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Who answers the phone?

Written by: Seth Godin

Article Overview: The new rules mean that the most valuable marketing event is almost always an inbound phone call.

Who answers the phone?

The new rules mean that the most valuable marketing event is almost always an inbound phone call.

An inbound phone call is the ultimate in short-term permission. The customer or prospect is taking the time to call you. She's focused, interested, paying attention and willing to trust you.

Think for a minute about how much you spend (and how high up in the organization the discussions go) when it's time for a new logo or a new Super Bowl ad.

And yet, even though the rules have changed, the lowest-paid, least-respected, highest-turnover jobs in the organization now do the most important marketing work.

Scharffen-Berger Chocolate (which I've featured in some of my books) was bought by Hershey three years ago. They bought it because of me (and people like me). People who will go out of their way to find high quality dark chocolate and then pay a huge premium to buy it.

I've been really disappointed with the quality of their product for a few months. It seems to me that in order to ramp up production, they've smoothed out some edges and the product is becoming boring. Fewer high notes, less interesting. So, I called.

The operator, who couldn't have been nicer, offered me a coupon for a free replacement bar.

A replacement of what? More of the same mediocre product I was calling to complain about?

Of course, she was just doing her job, but who's fault is that? Who decided to give her nothing but a script, who decided not to take the inbound calls seriously, who decided that it made sense to put up a wall instead of opening a door? I guess the short version is, "why isn't the brand manager answering the phone?"

"Your call is very important to us,"

does not jibe with,

"Due to unusually heavy call volume."

And the phrase, "I'm sorry, I'm just doing my job," does not match up with the marketing event of a person taking the time to call (or to email).

No, of course Sumner Redstone can't answer every single letter sent to Viacom. But...

Shouldn't every single inbound call be answered in one ring? Shouldn't there be as much spent on self-service customer support as is spent on the design of the selling part of your website? Shouldn't you be tracking in the finest detail what people have to say when they call in? Shouldn't you be rewarding call center operators by how long they keep people on the phone, not how many calls they can handle a minute? Shouldn't there be an easy, fast and happy way for an operator to instantly upgrade a call to management (not a supervisor, I hate supervisors) who can actually learn something from the caller, not just make them go away?

And I guess that's my biggest point: the goal of every single interaction should be to upgrade the brand's value in the eye of the caller and to learn something about how to do better, not to get the caller to just go away.

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Article Tags: berger, dark chocolate, doing my job, hershey, inbound calls, jobs, marketing event, mediocre product, paying attention, phrase, sumner redstone, super bowl, super bowl ad, taking the time, turnover, valuable marketing, viacom



Related Forum Posts
Re: What's the best anti-virus/spyware software? - Hi Tanny, Thanks for sharing those key points from that interview. The first one, SMS viruses, is something I've never thought of before. Luckily I don't own a phone that is OS capable. It certainly is a good point and something phone companies should be taking seriously. It would be just as devastating to have your entire phone wiped out from a virus as a computer would be. I suppose there would have to be a way to backup your phone contents as well, in case something ever would happen. The only backup feature my phone has is with the capability of backing up all of my contacts and storing them on my online account where I have access to them from the computer. It's a very handy feature to have.
Re: What's the best anti-virus/spyware software? - [quote="Alan Mater":rafyjy4t]Hi Tanny, Thanks for sharing those key points from that interview. The first one, SMS viruses, is something I've never thought of before. Luckily I don't own a phone that is OS capable. It certainly is a good point and something phone companies should be taking seriously. It would be just as devastating to have your entire phone wiped out from a virus as a computer would be. I suppose there would have to be a way to backup your phone contents as well, in case something ever would happen. The only backup feature my phone has is with the capability of backing up all of my contacts and storing them on my online account where I have access to them from the computer. It's a very handy feature to have.[/quote:rafyjy4t] Hi Alan, SMS viruses can be found on all phones, usually when downloading ringtones or wallpapers for your phone. It happened to husband and they had to completely format his phone, lucky for him, I sync the phones with my computer all the time.
Re: Are FAQs effective or useless? - So then what's the best FAQ format? Should there be a search box or just a list of questions with short answers. Or are detailed answers better? The reason I ask is because not everyone (including myself) will be patient enough to read through an entire list of Q & A.
Re: Hello, I'm brand new - Sounds like you are a very ambitious person with a great deal of energy. Just the right character for a true entreprenuer. Welcome to the forum. I hope you are able to find answers and to possibly help others find some answers as well!
Re: Protect yourself from Hackers - I have never heard of phone protection. This mean our phone is not safe anymore


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