Seth Godin has another great post on his blog today entitled How to Answer the Phone in which he states:
The only reason to answer the phone when a customer calls is to make the customer happy.
He goes on to say
If you’re not doing this or you are unable to do this, do not answer the phone. There is no middle ground on this discussion. There are no half measures. Saving 50 cents a call with a complicated phone tree is a false savings. Think of all the money you’ll save if you just stop answering altogether. Think of all the money you’ll make if you just make people happy.
I couldn’t agree more.
My heart sinks whenever I call a company and find myself in an off-shore call centre. If a company has “off-shored” their call centres it means two things: that they don’t care about you the customer and the service they deliver to you, and that they care more about their profits.
When a company sees it’s customers as a cost rather than a benefit they have a BIG problem.