Voice Recordings for Phone Systems: Which kind do you need?

Voice Recordings for Phone Systems come in two different types:

1. Greetings and Prompts
2. Messages on hold

Which type of voice recordings do you have on your telephone system?  If you’re not sure, you’re probably not getting the results you need.  Find out more now:

Voice Recordings for Phone Systems

Telephone Greetings

Every phone call to your business starts by greeting your caller.  If your office is busy, this might be handed by an “automated” greeting built into the phone (PBX and VoIP systems both offer this feature).  You only get one chance to make a great first impression, so when an important customer calls, or a potential customer, you make a better first impression when you have a greeting that sounds great.

Unfortunately, too many companies don’t plan for these messages, and end up with a greeting recorded by:

• the phone installer (often with an accent)
• your secretary (who really doesn’t want to do it…and you can hear it in her voice)
• How many top pros in your industry have the boss answer the phone?
• a computerized voice. This is probably the worst, but it’s free, right?

There’s a better solution: you can have a professional greeting and well-planned directories and prompts.  Your phone installer probably doesn’t have the time to do this, but we do.  After planning and writing a script, your greeting is recorded with a professional voice over.  Informer Professional Greetings and Auto Attendant prompts have helped companies like Swissair, Paychex, Citibank, and Doubletree Hotels sound more professional.  You can sound just as professional!  Find out about these affordable voice greetings for your phone system.

Messages on hold for your phones

The second voice recording for phone system is a marketing message on hold.  More than half of all business phone callers are placed on hold.  If you’re like me, you may get bored or frustrated, and may hang up. Most callers who do hang up never call again.

Offering your callers interesting information on hold helps.  In fact, a US West study finds that:

Providing information on hold results in a 40% increase in retention of callers on hold… a 15% increase in inquiries… a 12% direct increase in requests for products and services mentioned on hold.

Two ways to write messages on hold

There are two ways to write messages on hold: the right way and the wrong way.  The wrong way…

• uses a “template” and adds your name and products to a generic sounding script
• just wastes your callers’ time with information they’re not interested in, like they
  • that you were founded in 1492
  • that you won the president’s award 432 time
  • that you’re “proud” to represent your distributor
  • that your team is “well trained” and “knowledgeable”
  • that you accept all major credit cards
• starts most messages with your company name, your product name, or “we”
• are filled with clichés like “your call is very important to us,” “we’ll be right with you,” and “higher than normal call volumes.”
• just try to sell, sell, sell. People hate to be sold (but they love to buy)

There’s a better way that helps you sound more professional, and focuses on your customers and their needs.  It provides information that actually helps the customer, and helps the customer make the right choice (choosing you!)

Messages on hold are a marketing investment.  They should have a specific goal, and should be evaluated like every other marketing expense: do they accomplish their goals?

Do you have professionally recorded voice recordings on your phones?  Do they help you and your customers?  Maybe it’s time to take another look.   Contact us for a “First Glance” Analysis: click here for information, or call us right away: In Connecticut call 203-655-3920. In New York call 212-355-6980.  Nationwide call 800-862-8896.

 

 

 

 

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Messages on hold for Dentists help increase consults and patient health

Messages on hold for dentists in Connecticut give you a new way to grow your practice.  Why?  On hold advertising are the marketing messages that your patients…your patients and your future patients…hear, every time they have to wait on hold.  That’s important, because dentists can’t “sell” to their patients, and they don’t want to.  So what can you do to tell patients about the great new services you provide?

Busy dental practices ask their callers to “please hold” 69% of the time (according to AT&T research).  At most practices, callers listen to boring music, or dead silence on hold.  That annoying and a wasted opportunity.  Instead, why not give your callers information that they want, and that you want them to have.

Messages on hold for dentists play a vital role

Your patients look to you for guidance.  When they need treatment you tell them about it.  But what about your newest services…Invisalign, cosmetic dentistry, and implants?  They’re just three of your most “life changing” ways to help your patients.  They’re also  profitable.

Hold advertising starts the right conversations

How do you start conversations with them?  Why not tell them about these and other profitable services that you’ve added to your specialties with marketing messages on hold?  “Tell Your Patient” with messages that are interesting, and lead to questions about the benefits of these treatments.

What would you like to talk with more patients about?

Your practice has so many new treatments that you didn’t have just a few years ago: Bleaching, bonding, veneers, and enamel abrasion…they can put a smile on any patient!

These treatments offer immediate benefits that your patients will welcome.  In many cases, all it takes is starting the right conversation at the right time.

Messages on hold “plant the seed” of helpful conversations at dental offices nationwide.  What do your patients listen to while they’re waiting…bored…on hold?  Why not help enhance their smile and their dental health with helpful information?  They’re already working at practices in Greenwich, Stamford, Norwalk, Bridgeport and Hartford, and a custom message tailored to your practice can be working for you in no time.

Tell us about your practice and about your patients.  Sound more professional  We’ll show you how messages on hold can work for you on every phone call.

Call today: 800-862-8896.  In Connecticut call 203-655-3920.

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Examples of Great Customer Service: Do you provide it?

Examples of Great Customer Service aren’t as easy to find as we’d like.  I’m from New York, so I’m a bit less patient than many of my friends, and a bit more demanding.  That make recognizing “standouts” in providing good service easy.

Forbes Magazine’s consumer advocate has written about the authoritative American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) recognizes the companies that treat their customers best.  You might find some of the names on the list surprising:

1. Chic-fil-A
2. Trader Joe’s
3. Aldi
4. Amazon
5. Lexus
6. Costco Wholesale
7. HEB Grocery
8. Toyota

Top Service across all industries

The top ACSI choices cut across all product categories, from groceries to luxury cars, fast food to internet search engines (can you guess which one that is?).  Great service isn’t just reserved for high priced purchases.  And many rank at the top of Glassdoor’s “best places to work” survey.

You might also be surprised at how good the service is at some “low price” companies: some “discounters” rank well ahead of pricey Apple (#13) and Fedex (#19).

Last week I bought a new iPhone.  It arrived a day before it was scheduled to get here.  But within 6 days, it had “turned itself off” 7 times.  That was really disappointing.  And I anticipated a long difficult process to replace it.

When I finally found the right phone number, the voice at the other end of the line was evidently from an overseas call center.  Was this going to work?

Yes.  It did.  The rep immediately knew my name, my order number and the item I had purchased.  He placed me on “hold” for about 2 minutes, and when he returned he had a resolution: my replacement phone would be sent out within 24 hours.  Without my even asking for it.  That’s customer service.

How do you evaluate the customer service you deliver?

Customer service reps face disappointed, and annoyed customers, all day, every day.  The only thing that can make the phone calls they handle better is a great company behind them.  Great companies make it easy to make the customer happy, by offering things like:

1. First Call Resolution (like I was offered)
2. Customer Waiting Time: 60% of customers feel that being put on hold for even one minute is too long.  If you do place calls on hold, or they wait in a customer service queue, the time seems to go faster if callers are listening to something interesting.
3. Customer Greeting: sound professional.  Sound friendly.  (that’s what I heard)
4. Ability to solve the problem: empowering your Customer Service Reps (CSR’s) to solve the problem is key (like I was offered)

There are plenty of other goals to strive for, but these are good ones to try for.

Examples of Great Customer Service: how do you compare to others in your industry? Or to ACSI leaders?

Hiring enough customer service reps and training them so they can solve problems isn’t cheap.  But customers will consider great service…priceless.

Here’s a simple idea that can help

Here’s an idea that might help: a professional recorded “greeting” at your service center, and interesting messages on hold that make “hold” time more interesting can help.  You can find out more about adding both to your phone system by clicking here, or by calling Informer Messages on hold at 800-862-8896.

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Grasshopper 800 Number has some answers, but not this one

The Grasshopper 800 number has lots of answers about your new VoIP service, but not this one.  This is the one that will make your Grasshopper VoIP service more valuable, and more profitable, by turning it into a better telemarketing tool.  Interested in finding out more?

Grasshopper 800 Number should be your second call

That’s because Grasshopper Customer service is really good at the basic stuff, like how to work your new phone.  But The Informer can help you do what you really want to do: sound more professional and accomplish more on every phone call.  When you do, you’ll sell more, too.

New capabilities

Your new mobile phone can do something that we haven’t seen on any other mobile phones: when your caller dials your number and the mobile carrier tries to locate you, most phone services play a “ring back” tone.  But you have a better option.

Use that time to educate your callers

The Informer lets you replace the “ring back” tone with a custom marketing recording.  It will give your callers information that they want, and that you want them to have.  And there’s never a better time.  Why?

Think about your callers: they’re your customers and your potential customers. And they call you when they really want your help.  They call and they’re focused on you and how you can help them.  They’re thirsty for your help.

That’s the time to capitalize on their attention.  Sound more professional.  Tell them about how you can help them best.  Tell them about what’s new and what’s different about how you can help them.  Remind them about how you’re different from the competition and what that means to them.

It’s better advertising.

We all “tune out” advertising.  We “TIVO” commercials, we delete email blasts, we ignore any ad that doesn’t say “Free.”  That’s because most advertising tries to interrupt you when you’re doing something else.  Informer Messages are different.  They reach your target customer when they want your help.  So they’re more effective.

Interested in finding out how Informer Messages can make your Grasshopper mobile phone a better marketing tool?  Click here for information, or to speak with someone right now, call us: In New York call 212-355-6980.  In Connecticut call 203-655-3920.  And Nationwide call 800-862-8896.

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Messages on hold for Businesses in Stamford: don’t miss the chance

Messages on hold for Businesses in Stamford, Connecticut can help you sound more professional, and sell more on every phone call.  Think about it: most business calls are placed on hold for at least a short while (69% of them, according to AT&T Research), and callers are stuck listening to music…or impatiently waiting in dead silence.  That’s a wasted opportunity that successful businesses do something about.

Messages on hold for Businesses in Stamford

Some of Fairfield County’s most successful businesses, like Stamford Tent, Stamford Twin Rinks, and Chelsea Piers have used marketing messages on hold to educate their callers: they tell callers about their most profitable products and services.  They give callers helpful advice.  And describe how they’re different from the competition.

When your phone rings it’s a customer or potential customer looking for help.

How often do you get to deliver your message to your best prospects when they’re focused on getting your help?  Do you really want to ignore this opportunity?

Hold messages help Stamford Businesses

Successful advertising on hold is more than just a sales pitch.  Creating on hold marketing starts with understanding Stamford businesses and residents, and how you help them.  It’s learning about your customers’ “hot buttons,” their most important problems and desires.  This is the basis for all effective marketing, but it’s too often neglected in most advertising…including hold messages.

The script is the key to successful hold messages.  Deliver a message that your caller is interested in, and your offer will be a success.

What would you tell your best prospects if you had a chance?

What are your goals for the coming months?  What are your best opportunities? And, most importantly, what do your customers really want?

We’re right here in the Stamford area, and work with businesses like yours to create interesting, effective Informer Messages on hold.  We start with a Free 15-minute Discovery Session that focuses on your goals and your customers, and you’ll get simple ideas that you can use to sound more professional and sell more on every phone call.  Why not contact us today?  In Stamford call 203-655-3920. or click here for information.  Nationwide call 800-862-8896

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Professional Voice Mail Greetings: are you making the wrong impression?

Professional Voice Mail Greetings help you sound more professional to the people who really count in business: your customers and your potential customers.  Making a great first impression is important.  Because you only get one chance.

Here’s how to sound more professional even if you can’t answer all your calls personally.

Professional Voice Mail Greetings just sound better

A professional voice mail greeting doesn’t have to be professionally recorded (though they do sound better).  They just have to sound better than yours does now.

The first step towards sounding more professional is to hear how you really sound.  That’s easy.  Call yourself, and let the call go to voicemail.  If you’re calling your office and an operator answers, ask for yourself.

What do you hear?  In some cases, you may not have recorded a voicemail greeting.  The telephone system default may be

• a beep with no message
• your telephone or extension number: “You have reached 212-555-1212. Please leave a message after the tone.  Beep”
• a computer generated voice saying your name (the very worst), or
• a prerecorded message such as “please leave a message at the tone”

Seriously?  You can’t be bothered to let me know if I’ve reached your voicemail?

Now call your toughest competition.  How do they sound?  And who would you rather buy from?

Why voice mail greetings are important

Think about your caller: it may be your best client, or a potential client.  When they call you it’s an opportunity, to sell more, to build customer satisfaction or loyalty, or to win a new account.  So doesn’t it make sense to let your caller know that they’re reached the right voicemail?

Some phone systems help

Some phone systems let you simply record your name.  They often play a simple greeting such as “You have reached ____________.  Please leave your message at the tone.”  But most systems don’t. So here’s a simple voice mail script you can record yourself:

“Hi.  This is ________.  Please leave your name and message at the tone, and I’ll get right back to you”

or if you’re a bit more creative:

“Hello, you have reached __________.  I’m currently helping other clients with  (something great you do).  Please leave me a message and I’ll be able to help you as soon as possible.”

It’s that easy.  But there are lots of reasons that you don’t want your own voice on your voicemail message.  It doesn’t sound professional enough.  It sounds like you’re a “one person business.”

When you want the most professional image, ask us about professionally recorded voicemail messages for everyone in the business.  And if use an “automated attendant” to answer your calls, consider how professional a custom phone system greeting can help you sound.

Ready to sound more professional?

Click here for more information, or call 212-355-6982 (in New York), 203-655-3920 (in Connecticut) or 800-862-8896 Nationwide.

Want to go even further?  Consider Informer Messages on hold, that give your callers information they want and that you want them to have, every time they have to wait on hold.  What do your callers hear on hold?

 

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Urgent Care Marketing: 8 Steps You Need To Take To Survive

How’s your Urgent Care Marketing doing?  More practices seem to spring up across New York every day.  In a small New York town I know there are 2 Urgent Cares, and a CVS that provides more and more “medical” treatments.  Regular medical checkups are the best way to stay healthy.  But what’s your plan to help your Urgent Care survive?

Urgent Care Marketing Steps to take in New York

Helping your Urgent Care Center thrive, and continue to help more patients is a challenge, but even a simple marketing plan can help succeed.  The best way to market your practice is step by step.  Here are 8 “guerrilla marketing” steps that you can take that are neither expensive nor difficult to complete.  They’ll help you introduce yourself to your local customers and then help them in more ways, like

1. Signage
2. Direct Mail: it’s been around a long time, but still works
3. Social Media
4. Email Marketing
5. Referral Campaigns
6. Networking
7. Events
8. Messages on hold

Here are more details on these ideas:

1. How’s your signage?  A good sign can be expensive but it will also work for you 24/7.  If you’ve chosen a busy location with lots of car traffic, you can gain exposure to thousands of potential patients every day. But don’t settle for just displaying your name: add changing signs that talk about your services: potential patients will notice the change and take a look, giving you even more exposure.
2. All that ‘junk mail’ that comes to your mailbox keeps coming for one reason: it still works.  Now the post office has marketing options that include dropping the same post card at every door in your area, and you can pick and choose the exact streets to deliver to.  Ask about EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail).  Your neighbors are your “market” so keep reminding them how you can help.
3. Social Media: make friends and you attract more friends.  Give lots of helpful wellness tips on your Facebook or Twitter pages.  You’ll gain followers who remember your name.  Join local “Mom’s” Groups: they’re highly effective platforms for getting known.
4. Email marketing to local groups is very effective.  It’s usually inexpensive to advertise in the local school’s email blasts, or purchase email addresses from groups like the Chamber of Commerce.
5. Referral Campaigns: team up with local businesses to “cross refer” to each other: think about other medical professionals (dentists, chiropractors), local wellness businesses (health foods, athletic trainers, sports clubs)
6. Networking is a great way to meet local residents, and the people who know them.  Think about civic groups, community groups, etc.
7. Events: participate in the NY Community: display at local fairs and events, and hold fun events at your office to introduce people to your staff. The local Chamber is good for this.
8. Messages on hold: never lose the opportunity to tell patients about more of the ways you can help them.  Your office is busy, so calls will be asked to “please hold.” When you do let them hear messages on hold that inform and educate your callers about your practice.

Don’t assume patients will come

There was a movie that said “If you build it they will come.” That doesn’t work in New York.  There’s too much competition.  Just opening your doors doesn’t mean that you’ll have plenty of patients. You’ll have to take steps to build your list of patients.

What’s the next step for your Urgent Care Marketing?

If you’d like to know more about any of these, call us.  We’re natural “Guerilla Marketers” and love talking about these ideas.  There’s no catch!

Call us

For a free 15-minute Discovery Session today!  In New York call 212-355-6980  Nationwide Call (800) 862-8896.

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Marketing Ideas for Small Car Dealerships: 5.5 Ideas that will pay off today

How do you succeed in the hyper-competitive New York auto industry?  Try these Marketing Ideas for small car dealerships that can’t afford to advertise on every TV Channel, throw huge parties, or waste thousands on Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising?

Marketing Ideas for small dealerships that work

In his classic marketing Guerrilla Marketing, Jay Conrad Levinson reveals “Secrets for making Big Profits from your Small Business.”  Your New York City dealership might be small, but your investment in your company needs to pay off.  Preferably without having to outspend your competition on traditional advertising.

Here are 5 advertising tips that can help your car dealership…

…without breaking the bank.  “Marketing is everything you do to promote your business.”  As a small dealership, your size is your advantage:  you can try new ideas, “turn on a dime” to try something new without layers of bureaucratic approvals. These ideas are all focused on

• competitive differentiation
• non-traditional advertising techniques
• unconventional use of media

Try any of these marketing tips…

…and you’ll see how fast these simple marketing tactics can pay off:

1. Networking: get your salespeople out of the showroom and where their customers are: the local chamber of commerce, networking groups like BNI, Town Events and County Fairs.  Instead of a booth arrange to display a great looking new red car.  Why red?  Red gets noticed. (Red gets more tickets).
2. Birthday Cards: when you make a sale, or meet a potential customer, ask what their birthday is.  Then, send them a card every year (there are services that will do this for you if you prefer) to remain “top of mind.”
3. Social Media: sure, everybody does it.  But why not snap a picture of your happy customer when they pick up their car, Photoshop in your hashtag, and send it to your customer to post on social media.  Offer a free “ad specialty” if they post it.
4. Advertise where your market is: Then try parking at the local Little League or Soccer game and give away coupons for a free hot dog from the food truck. Or try similar on-site advertising at the Boy Scout Meeting, YMCA, Science Fairs, Independence Day Fireworks, or other popular town events.
5.  Ask for reviews: If you provide top quality service, this is an instant winner.  When you shop for anything on Google, you look for 4- and 5-star reviews.  Do you have them?  Make sure to follow up with customers about a week after you deliver the car.  They’ll be impressed with your thoroughness, and you can ask for a review.  There’s even a simple way to get only 4- and 5-star reviews posted, and lower reviews referred back to you for more service.  Click here to find out how.

• Bonus Idea: New Yorkers are impatient. Don’t ever waste a moment when you’ve got your customer’s attention.  Even when you place your telephone callers on hold, give them information that they want and that you want them to have about the best reasons to come into your dealership.  Do it with Informer Messages on hold. 

Try Marketing Ideas for small car dealerships like yours

Think outside the box.  Why?  Insanity is defined as doing the same thing again and again and expecting a different result.  So don’t.  Try something new.  Something offbeat.  Each of these marketing strategies is inexpensive, and you can try it once and move on.

What are you going to do to beat the “big guys” in the next town?  To learn more about any of these ideas for Auto Dealerships, give us a call in Manhattan at 212-355-6980, or nationwide at (800) 862-8896.

 

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Improve Customer Service, or your competition will

It’s time to improve customer service, or your competition will.  And that won’t end well for you.

The economy may finally be slowing down.  When that happens your customers will remember to look for more value in everything they do.  Money isn’t as easy to come by.  And they’re all so used to finding everything for free online.  So companies like yours can only actually charge for your products and services if the customer is overwhelmed by service that they can’t get anywhere else.  So where should you start?

Improve Customer Service one step at a time

“Perfect is the enemy of good.”  That’s as true today as when a French philosopher said it in the 1700’s.  So start improving your customer service one step at a time, investing your efforts where they’ll have the most impact.  Some simple examples are:

1. How you greeting your customers when they step into your place of business.  If you have a retail store
2. Engage with your customers: we’re all more “social” these days, so find new ways to engage with your customer every time you come into contact: when they walk in the front door, when they call you, when they email or text you, when they post on your social media platforms.
3. Understand your customer: Boomers want face-to-face contact.  They’re also the generation that invented telephone quality that was “the next best thing to being there.”  Their grand-kids all have phones…but talk on them less and less.  Have you ever noticed that millennials’ voice mails are always full?  That’s probably because they never check voicemail.  They’d rather text.  It’s less direct, less pushy, and less threatening.
4. Follow up with your customers: once is not enough.  Keep in contact with your customer throughout the sales process, and continue while deliver your product or service.  Good restaurant servers always check with customers a few minutes after serving their meal, so why not do the same thing: contact your customer (there are so many ways: in person, by phone, email, text…) a few days after your deliver.  They’ll be impressed with the attention you give them.
5. What language do your customers speak?  In our increasingly multi-language economy, it makes sense to “speak their language.”
6. When engaging with your customers, actually listen.  Echo their sentiments.  Try to understand what they really mean.  “Empathy” is so powerful it’s gotten Presidents elected.  Think about what it can do for your business
7. You’ll make mistakes.  We all do.  So admit them, tell your customer what you’ll do to fix them, and do it.  They’ll appreciate it.
8. Help your employees understand the value of great service.  Listen to their interactions with customers and coach them to improve.  The customer is the reason we’re here.
9. Solve problems: avoid being negative.  Keep everything positive and focused on helping the customer.  If you can’t help them right away, be positive and let them know when you will.
10. And a related idea: respond to every complaint.  View complaints as great ideas about how to help every customer better.  After working in your business for years, it’s easy to be “set in your ways” and not recognize needed improvements.  What complaints have you heard recently?  Use them as challenges to overcome.

Improve your customer service every day

This is just a few ideas.  Try reading “Raving Fans” by Ken Blanchard.  When your customers love you, they become your most valuable sales force.  Or search more ideas online.

Take one step

Take one step and put it into action.  Then try another.  They’ll all add up faster that you can imagine.

Here’s another way to improve

Do customers call you for information, ideas, or to find out if you can help them?  AT&T Research shows that 69% of business calls are placed on hold.  So when you put your caller on hold, do they like it?  Why not turn it into a unique customer service experience with Informer Messages on hold?  They’re custom written marketing message that give your callers information that they want, and that you want them to have.  Call us for more information at (800) 862-8896, or click here to find out more.

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Marketing for movers: 3 steps that are more important than getting leads

Marketing for movers is more than just getting leads.  Think about your own experience: how leads did you work on last month?  How many of those turned into jobs?  With a “batting average” like that, would you make it into Cooperstown?  (I didn’t think so)

So what’s the problem?  And the solution?

Marketing for movers only starts with a lead

Leads come in every temperature, from red hot to ice cold.  So how what can you do to warm more of them up, and close more deals?  Believe it or not, it’s more than just coming up with the lowest price.

First, start with quality leads.  Lead brokers will sell you a lead to anything that’s alive.  Those are “a dime a dozen” and rarely worth the price.  Two types of leads that have higher value are “pay per lead” inquiries from websites like Angie’s List, and personal referrals you receive from networking.  I’ve seen movers get plenty of “warm referrals” from networking groups like BNI.  Invest time and energy at BNI and you’ll get quality leads.

Moving companies need a quality website

Potential customers start by searching for local moving companies.  Be sure that your website shows up on page one.  Great reviews will help get you there, and help attract a customer’s attention.  If you don’t have more reviews and a better Google rating than your completion, customers will call your competition.  Need more or better reviews?  Click here to find out how to get them.

Every mover invests in getting marketing leads

It’s what you do next that makes all the difference

1. Be Prepared.  When you’re generating leads, be prepared to answer phone calls with quality service.  Train your phone reps, or get help training them.  It doesn’t take much, but if you’re going to move all my valuable possessions I want to hire someone professional.  Prepare your pitch.  Prepare your best answers to “Frequently Asked Questions.”  Keep improving them to get the best response.
2. Have a Free Offer, such as a “Moving Guide” to send to your prospects.  When you do they’ll have a reminder about your company, and you’ll have their email.  Then follow up with a weekly email campaign using Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, or other easy to use service
3. Sound more professional.  Do you get a lot of phone calls?  Or when phone calls come in, do you have to transfer callers to a sales rep?  AT&T says that 69% of business telephone calls…your calls…are asked to “please hold.”  When you place callers on hold, what do they hear?  Dead silence?  VoIP music?  Why not make “hold” time a marketing opportunity with marketing messages that help you sound more professional, and reinforce the value you offer.  Informer Messages on hold have successfully worked for some of the biggest names in the moving industry.

Long term marketing movers

Try for future business.  Once you capture a customer’s email address, why not send them a helpful email every 6 months?  Fill it with tips that homeowners will appreciate.  Odds are that in 7 years they’ll be moving again.  7 years may see like a long time away, but in 7 years you’ll like it when they call you!

Sponsored by:

 

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Suggestive Selling : 5 ideas you can use to increase every sale

Suggestive Selling is a customer service technique that ends up helping you sell more to a customer who’s already buying something from you.  But unlike most sales techniques, it’s really just engaging with your customer, and can lead to more sales now, and in the future.  Do you have a strategy that can promise that?

This kind of selling starts after the customer starts buying

Why does it work?  In physics, Isaac Newton said that “A body in motion tends to stay in motion.”
In marketing it’s called the “Buying Mood” or “Propensity to buy.”

There are lots of simple techniques

1. Loss Leaders are the classic example: lower the price on an item to lure customers into the store. Then stock the shelves around that discounted item with other products that naturally go together with it, like:
   1. Discount the milk, sell more cookies or Hershey’s Cocoa
   2. Discount the peanut butter, and sell more bread or jelly
2. Engage with your customer. Look at what they’re buying.  And make creative  suggestions about what might go well with it.  A few examples might be:
   1. They buying shoes, sell them socks
   2. They’re buying dress shirts, sell them ties
   3. McDonald’s has sold billions of French fries with the phrase “Want fries with that?”
3. Amazon is great at making suggestions. They use data from millions of sales to suggest items that other shoppers have bought at the same time. A few examples might be:
   1. They’re buying today’s bestselling paperback, so sell them the author’s earlier novels
   2. They’re buying an iPhone so sell them a case, and ear buds, and breakage insurance
4. You can also recommend additional items to buy shortly after sale with a friendly and well thought out email suggesting additional purchases they might like, such as:
   1. They bought a new suit. Email them about discounts on accessories
   2. They bought a new computer. Email them about a new printer or backup protection
   3. They bought running shoes. Email them about athletic attire that will help them feel more comfortable while running, such as summer or winter weight apparel.

Don’t forget suggestive selling on the phone

Here’s the 5^th idea:
Did you know that mobile ‘searches’ generated 103 Billion phone calls to businesses like yours in 2018?

When your phone rings, it’s a customer (or potential customer) who needs something or has a problem.  They want to know if you can help them.

Good customer service means that you help them as efficiently as possible.
But we both know that #holdhappens.  You might be handling a “wave” of
calls.  It might be the lunch hour and you’re not fully staffed.  You might need to check
on inventory, or get an answer from another member of your team.
So callers get asked to “please hold on.”

That’s where Informer Messages can help.  They make “hold” time more
interesting and less annoying.  They can give callers helpful suggestions.
They can tell callers about natural “add on” sales…products that lots of
your callers will need, but often forget to buy.  Or new ways that you can help
them with the new product lines you now carry.

Every time you’re in contact with a customer it’s an opportunity: to help them better, to
sell more, and to make a more loyal customer.

These are five simple (and proven) suggestive selling techniques that anyone can use to increase every sale.
Which will you use?

To find out more about Informer Marketing Messages on hold and sell more on every
phone call, ask about how they can work for you by calling (800) 862-8896, or by clicking here for more information.

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Lifetime Value of a Customer, and why you can’t afford to ignore it

Do you think about the Lifetime Value (LTV) of your customers? When you do, you go beyond trying to make a sale, and concentrate on making a connection that will result in a hundreds or a thousand times as many sales.  It’s why companies like Apple, Amazon, Crocs, and Zappos do so well every year, while others “go for the big sale” but end up going out of business.  Which plan are you using?

What is Lifetime Value of a Customer?

Very simply is the sum total of what your customer spends today and forever.  If you buy a “Tall Latte” at Starbucks today and never come back, your value to the coffeemaker is $2.95.  But if you can’t do without your caffeine buzz every morning, and buy one every day, your value in an average year is $1,076.75.  Over the next decade you’re worth $10,767.50.  If you’re the average Millennial, you’re worth over $50,000.

Get it?  It’s not about selling a cup of coffee.  It’s about creating a customer for life.  Starbucks “gets” the value of a customer.

Until recently, only the sales force focused on closing today’s sale, and only the marketing department paid attention to LTV.

What you need to know about value

You don’t need to get bogged down in complex calculations: different customers spend different amounts every year, but you can probably spot both

• the average sale to a typical customer, and
• the average sale to your best customers (say, those that fall into the top 20%)

What’s the value knowing a customer’s value?

You invest in finding new customers: you spend on advertising, sales, PR, websites, email campaigns, product features, and more.  Understanding your average customer’s value will help you understand if you’re spending too much or too little.

High Value means it’s time to invest more

When the value of gaining and keeping a customer is high, it pays to invest more in customer acquisition and retention.  Above all, don’t lose them.  That means more than advertising and sales, it’s little things like saying “thank you,” providing great service from the start, and using every opportunity to engage and communicate with customers.  How?  Do you send an email newsletter?  Or “snail mail” flyers?  Do you have a “fan” page on social media?  Do you put wasted “hold” time to use with interesting “messages on hold”?

Customer retention increases the value of your company.

It’s supposed to cost 8 times as much to acquire a customer as to keep a customer.  Over a lifetime a customer’s value skyrockets.  Ask Starbucks.  Or your accountant.  The difference between businesses that thrive and those that die is customer retention.  That’s the first step to maximizing their value.

So, are you doing everything you can to keep every customer “for life”?

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What to say to customers when they call you: don’t lose the opportunity

Have you ever thought about what to say to customers when they call you?  And what your callers hear on hold?  Probably not.  But your callers are your best clients, the new client that you worked so hard to win, and the prospect who has a problem and is searching for someone who can help solve it.

Every day is a new opportunity

Every day is a new opportunity, and you get a chance to

• educate a prospect about how you help your clients, and how you’re different from your competition
• help new clients take “then next step” so that they can get the results they’re looking for
• reinforce the value that you offer by reminding clients about how much you really do. We all remember the movie that said “If you build it, they will come.”  That worked in the Iowa cornfield, but for you and your business, you’ve got to help customers understand all that you offer if you want them to appreciate it.  And be willing to pay for it.
• show long time clients that you have even more ways that you can help them. The easiest sale you can make is selling additional products or services to a customer who already appreciates you.  They’re the people who are most likely to want your help again.

Every day your phone rings.  It’s a new opportunity. They’re your callers are your clients and prospects.  Most of the time (69% according to AT&T) your opportunity is put “on hold.”  Your callers wait listening to someone else’s favorite music, or in dead silence.  Most won’t hang up…60% will continue to hold…at least for a minute. After that the odds are you’ll lose them.

Your phone rings when callers are looking for help…for answers.  Why not start giving it to them, even if they have to wait on hold?  You can with Informer Marketing Messages on hold.

Think about what to say to customers

What should you tell them while they wait?  Let’s set up a Free Discovery Session, and we’ll come up with ideas.  You can give your callers, your clients and your best prospects, information that they want, and that you want them to have.

Make sure your opportunity pays off

Call today and let’s make your best opportunity pay off.  Call (800) 862-8896 to set up your Free Discovery Session.

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Grasshopper Greetings That Make You Sound More Professional

Business Telephone Etiquette: 7 simple rules to follow

Business Telephone Etiquette helps you make the right first impression.  That’s important. Because you only get one chance.
Doing it right is easy.  Undoing a bad impression can be nearly impossible.  So here’s a way to keep from sabotaging your business.

Etiquette gets a bad name.  It’s from your Grandmother’s generation, right?
Actually etiquette is just the way you treat people.  In business that’s important if you want to succeed.

Most marketing today may begin on the Internet, but it doesn’t usually end there.  For sales that are more complex than picking the lowest price for Earbuds on Amazon or a six pack of beer in a supermarket you interact with the customer, and a phone call is often the first step. That’s why…

Business Telephone Etiquette starts when the phone rings

AT&T actually used to offer free classes on business telephone use.  They gave you simple suggestions like:

• Answer every call by the third ring
• Pay attention to your caller, not other distractions
• Smile when you answer the phone: your caller can actually hear it! Try putting a small mirror behind your phone so you can see your expression
• Answer every call the same way
  • Say the name of the business
  • Be brief and to the point
  • Speak clearly. Never eat, chew gum, or drink while answering
• Listen to the caller: ask for any needed information and remember it or write it down the first time. Have a notepad and pen at hand.  Don’t make the caller repeat their information if possible.
• Help the caller right away, or transfer the call to the right person. Don’t make the caller responsible for trying to find their way around your organization.
• Don’t be afraid to place a call on hold: if you need information or to find the right person, ask the caller is you may place them on hold. But don’t abandon them there!

Business Telephone Etiquette shouldn’t be taken for granted

These telephone answering rules may seem simple, but think about how businesses answer your calls.  How many times have you called a business to be answered with “hello?”  Or answered by a person engaged in a conversation with someone else?  Or asked to speak with a specific party and be asked “who?”

Business Telephone Etiquette can make a difference.

You know when you call a professional organization, and can hear the professional approach the take right from the start.  Consider how you’d like your customers and prospects to think about your business, and model yourself after others that impress you most.

How’s the business telephone etiquette at your office?

It’s easy to figure out: just dial your business and see how many (or few) of those simple rules your organization follows.  Because good business etiquette is good business.

And when you do place an caller on hold, sound more professional with Informer Messages on hold.  Find out more about Informer Messages by clicking here.

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Groupon Advertising doesn’t just mean selling at a loss

Groupon Advertising offers consumers “really great deals” every day with discounts of at least 50%, and sometimes up to 90%.    Then you pay a 50% commission on the deals you sell to the company, leaving you as little as 5% of your original price.  Discounts like these eat up your profit, and often end up costing you money to sell.

It’s a classic “loss leader” strategy: tempt consumers to notice you, and to come into your business to get a deal, and then buy more from you at a full price.  Does it work?

Groupon Advertising reaches customers

That much is true.  Every day the company sends deep discount offers to their list of over 10 million people.  That means that you can gain huge exposure.  But Groupon’s own published research shows that 83% of Grouponers never purchase anything from you again after your promotion.

Why doesn’t Loss-Leader Advertising build future business?

Most businesses who try this discounted coupon marketing don’t have a plan for long term success with their bargain hunting customers.  They simply “hope” that these new customers will return for additional sales.  Failing to plan means planning to fail.

There are proven strategies for making your discount deal more profitable.  Here are just a few:

1. Educate your customer about more of your (full priced) products and services.  The best ways are with
   1. For retailers: Point of Purchase Advertising, End Cap Displays, and stocking deal items with other products customers usually buy with them (eg milk and cookies)
   2. If your customers call you for a reservation or appointment, use marketing messages on hold to give them information about additional products and services, the value you offer, and how you help them best.
2. If you offer a service: turn your “deal” into a repeat purchase: don’t just offer one spa treatment or one physical training visit.  Make it two visits to your business: bringing your new customer back for a second visit gives you an additional opportunity for “add-on” sales, or up-sell opportunities
3. Try deals that usually are paired with additional sales: sell two for one burgers, knowing that most customers add on fries or a soda.  Don’t forget to coach employees to up-sell.  McDonald’s does it perfectly with “Want Fries with That?”

Groupon Advertising: does it work?

It’s a good question, and one that you should really consider before jumping in.  If you have a solid plan to sell a product or service that usually leads to “add on” sales, if you prepare your employees with “suggestive selling” training, and use the opportunity with new customers to promote additional sales with POP Advertising, product displays, and marketing messages on hold, it might.

Want to talk about it?  Call to schedule your free 15-minute Strategy Session and let’s come up with ideas you can use today.  Call (800) 862-8896 today.

 

 

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VTech Phone Plays Messages on hold so you sound more professional

VTech phone designers have finally done it. The model CM 18445 you gives you the ability to sound like a Fortune 500 business: you can now play messages on hold on a 4 line phone.  This feature used to only be available on expensive PBX phone systems, or by switching to Hosted VoIP phone systems.  That makes this phone a game changer.  So what can you do with it?

VTech phone feature

Successful big businesses look and sound that way because they spend more on their marketing.  To survive, small and medium sized businesses (SMB) need to “up their game.”  Forbes magazine says that even startups can appear professional with a few simple steps:

1. Have a professional website: it doesn’t have to be extensive. A few professionally
   designed pages will do.  My wife set up her business with a 2 page website, but it
   shows her clients everything that they want to see.
2. Have a professional email address: don’t use Gmail. Use your website domain’s URL
3. Have a business phone number: don’t use your home phone number. Don’t let your kids answer the phone.

How the VTech Phone helps you succeed

Your customer judges you on everything you do.  New Yorkers only want the best.  One “false step” and you’ll blow it.  Why should a customer choose you if you don’t look and sound like their best choice if their Google search shows them 12,695,000 other choices?  The CM18445 gives you the option to record a custom Automated Attendant Greeting.  That’s the recorded greeting that answers your phone.  If you’re not going to have a “live” operator answer your phone, the second best choice is a professionally recorded greeting.  It just sounds better.

VTech Phone Messages on hold

But the V Tech phone lets you do more…much more.  Although it comes with “default” music on hold, this hold music can be changed, and replaced with custom hold messages.  That can be a game changer.

On hold advertising with Informer Messages in New York gives you the chance to sound more professional and sell more on every phone call.  A professional on hold script will let you

• tell callers about what you do, and how you do it.
• educate customers about your products and services
• show how you’re different from your competition
• hit your customers’ “hot buttons” and focus on their problems and needs

This inexpensive 4-line phone can help you sound like a Fortune 500 marketer.
What do your callers hear when they’re on hold?  Canned music?  Dead silence?  Turn every opportunity into a marketing opportunity, even when #holdhappens.

Interested in VTech Phone Messages for business?

Get the facts, and find out how they’ve worked for other businesses in your industry.  Call for your Free 15-Minute Discovery Session, and get ideas you can use.  Call (800) 862-8896.  In New York, call our headquarters at 212-355-6980.  In Connecticut call 203-655-3920.   Or click here to schedule your free consultation.

The VTech Phone works in businesses that want to sound more professional in Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx, Brooklyn, and Staten Island.  In Connecticut in Stamford, Hartford, Danbury, Bridgeport, West Haven, and Greenwich.  And wherever you are.

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Grasshopper VoIP Phones Can Sound More Professional

Yealink T42 phone in White Plains uses Informer Messages on hold

Grasshopper Phone: the best way to make it a marketing tool

VTech CM18445 feature that your business needs to succeed

The VTech CM18445 has a secret feature.  Sure, it’s an inexpensive 4-line phone with lots of bells and whistles: it lets you answer calls with an automated attendant greeting, voice mail, and it can use cordless phones.  But the VTech phone has a feature that will help your business sound more professional.

VTech CM18445 can play a professional Greeting and Messages on hold

Call any big company and you’ll probably be answered by a recorded “Auto Attendant” greeting.  Why?  Because your call is answered promptly, and they always sound professional.   Big companies get lots of phone calls, so callers frequently have to wait (“in a queue”) for “the next available representative.”  It can be frustrating, but it’s a fact of life.

What do you hear while waiting?  Professional Messages on hold.  They tell you about news about the company, and about their most profitable products and services.  Statistics show that these marketing messages are highly effective:

• Callers listening to information on hold will continue to wait in a queue twice as long before hanging up (US West Communications)
• Over 85% of callers prefer on hold messages over silence (Cellular Marketing Magazine)
• 1 in 5 callers make a purchase or decision based on information they ear on hold (Telemarketing Magazine Survey)

Your callers don’t want to sit in dead silence.  They want help.

The VTech CM18445 helps you succeed

In the past only “big business” PBX phone systems offered “Automated Greetings” and could play messages on hold.  Then came VoIP phones that included this feature.  But the CM18445 is the only 4-line phone on the market that offers this feature.

Tell me more about how it will work for me!

Playing Messages on hold on the VTech CM18445

Loading greetings and on hold messages onto your Tech Phone is easy.  Step by step instructions take about 5 minutes to get you up and running, and sound more professional.  When you do

• every caller will be greeted promptly and professionally
• every caller in the queue, or placed on hold, will learn more about your business and how you can help them better
• every caller will know that you’re the best choice to help them.

Considering the VTech CM 18445?

Right now your callers probably sit in “dead silence” on hold.  Turn every opportunity into a marketing opportunity, even when #holdhappens.  Call for a Free 15-Minute Discovery Session, and get ideas you can use to sound more professional and accomplish more on every phone call.  Call (800) 862-8896.  In New York, call our headquarters at 212-355-6980.  In Connecticut call 203-655-3920. Or click here to schedule your help session.

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Message on hold company in New York: Free Discovery Session

Looking for a message on hold company in New York? Messages on hold are the marketing tool that make it easy to deliver your most important marketing message to your most important prospects.  How?

Every day your phone rings.  Customers who have worked with you in the past, and prospects who are searching for help.  Maybe they’ve visited your website and found basic information. They’re probably too eager for help to email you. So they call.  They’re your very best prospects.  They’re your next sale.

Then what happens?  Most business phone calls…your calls and mine…are asked to “please hold.”  AT&T research proves it: No matter how hard you try, 69% of business phone calls are placed on hold.  It happens when you’re looking for the right person for the caller to talk to.  Or when you want to find the exact information your caller wants.  Or when you need an answer.  So it’s time to give your callers something better than dead silence on hold.  Better than the canned “music on hold” that came with your VoIP Telephone system.

Message on hold company in New York can help

The Informer is the messages on hold company that Manhattan businesses rely on.  They give businesses like yours a new way stand out. How are you trying to do that now?

Businesses in New York have got to be tough: competition is fierce.  If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, right?  But it’s always better to stand out from the competition.  Great hold messages educate your callers about your business, what you do and how you do it.  They influence your customers right when they’re making up their minds.

The challenge for your message on hold company in New York

The most effective marketing messages create messages that your customers can relate to.  Its on hold advertising, but it’s more.  Callers listening to them feel like you know their problems and challenges, and how to solve them.  They learn about what makes you special.

Benefit from the best message on hold company in New York

In 1986 the Informer was the first: we introduced the idea of hold messages in New York and worked with NYC’s top companies: in Travel, Tours, Hotels, Airlines, Finance, Healthcare and more. Click here for samples of some of our clients actual Informer Marketing messages.

New York is the toughest neighborhood in the country for business so…

A Message on hold company in New York has to be the best

So we’ve improved every year. We’ve gained years of experience helping thousands of clients.  We’ve researched our clients and their industries more thoroughly.  Our clients’ messages are more efficient and more effective.  Clients tell us that they get the response that they want from their Informer Messages.

Messages on hold keep your callers from getting frustrated or bored (New Yorkers are famous for being impatient…its how we get more done every day!).  They give your callers information that they want, and that you want them to have.  And your callers will ask about what they hear on Informer Messages.

Looking for a message on hold company in New York?

Call us for a free Discovery Session.  Let’s talk for 15-minutes about your business, your goals, and your customers.  We’ll show you how you can sound more professional and sell more on every phone call.  Welcome to New York!

Contact us at (212) 355-6980.  Nationwide you can reach us at (800) 862-8896.

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The Discovery Challenge: what will grow your business?

What happens at your business when employees take their summer vacation?  Your business can be left short-handed, compromising customer service. When your phone rings, calls often have to wait “on hold” longer than is typical. That’s when on hold marketing can help you “hold on” to callers.  But what do your callers want to hear waiting on hold?  Try a Discover Session to find out.

Most callers waiting on hold listen to music on hold (did you ever notice that you never hear your favorite music while waiting on hold?).  New VoIP Phone systems usually play electronic VoIP Music on hold.  In fact, so many businesses now use VoIP (possibly over 50%) that there’s a good chance that you’re playing the same music on hold as the a “brain surgeon,” or the local used car lot!

About 30 years ago, large “call centers” for hotels, banks, airlines, etc., started giving callers on hold messaging.  Today, businesses of every size do them same thing, with custom on hold messages.  Telephone on hold messages can be an effective marketing tool when planned with your customer’s needs, or their “hot buttons” in mind.

What information should you give your callers?

An on hold messaging service can provide a phone message script quickly: it can just mention your quality and service, how long you’ve been in business, and a long list of the products you want to sell.  You’ve heard this kind of message: they’re worse than music on hold.

An in-depth Discovery Session

Effective messages on hold give your callers information that they want, and that you want them to have.  The first step is learning about your business: what you do and how you do it, and your goals for the future.  But the more important step focuses on your customers: their desires, their needs, and their problems.  In our trademark Discovery Session we probe to find out why your customer is calling you today and not last week or next month.  What’s the ‘trigger’ to their action?  What is the problem they want to solve?  What’s their goal?  And what information will help them make the right decision: working with you?

Most marketing is filled with clichés, platitudes, and empty phrases that mean absolutely nothing, but sound nice.  Creating an effective message on hold that will keep your callers…your customers and best prospects…interested and enthusiastic, takes more.

Schedule your own Discovery Session

You have information that your customers want to know about.  You just have to Discover what it is, and the right way to present it to them.  Take the next step: schedule your own Discovery Session with your Informer Messages on hold marketing specialist. Call (800) 862-8896 or email us today.

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Seasonal Marketing: Just thinking “Black Friday”? You’re missing the point

Seasonal Marketing is celebrating every season’s difference, profitably.  I’m from New England, so it’s easy to see the seasons change.  But no matter where you’re from, or (more importantly) where your customers are, each season offers new opportunities to increase sales by helping your customers in different ways.

Seasonal Marketing isn’t just for “the holidays”

Mention seasonal demand and most business owners will think about “the holidays.”  They’ll tell you about “Black Friday,” promotions and sales all that compete for our attention at the end of the year.  But marketing campaigns don’t have to start in the Fall and end at New Year’s.  If yours do, you’re still missing out…and have a lot to gain.

Think about seasonal marketing all year long

As exciting as the holidays are for consumers (and many retailers), a quick look at the calendar shows that opportunities keep coming all year long, if you simply pay attention.  Some simple businesses struggle to survive by depending on a short burst of activity each year (think: snow plowing, grass cutting, beach clubs, and ski lessons), but successful businesses find ways to help customers throughout the year as their needs change.

Examples of Seasonal Marketing

Successful businesses find a way to break free of their limitations and help customers all year long.  They recognize that customers have different needs at different times of year, and find a way to serve them.

Here are 5 examples we see every day are:

1. The Landscaper who mows your lawn all summer (about 4 months in my region) also provides a Fall Cleanup of leaves, and then plows your snow each winter
2. The florist who provides special occasion arrangements and gifts for Valentine’s Day, Spring, Easter, Mother’s Day, and Administrative Professionals Day.  Next comes Graduation, Weddings, as well as the holidays. (The floral industry has been as successful creating events as the “Greeting Card” industry!)
3. Fashion seems to come up with new styles, new colors, and new trends for each season, with a wardrobe that’s perfect for each. My daughters somehow agree that they’ve got to have them!  Successful fashion retailers keep customers coming back each season to see what’s new and exciting…and profitable.
4. Even Office Supply Stores get in the act: they promote the supplies you’ll need for tax planning, old tax record storage, back to school, and even holiday gifts to complement their everyday business supply business. Most even add special products (school backpacks, fun gifts, etc.) just at specific times of year
5. The hardware store that sells grass seed and garden tools in Spring.  Back yard pools and barbecues are popular in Summer.  Rakes, leaf bags and work gloves sell in the Fall.  And shovels and Ice Melt in Winter. Hardwares in Connecticut have so many different products for each season that there are almost too many to count!

Do you have “busy” seasons?  What do these same customers need at other times of year?

Many businesses ride a wave of “ups and downs,” profiting at certain points of the year, and struggling at others.   The time to build for the slow times is with effective marketing reminders to your customers during your busiest “boom” times.  That’s when your existing customers are open to suggestion about how to use you at other times of the year.

How do you maximize Seasonal Marketing?

Start by looking at next year’s calendar.   Think about who your customers are (kids, teens, students, grads, singles, homeowners, businesses, etc.) and fill in all the “boom” times of your year.  Then brainstorm to come up with their needs throughout the year.  List everything you can come up with (whether the ideas are great…or not).  This will keep the flow of ideas coming.  List ideas every month, based on weather, holidays, and time of year.  Then create a marketing calendar of ideas to capitalize on these opportunities.

Don’t think you have marketing opportunities each season?  We disagree.  Call for a Free 15-minute Discovery Session and we guarantee that you’ll get new ideas you can use today, and all year long.  In Connecticut call 203-655-3920.  Nationwide call 800-862-8896.  Or click here for your Discovery Session, today!

 

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