The reason why every SMB and startup should have a business phone line

Just put yourself into the shoes of a customer. You look for new software and search online. You probably use Google. Look through a couple of suggestions, maybe alter your search a little bit and then you find what you were looking for.

So now you are on their website. — PING! — the chat window pops up and asks you how such and such can help you do this and that. It’s a nice way of welcoming website visitors to a website but it is unlikely to have already a question about the product in 20 seconds or less. The next entitled question of yours might be if the “person” in the live chat is even a human or a set-up chatbot that you are talking to. Most likely it will be the second one nowadays. Which is totally okay. I mean we are in 2017 and not the 19-hundreds anymore.

After spending some time on their website, you might actually be interested in the product and have some questions. At least we hope that the website does its job. :) You look for the contact box. Well… and there it is: No phone number to interact with the business. Or what also happens frequently: You can find some private mobile phone number as a piece of contact information. Both scenarios raise a red flag for a lot of customers, maybe even including you. Don’t they?

From your perspective as an SMB or startup: When a customer calls, this is usually their second contact with your business and they actually want to talk to you. Don’t blow it! You should give customers the comfort of knowing that there is a person they can talk to.

Your website already gives a professional impression, so should your business phone number!

Imagine you are actually working from home or you are on the road and a customer calls your number and you just have no clue who is on the other line and you might be doing something really important but you know you need to answer the call…. What do you do? Pick up the phone in a hasty way and say ‘Hello!’

This is not a professional way to answer your business phone — and yes, we all have those kinds of days where it gets super busy, and it is okay when this happens — no judgment! — but what’s the alternative? Not picking up at all? Either way, that’s when you might lose a customer and therefore money because they don’t trust your business as being professional.

Deals are still made over the phone. There is no way around it!

Get a phone system that provides an automated greeting feature. Yodel, a phone system that helps to make your time management more flexible, could actually help you get ahead of the game by offering the option to answer the phone for you — 24/7 and seven days a week. That ensures that all your customers are being taken care of in a professional setting that builds up trust in your business.

Make your business look professional with a business phone line that greets and interacts with your customers until you want to take over the call!

You will end up saving a lot of time and increase your customer satisfaction level by handling your phone calls over your business chat. If you end up deciding to try Yodel, you can set up some canned responses (pre-written answers) and when a call comes in, you can either let it go to voicemail or send one of your canned responses and the Yodel bot will read it to your caller.

Another neat feature is the QnA maker:

How often are you called by customers that only need to know something that actually is written in your FAQ’s? I bet that’s a lot of calls if your business is thriving.

Let those calls not even bother your productivity. Yodel can answer those questions automatically and without any of your interfering.

Answered question = happy customers = you saved time! It’s a win-win-win situation!

If you are curious about how Yodel works and what it can do for you, sign up for a free trial: