For any company, no matter how big or small, a fully functioning point of contact for incoming business is an absolute essential. Unanswered phones, amateur sounding voicemails and poor automated services can all have a negative impact on success, and turn away prospective clients. Avoiding rookie errors with your business telecoms is guaranteed to help your success, and make sure customers and clients give feel confident with your business.
- Using Your Home Phone.
Most small businesses start at home, with the convenience of a laptop and an internet connection making for a brilliant place to begin. But what happens when the kids pick up the phone or the line stays engaged because you’re catching up with family? As well as that, if you’re dedicated business hours are Monday-Friday you’re unable to stay closed over the weekends because the home phone will continue to ring. Be sure to have a dedicated number exclusively for your business to make sure you appear as professional as possible, and guarantee every call makes it through.
- Thinking Short term
It might seem like a small network right now, but what happens when your business inevitably blooms into something bigger? There’s nothing more risky for a business than changing phone numbers/point of contacts, as no matter how hard you try and inform your clients, someone will always be left hanging. Be sure to think ahead when making plans, both for your business and your telecom plan.
- Skipping Out SLA’s (Service Level Agreements)
You pay a telecom company, whether it be your home service provider or an office network, to get your traffic from one point to another. If there’s any weak link in the chain, or the ‘connection’ so to speak is prone to having issues, then the company you’re paying isn’t doing their job correctly, which means you can’t do yours. Be sure to implement SLA’s to guarantee a fully functioning network, and to make sure the company in question is keeping their end of the deal.
- Only Using Skype
Skype is a brilliant tool for small businesses that means people can keep in contact anywhere in the world with an internet connection, for free, which is perfect for keeping costs low. However, not everyone uses Skype, and a lot of people will shy away from a business if they can’t get hold of them in a traditional sense. Be sure that if you’re going to use Skype, you also have a solid secondary point of contact too.
- Unprofessional Voicemails
It may well seem like a small part of the picture, but a crackly, half-hearted voicemail won’t instil confidence into your prospective clients. Be sure to sound clear, confident and involve all of the details the caller might need. Also be sure to include a second point of contact, perhaps an out of hours phone number or email address to be sure you don’t lose their custom.