Organising your phone system messages can be confusing if you haven’t quite got the hang of it yet, so we’ve put together this basic guide to give you the low-down on what they involve, and how you can use them to your advantage.

There are 4 types of messages; on hold, pre-announcement, night, and auto attendant messages. Each type of message will play at different times during a call,  and all require a technician to program the phone.

 guide to your phone system messages

The Four Types of Message

#1 – Auto Attendant

If you want to route calls to different areas of your business, then you want an Auto-Attendant message (Press 1, Press 2). This would replace the Pre–announcement message, so when somebody calls your office, the first thing they will hear is a greeting followed by some options. For example, “Thanks for calling <business name>. Please press 1 for sales, Press 2 for service…” etc.

How Auto-Attendant works

  1. Your phone system receives an incoming call in working hours.
  2. That call then is sent to the auto – attendant (the menu).
  3. From there the caller decides where they would like to be transferred from the available options provided in the menu by pressing any of the numbers 1- 5 (or more) that have dedicated departments.
  4. The phone line then goes through to whichever department the caller decided upon.
  5. If all of the lines in their chosen department are busy and/or the call isn’t answered in a certain amount of time (you choose the length of time that callers wait) The call can then route to other staff member or a day message (this can of course be done without an Auto-Attendant also.)

Your Auto-Attendant consists of:

– Recorded menu options that are recited to each caller, so that they can make the choice as to where their call is directed. E.g. 1 = sales  2 = tech support  3 = customer service

– There are multiple options, and each option is kept brief

– Generally there is no music

Tips on constructing a menu:

– The auto attendant shouldn’t give too many options, but rather should be specific as to the areas that it can take the caller to. However, you musn’t make the options too broad, either, because the customer needs to be certain by which choice they are going to make.

– Try to limit options at any stage to max 4-5 options.

– Remember that customers are only listening out for two things; what they need, and what they need to do to get it.

-Stay consistent. For example, if you have ‘9’ as the option to return to the previous menu, make sure you have it as the same option throughout the various menu levels.

– Always make sure that there is an option that will take the caller directly to an actual person (usually this is the last option).

– When designing your Auto Attendant, remember that being simple and succinct is the most important factor. As yourself if you are wasting time by having a lot of options, if three or four could do the trick.

– Keep the options short and to the point.

#2 – Pre-announcement Message

The Pre-Announcement message generally plays if all of the lines are currently occupied For example, the message may say, “Thank you for calling <business name>. All of our operators are currently occupied…:

It is a LOT more professional than having a busy signal, or allowing a call to ring out because nobody can answer. people want to know what’s going on, especially if nobody is answering their call to your business, and any caller is more likely to wait to speak to someone if their call actually goes answered before ringing out.

Don’t ever pick up a call simply to tell someone that they will remain on hold – only ever answer when you are ready to talk to the caller. There’s nothing worse than waiting on hold and finally have someone pick up, only to be told by that person that you’ll simply be waiting some more – – it’s frustrating!

You will know from personal experience how frustrating it is to hear a phone ringing and ringing, and then get a real person only to be put on hold straight away! This just raises and dashes your hopes. When you’ve got a pre-announcement message, your callers will know why there’s a wait, and your staff know that they can answer the call when they are ready to handle it, so there’s no need to fob off a ringing call straight to hold.

If your business historically tends to take a while to get to calls, we can also program your phone system to play your on hold message AFTER the pre–announcement message

#3 – On Hold Message

An on Hold message plays when the call has been answered and subsequently placed on hold by a member of your staff. This is a great opportunity to tell the caller more about your business.

Tips for your On-Hold Messages

This is a time when callers are usually responsive to subtle sales suggestions and promotions, so it’s a great opportunity to promote your business products and services to a captive audience. Try and entertain or educate the callers to keep their mind off of the fact that they are still waiting to be helped. If you’d like some more tips and ideas for how to keep your on-hold callers on the line, head here.

You may have music playing in the background, or in-between different announcements, and it’s a good idea to include informative and helpful tips and suggestions about your business – just think of it as free advertising!

For example, lets’ say that on average your business gets 125 calls per day, and approximately 75% of your calls get put on hold due to the high volume of callers. Now let’s say that, on average,  a caller put on hold would be left there for about 45 seconds. This means that, in only one month, you’ve accumulated around 25 hours of time that you’ve had callers on hold – that’s more than 300 hours a year!

Now, if you think of your on-hold messages as advertising,  imagine if you had of paid for that amount of time for TV commercials or radio time.

These callers are sitting there waiting for someone to talk to, take advantage and show them what you can provide them. But remember,  if you do decide to use that time to advertise, you will need to keep those messages updated in order to stay relevant and interesting. Human nature is to stop listening once you have heard a message once or twice. Keeping it fresh ensures that those who call regularly still hear your key messages.

Finally, an on-hold message can perform a double duty – it can also be played whilst a customer waits for their call to be answered. Although not strictly “on hold” – out technicians can program your phone system to use the hold message so your caller doesn’t constantly hear a ringing phone while they’re waiting to be answered.

#4 – Night Message

A Night Message is the company-wide voicemail message that plays when all phone lines are inactive due to the fact that no one is there to answer them (after office hours).

The night messages are the automatic voice mail messages that all callers hear when they call your place of business and the phones that are in “night mode”.

It doesn’t ring, it doesn’t go to the menu it just lets them know straight away that you can’t take their call at the moment as nobody is there to answer. In these messages, you need to show that you are in fact interested in what they have to say and that you wish you could have taken their call.You can do this by including:

– A reason as to why you haven’t answered their call. For example, “unfortunately you have called outside our business hours. We’ll be back in the office < include your current working hours>…”

– A request to leave a message with their best contact number, so that you can call them back with an idea about why they called your business

Bear in mind that, while called a “Night Message”, you can also have messages played during the day. This can be programmed to play when a call comes in during working hours but no one is available to answer. It generally plays if the call has been in the pre–announce phase for awhile (how long is up to you), so it’s more like a traditional voicemail message.

 

Hopefully you’ve now got a better understanding of what’s what when it comes to your phone system messages. If you have any further questions, or need help with setting up your phone messages, get in touch with the Infiniti team today, and we’ll get you on track!