Connecting with a LIVE PERSON by phone is becoming an increasing challenge in today’s world. It should not be so.
Every company, every government body, every organization should make it its goal to make PHONE CONNECTIVITY easier for their constituents, clients. Dedicate a phone number to LIVE RESPONSE, to a department whose responsibility is to answer the phone call IN PERSON.
Connecting with a LIVE PERSON by phone today is a near impossibility. Computer bots are assigned the task with the thinking being it is more efficient, productive, and profitable. The majority of today’s population still remembers when phone calls to a company got a live person. No more. Today a computer bot begins a list of numbers to press for whatever reason, ultimately asking the caller to leave a message. That message may or may not get a response. The caller often gives up hope of connecting with a live person. THIS CAN AND SHOULD BE CHANGED.
How to change the LIVE PERSON phone connectivity issue
Every company, every government body, every organization to set an ‘in house’ rule: every employ should be told to make 9:00 – 10:30 am of every business day, “telephone answer time.” Every employee, department, staff person should be in their office ready to take phone calls during that period.
If staff are swamped with telephone calls
If the staff are swamped with calls, computer bots can deal with the overflow. Eventually, staff will have fewer and fewer calls as they deal with callers. If this reduction never happens, the organization will need to supplement their call answer service. Otherwise, staff will eventually clear the backlog of phone callers and the public will appreciate successful phone connectivity.
If there are no calls
Eventually, calls will be managed to a point where there are fewer and fewer calls. If the staff person receives no phone calls, they can work on their organization responsibilities without interruption for the designated phone calling period after which they can work in the old fashioned way, meeting with colleagues, conferencing with others, connecting with necessary connections.
Phone period is for office dedication to phone connectivity
The designated phone period is just that, the time when every staff member of the organization is in their office ready to take phone calls, should they be phoned. No meetings elsewhere, no conferencing with other staff. Phone calls are the primary responsibility of all staff at this time. They can work on other matters if there are no phone calls. But for the 9:00 – 10:30 am period is designated as “be in your office available for phone calls, FULL STOP.”
Imagine the world with 9-10:30 phone hour
Everyone would know where the office staff person is at 9-10:30 am. They would be in their office on the phone or ready to accept a phone call. People would know someone is there to answer the phone and the only thing holding them back from answering live is that they are on the phone with another person. But they would be available tomorrow, or the next day. Every caller would know there is a person available at the designated time, their chief responsibility between 9-1o:30 am to answer phone calls and the only thing detracting them for doing that is they are on the phone with another person.
A unique endeavour and feeling
Imagine, everywhere, every city, every region, every business, every organization dedicated to the same thing from 9-10:30 am every business day, to answer phone calls from its clients, its constituents. Imagine the feeling knowing that your call is getting though because the organization has that period assigned to all staff to answer phone calls. What an amazing world it would be…a return the days of old when person phone responses were the norm rather than the isolated exception.
Any company that does not participate in the phone hour
Any company that does not participate in the phone hour either has not heard of the idea, very likely, or they just don’t care about whether customer, client, constituent personal phone service. The latter cannot be as every reputable company or organization dealing with the public believes in good customer relations which live person phone response would be. No reputable company or organization will dismiss this service as unimportant or too minor to worry about.
Let’s see where all this goes…time to change corporate America and beyond…don’t you think!
