The first impression someone gets when calling your business is your auto attendant greeting. It is crucial that you give them a good first impression. It needs to be professional and able to quickly and efficiently route the caller. The last thing you want to do is frustrate them before you get the opportunity to talk to them.
It is always best to obtain a voice over talent to record the greeting for you. Here at Midwest Telephone, we have a professional audio engineer and voice over talent on staff, ready to help your company give your callers the first impression your company deserves. Here are some more tips to creating a professional Auto Attendant greeting:
A call tree is a necessity. It shows you how a caller is routed through your phone system. If you feel they have to go through too many hoops to speak with a live person you will be able to see it and fix it. You never want to overload a caller with information in the main greeting when you can give them options.
You want to make sure your greeting is nicely written and professional. A typical example would be,”Thank you for calling John Doe Company: If you know your parties extension, you may dial it now. To speak with an Agent press 1, for Accounting press 2, for Office hours and location press 3, For the Company Directory press 4, or to speak with the operator press 0. To hear this message again, press #.
It is not uncommon for a caller listening to an auto attendant to become impatient and hit “0” hoping to go directly to a live person. Having a “0” option set up in the programming is important to ensure you get all of your calls and a caller doesn’t hang up. When a caller hit “0” it is important to make sure these calls route to a person who is generally available to answer calls or route the “0” calls to multiple people to ensure all customers get to the appropriate person they are trying to reach.
Another important feature is a company directory. Since people can’t always remember an extension it is helpful to be able to search by name.
The final thing you will need to include is an afterhours greeting. An afterhours greeting is the message callers will hear after you close. It will be very similar to the main greeting in terms of the call tree. However it needs to inform the caller they have called after business hours and you will get back with them as soon as you can. Here is a typical example of how it would sound:
“Thank you for calling John Doe Company. We are currently unavailable to take your call. Our normal business hours are Monday through Friday from 8AM to 5PM. If you know the extension of the person you wish to leave a message, you may enter it now. To leave a message for an agent press 1…… etc…”