Dealing with many different types of business I get one question frequently, and it really doesn’t have much to do with marketing. The question we get is:
“Is there a way to get fewer junk calls at my place of business?”
Many of our clients are small shops and answering their phones for solicitation calls takes time out of their day and is not very productive. To make matters more complicated, the DNC (Do Not Call List) does not apply to business phone lines, only home (personal). So junk calls are, and will continue to be, an issue for businesses.
At one time we were averaging a dozen or more junk calls a day and it was a real pain to say the least. But alas, we came up with a solution!
The solution we came up with has slightly bothered some of our existing clients, but has eliminated 99% of junk calls to our business. Our solution was an auto attendant! An auto attendant is basically one of those automated menu systems that greets you and gives you options to direct you to the right person. With our system, you can quickly override the system by punching in an person’s individual extension at anytime or you can listen to the menu options and get your call routed to where it needs to go. There’s also a directory if you choose to use that.
While this has slightly bothered some of our clients (because they can’t be directly connected to us until the auto attendant comes on), the “junk calls” have a very difficult time getting through because they are mostly initiated by “robo-dialers”…and these auto dialing systems cannot navigate the menu system so the calls just go no where and disconnects…and we never know about them! So now when my phone extension rings, it’s always almost a legitimate lead or client trying to reach me. Talk about a time saver! Worth every penny!
