What do you mean you **don't** throw opportunities in the bin?

We now focus on business call handling strategies over the next few week given a company can grow organically by filling holes in their current state of play.

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At this point all the hard work has been done.....and proved successful.

An assessment of the market opportunities has been made and the key planning stages completed. The marketing approaches have been thought through and budgets agreed. Flyers, booklets and memorabilia have been designed, ordered and delivered. Phone calls have been made, partnerships agreed sales guys done a good job of creating opportunities and finally the calls come in.......

This is where many opportunities are lost, not due to bad telephone manner but rather because the phone isn't answered. Most callers won't leave a message on voice mail or answer machines and are likely to go elsewhere. I know some business people who feel the phone interface to a company they experience is representative to any subsequent service they may be offered. The worst thing of course is most companies who experience this don't even know it.

I recall showing a client of ours recently how to check for missed calls and he was alarmed to see the number of callers phone numbers he didn't recognise indicating new potential business. What a pity!

The most common reasons why calls are missed are know to us all:-

• too busy
  
• on another call
  
• not enough staff
  
• not enough office phone lines
  

Whatever reason above applies to your company, at least have a go at monitoring missed calls if at all possible. If you know your company isn't being represented in a professional manner on the phone, ask yourselves if you would buy from a company that has the same response a potential client receives from yours.

Either way, seriously ask yourselves if you are effectively throwing opportunities in the bin. Surely you owe this to yourselves given all the hard work you've done to solicit the call in the first place?

Olu Odeniyi

Reducing cost, removing pain with Online Backup, Virtual Switchboards & Virtual Call Centres