Think about all the time, money and creativity that goes into a successful marketing campaign.
A willingness to commit precious resources to such a project are just the prerequisites. Some of today’s best marketers believe that successful marketing requires creating an understanding of the target market that a business doesn’t yet understand -- that a robust campaign goes far beyond mere packaging and telling a story.
Some say that it’s all about creating undiscovered value and that it’s the marketer’s responsibility to create growth opportunity for a brand. In other words, a truly successful marketing campaign is a pretty big deal.
Don't fumble the football at the one-yard line.
Let’s say you’ve done all of the heavy lifting of executing a successful marketing campaign and, to top it off, maybe you got a little lucky with timing. People are interested. Visits to your site are way up, and calls are flooding your phone system. You’re being contacted for media requests. It worked.
Given the large task of having everything come together, it can be easy to overlook some basic details, such as lack of clarity after engagement has been achieved.
If your website is poor in quality, with shoddy content and design, and the site cannot handle a boost in traffic, then the marketing campaign to drive website traffic will be largely wasted.
The same goes for your phone system. If it is disorganized or generally poor in quality, business owners will have interference in converting consumer interest into sales. Just as an amateur-looking website, with unclear messaging and trouble handling heavy traffic can end up hurting a brand, so too can a poorly engineered phone system.
What impression is your phone system yielding to new or even established clients?
We cannot overemphasize the importance of yielding a professional first impression through your business’s phone system. But what does that mean? If you’re not really sure about what impression your phone messaging system gives, you may not have given it enough thought. What you believe to be adequate may, in fact, be a negative for interested callers.
Let’s talk about what you need to review for your phone system.
Your business phone system is a crucial aspect of your branding.
It could be that you’ve created slick imagery, an awesome website with insightful content and excellent reviews online from consumers and experts.
But when people call your number, what do they experience? Here are some things to consider:
1. Sound quality: People are very responsive to physical details, and that’s why companies are careful about details surrounding imagery. For your business phone system, auditory quality is equally important. It’s bad branding when your self-recorded messaging resembles the sound quality of an answering machine from 1987. A warm, smooth and clear quality that feels good to the ear is something to aim for.
2. Routing: What’s annoying to customers/clients? — Trying to engage a business with a question or concern and the business is not doing their part to help them. While you’re not trying to intentionally irritate your base, that’s what happens when they’re trying to reach a person or department and cannot find the right destination. Make sure your phone system is engineered to be user-friendly. Specifically, if you run a promotion encouraging people to call, but your system is not set up to direct callers properly, the campaign push will probably backfire.
3. Voice talent: Have you ever heard someone speak, whether in person or it’s your favorite singer, and just wanted to linger on their voice? As with sound quality, the person’s voice delivering your business’s script can really engage callers and keep them listening. Consider outsourcing this aspect of your phone system to keep your callers secured longer.
4. Script: For many up-and-coming startups, mom-and-pop shops, small businesses and more, one or two entrepreneurs shoulders the burden of trying to do everything themselves. While wanting to helm every aspect of the business is understandable, you’re probably not an expert on every aspect of branding. Make sure you have all the important details in your messaging. There are things you’ll want to include in your system’s greetings, message on hold, voice prompts and announcements. Snap Recordings is here to assist.
5. Language options: Today, there are many areas of the United States and beyond where having language alternatives proves extremely beneficial. If you have potential customers that speak another language, it will greatly benefit you to literally speak their language.
All of these considerations will greatly improve your business phone functionality and boost your branding.
