Messages That We Send

Do we ever think about the messages that we send to others. I do not mean the messages that we transmit via our actions, but the messages that we actually send through our spoken words. Do we ever consider what other people think about us when they hear our messages to them?

What do people think when they hear our voice mail greeting when calling our business? How do they react when they wait on hold and hear, “Your call is very important to us…?” If the caller’s contact is so important to us, why do we make them wait on hold so long, or why don’t we return their call quicker? Or do we return it at all?

Voice mail messages should encourage our callers to believe in our concern for them, not result in their believing that we just don’t care. This type of message, heard many times when the caller tries to contact us, will drive them away, not draw them closer to us. No one likes to be used, or lied to, especially if they have spent money on a product or service with which they have a problem.

Is there a message that sounds as empty as “We are experiencing an unusual call volume……?” Maybe our product, service, or the purchase process is such that the result is numerous calls of complaint. Perhaps we have instituted changes that have caused excessive inconveniences to our customers. If our customers hear this message every time they call, it sounds like we really don’t care about them at all.

Many callers, after hearing this message over and over, would think that we should understand that we should hire additional staff to handle increased volumes of callers. After all, we create the problems that cause the callers to try to contact us. Our customers are not stupid and will consider us as either too cheap to fix an obvious problem or just unconcerned about customers’ situations.

Does anyone believe that we really mean “this call may be recorded for customer service training…?” Our customers might consider that if we really believed in better customer service we would not need to record customer calls since we would prevent the problems that provoke the calls in the first place. Also, if customer service calls were recorded, maybe we would call our customers back when they get disconnected.

There are some companies who do record customer calls. If more did so, more problems might be resolved and fewer customers would call for problem resolution. If more companies recorded customer calls, the majority of customer service representatives might be better trained at resolving customer problems. Actually listening to the recordings should result in better awareness of customer needs.

These are just some examples of the use of “stock” messages that customers hear from us that reflect less than caring emotions from us. We must show our gratitude to our customers so that they will believe that they have made a wise decision engage us in business. That would be Gratitude Marketing at a higher level.

Our customers must never believe that we have taken advantage of them or that we do not care about them. The use of the same cold, unemotional messages that every other business utilizes does not reflect Gratitude Marketing on our part. Not considering customers’ feelings results in bad karma and loss of business. Please leave me your comments here, or email me at Jim@SOC4Now.com, or call me at 360-314-8691.