People are changing the way they use their phone for business
I am often asked to present on subjects like the future of the telephone in business communications. During such presentations, I typically refer to the changing ways in which people use their phones for business, how people are far less patient waiting for an answer than they used to be and the demise of voicemail.
Wherever possible, I look for recent research findings to add weight to my arguments. Reliable data on wait times and voicemail use is, however, difficult to find. I, therefore, decided to run a series of straw polls through LinkedIn to get a flavour of people’s attitudes towards wait times and voicemail.
Firstly, the caveats. The polls are unscientific, relatively small in scale, and the respondents are typically professional business people. The findings, however, remain interesting if only to make us think about how our own perceptions of phone usage compare with others; we all tend towards confirmation bias in the absence of data.
How long would you wait for a call to be answered before hanging up?
My first question asked people how long they would wait for a call to be answered before hanging up. The answer to this question is important to me as Managing Director of a telephone answering company because I am often asked by clients how long they should wait before diverting the call to Paperclip (delayed divert). In the survey, over 60% of respondents said they would hang up after twenty seconds, with almost a quarter not willing to wait even ten seconds. Intuitively, most people tend to think they would never be so hasty as to hang up after ‘only’ twenty seconds…until they time themselves (my poll encouraged respondents to time how long they were willing to wait)!
If you are considering using a telephone answering, reception or booking service my recommendation is that you divert calls immediately (a full divert) or after a period of 10-15 seconds. Wait any longer, and your caller may hang up before Paperclip can capture the call; a call that could be a sales opportunity or a last chance to ‘prevent’ an unhappy customer from going elsewhere.
Do you leave voicemails?
The second and third questions I asked related to voicemail. Personally, I rarely leave voicemails on business answering machines these days, and I wanted to know whether I was the ‘odd one out’. Only 28% of respondents to the previous question said they waited until the ‘voicemail clicked in’, so organisations relying on voicemail to capture missed calls need to be confident that the majority of these callers are willing to leave a message.
I must admit I was surprised by the findings. 41% of respondents said they never left voicemails, with a further 28% admitting to leaving voicemails but rarely getting a reply. 30% of respondents were happy to leave a message. This is a far higher figure than I was expecting and may reflect the age profile of the LinkedIn audience. My children and stepchildren never leave voicemails and, as I know only too well, never respond to mine!
Do you answer your voicemails?
I wanted to know whether people’s reluctance to leave voicemails was, in part, coloured by their own behaviour in responding to voicemails they receive. I suspect this is a difficult area to get dispassionate feedback. After all, failing to respond to a voicemail could be perceived as poor customer service. Furthermore, few of us (unless you work in telephone answering!) track and monitor voicemails. It is easy to let a voicemail slip through the net, particularly if it isn’t urgent.
In response to my question about attitudes towards responding to voicemail messages, 80% said they did respond. Almost half of this group, however, admitted to sometimes forgetting. Impressively, 50% of respondents asserted that they ‘…always responded as quickly as possible.
If calls to your business are important, answer within ten seconds…or let Paperclip do it for you
In summary. If incoming calls are important to your business make sure you answer them within ten seconds. If you can’t, engage the services of Paperclip to capture them for you. Using Paperclip means, during business hours, you won’t have to worry about voicemails.
If you rely on voicemail: don’t. Only 28% of respondents waited until the voicemail clicked in and, even then, some didn’t leave a message; in part because they don’t believe you’ll get back to them.
If you want to know more about how Paperclip’s telephone answering, bookings and reception services can help your business capture all sales opportunities, please call us on 01246 418 181. We’re ready to take your call.
Hi, I’m Anne Batty, Managing Director of Paperclip. I am passionate about customer service. I believe enduring relationships are built on being open, transparent and trustworthy.
I love questions. So, if you have a question relating to telephone answering – pricing, technical, scope and more – I would love to hear from you at anne@paperclip.co.uk or 01246 418181.
Paperclip’s clients enjoy working with us. I know you will too.