If You Don’t Have Simple Voicemail, You’re Probably Not Using It to Its Fullest Potential
Have you ever received a letter or bill addressed to your home address but to a person who doesn’t live there? Addresses don’t move with people and sometimes updating a particular company or even friend about a new address slips through the cracks. It’s a pretty common occurrence.
It tends to happen less at businesses. That’s partly because businesses move less frequently and partly because businesses tend to be a bit tighter in their management styles. On the other hand, most people who’ve been employed at more than one job have worked somewhere with a voicemail extension for someone who doesn’t work at the company.
Why do businesses still have voicemail extensions for non-existing employees? Why do they have Voicemail boxes they can’t check? How much money is it losing the company? And is your company using its voicemail to its fullest potential?
Older Voicemail is Not Simple Voicemail
The fact is that for decades voicemail has been complicated. A computerized voice gives you choices about whether to listen to a message, skip it, or …I don’t know I’ve already stopped listening. Repeat.
And that’s just for checking a message. When it comes to changing an outgoing message, I know people with graduate degrees who’d rather get another one than try to figure it out.
Typically, people just don’t take the time. Sometimes there’s one person at a company who knows how and if that person leaves, the employee extension list becomes a time capsule from his/her last day.
The same problem can occur when someone loses the little instruction booklet that comes with the phone. And let’s face it, sometimes people just don’t bother trying to learn.
But incorrect information can cost you.
If you don’t believe me just think about what happens when you go to a website that says something like “we will be closed December 25 2018 – January 2 2019.” What is your typical response? An eye role? Closing the tab? Whatever your response is, I doubt it’s renewed trust in the company.
Seeing something outdated online or hearing it over an outgoing auto voice attendant gives a client pause. It makes a client wonder “if they’re not showing care here, where else might they be careless?”
It also causes confusion.
If you reach a voicemail message for a person or department different from the one you were trying to reach, you may hang up or just question if you’ve done the right thing.
It’s Easy To Change Outgoing Greetings with Simple Voicemail
When it comes to employee user experience, an outdated voicemail can cause additional problems.
If an employee doesn’t know how to check voicemail, crucial information can be missed. That fact may be obvious. But there are also more subtle ways a modern voicemail can improve company and employee performance.
Old voicemail systems are difficult to make changes to. Holiday and vacation messages are a common need for businesses when an employee or whole company is going to be out for a brief or extended period of time.
A common message might be similar to my sample web text mentioned above about a holiday closure. These messages are straightforward and helpful to customer and companies but figuring out how to leave them can be anything but.
Modern telephone systems have much more straightforward procedures for changing messages.
You don’t need to have a booklet or memorize a series of number prompts. Instead, you can open up a pc or web based GUI (graphic user interface) that is intuitive and simple to operate.
Another benefit of a modern GUI based voicemail system is the ease of changing messages remotely. Bad weather making it dangerous to drive to the office? Easily select an inclement weather message from the comfort of your home!
Visual Voicemail Is Simple & It’s Easy to Share!
Another excellent feature of modern voicemail messages is visual voice mail. Visual voicemail is a system that looks similar to an email inbox and allows user to select a particular message rather than having to listen to each message choosing along the way whether to skip, save, or repeat.
Anyone with a smart phone understands this system. Smart phones will generally organize messages similarly with time of call and caller all listed so you have a general idea of what you’re getting into before starting a message.
In case it’s not obvious, this adds efficiency in a few ways. You can skip to important messages. You can delete voicemails of people who’ve already told you about the message they left and you can generally just get to what you’re looking for more quickly without having to listen to what you’re not.
Finally it’s easier to move messages among employees or to save voicemail for an employee’s on records with a modern voicemail system. With files that can be saved electronically and emailed at the press of a button, modern voicemail systems make sharing information easy!
So, do you have a voicemail you haven’t been able to check? Wonder what you’re missing? Maybe it’s time to upgrade.
