Go the extra mile and make everyone smile

How many times have we all called a company and been greeted with the most miserable person of the year?

How many times do you call and the operator cannot speak your language or understand you properly?

How many times have you rung a company to ask a question and been greeted with "no - sorry - can't help you" when you KNOW that they have to know the answer?

In my experience - too many times have I had the 'pleasure' of these calls - not the operators fault though - I blame it on the company they work for - and the trainers.

In 2006 all that I hear and see are companies who want the quick and easy way out of a phone call:

Call centres flashing up how many people are waiting to talk Phones showing how many calls are waiting on that line Telesales operators being timed on their calls, and getting warnings about being on the phone too long

Everything that makes the caretaker of your phone call try and get rid of you as quickly as possible. But all that they end up getting rid of is ultimately a customer!

Cheap call centres are all good and well, but at what cost to your company in the long run? Saves you pennies now - costs you pounds later when you find that you have lost most of your clients to the few companies out there who care. Sooner or later, the consumer realises that if you buy cheap you pay twice. The large corporate should sit up and take notice.

When dealing with overseas call centres, it is not good enough simply making sure that the employee knows our language - they have to know our weather - our culture - our accents! They are not the only ones with different dialects especially in the UK. When trying to get a phone number, it is simply unacceptable to have to repeat the town spelling SEVEN times as I did recently, and I have an accent that unfortunately has been compared to that of the Queen several times!

It's the smaller companies who are showing up the nationals at the moment; My fantastic team at Sound Solutions Marketing -http://www.soundsolutions.co.uk have been supplying high quality inbound call centre services for over ten years to clients including Marriott, Whitbread, Virgin and many others.

My staff pick up each call as if it's a friend calling them. We go the extra mile. Even on a wrong phone number, we have been known to try and find the right one. This is because we are answering the call in the names of our clients. We know that someone will remember "that lovely lady at Marriott" who helped her today, and ultimately that lady will return - purchasing a gift voucher for someone, and will be amazed that in an International company - she is able to speak with the same person again!

Our staff are all long serving. They like working where they do - because their day is never the same, and because we nurture our staff so they in turn nurture our customer's prospects.

Just because a call centre is only 20 staff, does not mean that it cannot cope with National calls. We simply link up with fantastic technology to other similar size call centres and share the calls.

Online databases created ensure that we are all singing from the same hymn sheet - no-one realises when we pick up the call that we are not from Virgin, or Whitbread or Marriott.

Watch out you big impersonal call centres - us little ones are ready to take over the world!

If you want to purchase UK Gift vouchers and hear fantastic voices answering your call - visithttp://www.voucherline.com

Articles Source - Free Articles
About the Author

Caroline has been running her own telemarketing and marketing agency Sound Solutions Marketing for ten yearshttp://www.soundsolutions.co.uk. Before that, nearly 17 years ago, Caroline started her career selling advertising space for a large newspaper group, and later becoming their customer service manager.Caroline also has an online 'one stop shop' for gift vouchers on the internethttp://www.voucherline.com.