It perplexes me why many small businesses spend thousands of pounds on advertising every year with the intention of directing traffic to their website or acquiring new sales when they don’t bother to pick up the phone when it rings. The world may have moved on technologically, but most people still only trust a business which has a real person behind it – and someone they can physically talk to when they need them. The hard work not to mention expenditure on advertising is literally pointless if a customer only ever hears an answering machine and it’s a huge irritation of mine.

There’s a school of thought that if new customers really want to get hold of you then they will (even if it’s by different means). In my experience, this view is mistaken. Perhaps a very small percentage of people will try emailing or will wait for someone to get back to them but more often than not it’s too much hard work and the customer will simply go to a competitor instead – one that is contactable!

Small businesses need to find a solution and there’s one or two approaches. You can hire someone to answer the phone and do admin at the same time but this is a very expensive option and will bring with it all of the associated expenses of becoming an employer. The other option, and in my view the most favourable for the small business, is a virtual assistant – someone who works remotely for a host of firms and effectively answers the phone when you’re unavailable. This can be after five rings, when your line is engaged or simply during out of hours when the business closes. The phone will be answered in the company name and even if the call handler simply takes a message and offers to get someone to call back it means the customer has a contact point – and most importantly it’s a human being!

Why do all the hard work if you fail at the final hurdle? This is typical small business syndrome and business owners need to get out of this mindset. Are you prepared to leave money on the table? Businesses need to be responsible for their customers and this means making themselves available.

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