You’ve probably heard enough auto-attendant, voice mail, telephone greetings, prompts, IVR (Interactive Voice Response) to last a lifetime. Unfortunately, voicemail and call routing is part of doing business. As a business or call center manager, you need your phone system to answer inbound calls when you can’t. Putting yourself in the caller’s position will help you smooth out the process and improve customer service.
As consumers, we fear the dreaded “phone tree” that might (or might not) direct us into the correct department. (Admit it: you’ve pounded on the “0” key to get around the auto-attendant.) Let’s focus on giving your telephone greetings and prompts a professional touch.
Are the voices recorded by real people?
Easy On Hold has recorded thousands of telephone greetings and prompts for call centers for corporations and major brands all over the world. Most businesses prefer a human voice over an automated or “AI” voice. Voice actors in a studio can be coached and can ad nuances to the voice inflection, energy, and emphasis that help your brand. If your company needs hundreds or thousands of voice files recorded, Easy On Hold has a high-quality “Audio Intelligence” voice recording service that can help.
Telephone Greetings And Prompts Basics
For basic definitions and instructions on how to get started with professional voicemail recordings, please see the newer article: Guide To Best Professional Voicemail Greeting Recordings.
Auto Attendants are essentially digital receptionists ready to greet you and guide callers where they need to go. Wide usage of auto attendants began around the ‘80s and is being adopted by new businesses every day. These are the typical, “Welcome to ABC Company. For sales, press 1. For accounting, press 2…”. When callers press a number, the call is routed through the system to (hopefully) the desired destination.
For most businesses, it’s important to answer calls that come in after-hours. If you’ve got customers calling and there’s no one to greet them, the recorded voice track automatically goes into action. This should allow customers to at least leave a message.
Businesses that must respond to after-hours “emergencies” such as plumbers, medical offices, HVAC, internet service providers, etc., usually will have after-hours telephone greetings that will allow callers to reach the “on-call” professional for immediate service.
Telephone Greetings And Prompts: Best Tips
- Be Brief. Keep the length of your initial welcome greeting to less than 3 seconds. Be concise. No unnecessary words.
- Keep It Simple. Five options should be the maximum number, if possible. The overall menu length of an auto-attendant should be less than one minute.
- First Things First. The most desired option should not be the last; respect the time of your callers and help them get to where they need to go as quickly as possible.
- Stick With One Voice Talent. Match the voice of the auto-attendant greetings to that of your messages on hold. Callers are likely to go from the automated greeting directly to a hold queue while the call transfer is taking place. Using the same voice on-hold will make this experience sound smooth and more professional.
Consider Spanish Telephone Greetings And Other Languages
Auto Attendants and IVR voice telephone greetings are available in just about any language. Easy On Hold, for example, has provided Arabic, German, Farsi, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Portuguese, and more. Our clients such as AT&T, Frontier Communications, and Open Table are global businesses, so they request multiple languages and dialects for their telephone greetings around the world.
You now have an online audition tool for choosing foreign voiceover talents just by visiting this link.
New Survey Helps You Avoid Common Mistakes When Scripting Telephone Greetings And Prompts
Software Advice, a free review resource for telecom buyers, released a study regarding auto attendants and IVRs. Here are some quick facts from the data gathered in the journal article:
- 42% of consumers surveyed say they’ll take their business elsewhere after a frustrating experience with an auto attendant.
- 48% of respondents say the phone is their preferred method for contacting a business for the first time.
- The top pain points of auto attendants are long introductions and too many options.
Telephone Greetings Form The Overall Opinion Of Your Business
How important are your telephone greetings? 92% of customers will base their opinion of a company on the quality of the recorded voice greeting experience! And 63% of customers will stop doing business with a company if they have a bad IVR or “phone tree” experience.
Customers are picky, right? Today, they expect a quality experience in person and on the phone.
Avi Smirnov of Audio, a product manager for AudioCodes, was quoted saying:
“In many companies, the auto attendant application is the main access for inbound callers, so it is very important that calls reach their destination in a very fast and intuitive path with minimal mistakes and that no calls are dropped.”
