While the auto attendant (the automated voice that direct calls at the front of a phone call to a company) is very familiar to anyone who hasn’t been living on a desert island for 40 years, it’s often the hallmark of large companies or very consumer-oriented companies. There’s a reason for this: once upon a time, the auto attendant and interactive voice response (IVR) system behind it was an expensive option. Auto attendant solutions were big, bulky, premises-based solutions that required knowledgeable IT staff members to administer.
Companies paid a price for not having an auto attendant. If even one customer a year encounters a busy signal or a unanswered call when he or she calls a business, that’s one lost customer too many. To this day, many smaller companies don’t use auto attendant and IVR technology, simply because they don’t believe they need it, or they think it’s out of their economic reach. The truth is, these technologies are no longer big, bulky, premises-based, hard to administer or expensive to purchase, largely thanks to voice over IP (VoIP) telephony solutions designed for small businesses.
8x8 (News - Alert) Inc.’s Angela J. York recently blogged that thanks to small business VoIP solutions, companies can recapture some of those lost sales with an auto attendant.
“Using a hosted VoIP system can help you capture and route calls to the right person—quickly—with smart routing options that let you determine who receives the call,” wrote York. “It can also send e-mail notifications to the appropriate people, with an audio file attached, so they can simply click from their inbox to hear the voicemail. This increases the chances that you'll be prompt in responding to your customers or prospects and earn additional business.”
Customers will be happy with shorter response times, which could lead to repeat purchases. Companies can ensure customers never encounter a busy signal, preventing a host of lost sales.
Just as beneficial, VoIP-based auto attendant solutions are not only easy to administer – you don’t need an MBA in computer science to manage it, unlike the systems of 20 years ago – they can be changed regularly to reflect new promotions or seasonal changes, and they can be administered from anywhere there is an Internet connection. This builds in a kind of fail-safe “disaster recovery,” even for the smallest of companies, allowing them flexibility in case of storms, for example.
So the question today is not, “Can you afford to have an auto attendant,” it’s “Can you afford NOT to have an auto attendant?”
Find more on 8x8 Inc.’s
“Tips for Setting Up Your Auto-Attendant” on its website.
Edited by Rachel Ramsey