The average person seems to have a lot less time on their hands than they used to. This means that your business needs to find as many ways as possible of seeming approachable. One way of doing this is by having multiple means of contact, but this is only effective if they are all answered in a timely fashion. Realistically, you need to think about how much you can do on your own as you don’t want to be spending all day answering social media messages and not getting on with the other tasks that are involved in the successful running of a business. Let’s take a look at a few questions that are worth answering in your aim to find out how contactable a business you are running.
Are Your Business Hours the Same as Your Customers?
Most companies choose to answer their questions within a daily timeframe of business hours, but if you get a lot of business from overseas, you need to ask yourself whether you are making it easy for your clients. One way of addressing this is by outsourcing your phone services out elsewhere to a firm like Planet Numbers. Having a number which people can call to speak to a real human can be very effective.
What Communication Methods Do You Have?
Evaluate all the communication methods that you have open and how effective they are for you. The standard ones are likely to be a phone number and an email address, but you may also decide that it is worth having an instant messaging service. And if you have social media accounts, remember that these are communication portals as well. It is only worth having these accounts if you are going to be active on them, so close down any that you aren’t utilising to their full effect.
What is Your Average Response Time?
Your average response time matters as people can easily find alternatives these days, and they may not think twice about going elsewhere. Look at your competitors to see what they are doing so you are not too far off the mark. You want to try and standardise these response times so people are not left waiting around. For example, you can take steps to encourage patience in your customers by having an instant response when they send you an email giving them an estimated time that you will answer their query.
Have You Analysed How Customers Get in Touch with Your Business?
Some companies are naturally suited to people getting in touch online via social media, whereas others receive a high volume of phone calls. It is worth having the information of how people normally get in touch with your business so you can work out where to channel your resources. That is not to say that you will ignore other types of communication, but it is always a good idea to have a focal point as this is where the majority of your business is coming from.
