Selling to a potential client can’t work if they keep hanging up on your business call, therefore it is important to research and get helpful tips on preventing potential clients from hanging up.
Have you ever been on the phone with a customer and they hang up mid-conversation? The truth is when this happens, you can easily detect the problem and know what you did wrong for the client to hang up on you. More often than not, they most probably spent the 6 minutes of the call duration telling you exactly what the problem is.
However, when your customers hang up on you before you even get the chance to begin a conversation with them is another issue that you need to fix and boost your caller retention.
Why is Preventing your customers from hanging up important?
Increasing caller retention is a very important aspect for every business and should be made their priority. In fact, caller retention could be a deciding factor as to whether you would be making a sale or pushing away a potential customer. Albeit it may sound like an overstatement, the importance of increasing caller retention and preventing your clients from hanging up should not be overlooked.
Up to 34% of callers don’t phone back when they hang up. A business will most likely lose a third of their potential customers, permanently, if the potential customers keep hanging up as a result of poor customer calling experience.
Businesses spend more on getting customers to phone them than they do to make them convert. Statistics from Kissmetrics have shown most businesses will spend up to 94% of their budget or marketing on getting potential customers to leave them calls, and just 6% on the follow-through.
Simply put, businesses will spend more to pique the interest of their potential customers, and then fail to use an efficient follow-through system. A system that will help them secure and convert these potential customers when they make calls to your business.
Most customers prefer to call. In this digital age, looking up information about a business online is simple as ABC, however, most customers prefer to call a business when they need to get information about the business. In fact, stats have shown that up to 60% of customers favor phone calls over email.
Keeping your potential customers on the line is how you make a good first impression. Learn how you can make callers stay interested and not hang up, and boost your chances for converting callers into loyal customers. Therefore it is very important to create a plan to learn and implement strategies that boost caller retention and prevent your customers from hanging up on you.
How to Stop Customers Hanging Up
To know how to increase call retention and stop your clients from hanging up in situations, you have to take note of the things that lead to them hanging up. Find out the reasons that make customers hang up and then set up a phone system that:
- Does not frustrate customers when they leave you calls: Frustrated customers are quick to hang up and not call back again. Make sure you have an efficient system in place so your customers don’t feel frustrated, that is the quickest way to get a customer to hang up and lose them.
- Reduce the perceived caller wait time: Potential customers are less likely to end calls, when the call wait time feels shorter.
Direct customer calls to the right department: Directing the customer’s call to the right agent when they call can speed up the call duration and reduce frustration.- Does not let the customer wait time feel like a waste: Nothing is as painful as waiting for a long time on the phone and not getting the information you need. Make sure that customers are provided with information so they do not see the wait as a waste of time.
Now, to achieve the goals above and keep your potential customers on the phone, check out 6 ways you can prevent potential clients from hanging up.
1. Never Leave the Callers in Silence
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is not having some sort of hold messaging system in place and leaving your callers with nothing coming through on their phone. One thing about most callers is that they do not like to wait, they feel unattended to, and potential customers will end calls much quicker if they are left on hold without a message or music.
Studies from AT&T have shown that 60% of callers lose patience and hang up when that someone is left on hold. Therefore, it is important to have a music or a hold message voice in place when someone is left waiting, this way you can stop customers from ending calls early.
2. Do Not Repeat Yourself
Repeating the same message or questions over and over again is one of the most frustrating things a customer can listen to when they call.
When customers call your business and they keep hearing the same phrases and messages repeatedly, it will make the perceived wait time longer and they can get frustrated and hang up.
Therefore, when writing your hold message script, make sure to take the amount of time your average callers waits on hold into consideration, and then write a hold message that will last twice the wait time.
This way customers calling your business won’t hear the same hold message repeatedly and you can cut down the hang up rate.
3. Do not Make Your Customers Repeat Themselves
Just like customers calling your business do not want to hear the same message repeatedly, in the same way they do not want to say the same thing repeatedly.
To prevent customers from hanging when they call your business make use of IVF prompts and collect information from potential customers when they call, then promptly direct them to the agent or department that will handle their call with regards to their needs.
4. Give Relevant Information
More often than not, your potential customers will call your business when they need more information. These potential customers have inquiries that need clarifications. Therefore, do well to make ready, and provide relevant information to these potential customers.
You can make use of a hold message that answers Frequently Asked Questions and maybe route them to other sources they can get this information. To keep the customers hooked make sure the information is relevant to their needs.
68% of callers are more likely to stay on the phone when they hear information that is relevant to their needs.
5. Provide Recent and Up-to-date Information
Some needed updates for on-hold messages can be easily overlooked, however, allowing obsolete information to continue airing is totally unacceptable. When you add timely information like event dates, seasonal content, and promos, make sure to set a reminder to update those messages when they have passed their due date.
When potential customers phone your business and they are greeted with an outdated message, they may perceive you as unreliable, not detail-oriented, and less trustworthy. Imagine getting a Merry Christmas welcome greeting in March when you call a business.
6. Make message and music easy on the ears
One mistake that’s worse than leaving your callers in silence is making use of terrible, poorly produced, hard to listen music and voiceover messages. There isn’t anything more effective in losing a customer than this.
Make sure that your hold music message and music is well-produced, and is played at the appropriate volume that won’t make it hard to listen to.
Also, make sure to use a voice that’s pleasing to the ear and keeps the potential customers calling your business hooked. To sum up, everything that has been explained so far: Always make sure you identify issues and make improvements to your phone system where necessary.
Have a professional greeting message and hold message, invest more time and money in improving your wait game and give your customers a reason to stay on the line. When all these tips and strategies are efficiently implemented, you’ll have more chances of preventing potential customers from ending calls early and increase your call retention.
