. It hasn’t happened for years as the company promise me 99% uptime. But that day was the 1% downtime.
After the 20th call you could sense my frustration, my annoyance, you could smell it. And I bet the 20th caller didn’t quite get the same experience as my first caller. After all I gave the same answer to everyone who called.
The eeriest issue is that most Inside Salespeople, particularly those who take inbound calls, have to deal with 20 to 40 calls per day sometimes many more and the same query often crops up time and again.
Can you say hand on heart, that the 40th person gets the same experience from the call handler as the 1st caller? I doubt it but we owe it as professionals to do so.
Here’s a quick checklist for the latter calls:
- Did I really listen or assume I heard the same problem?
- Did I jump in when they briefly paused for breath?
- Did I build trust – seek commonality, show competence and reveal my intention?
- Did my voice tone sound relaxed and in control?
- Did I smile?
- Was I relaxed or agitated?
Just a quick checklist to make sure you treat the 20th call just like the 1st.
