Next time you are asked to “hold”, listen carefully. What you hear will tell you a great deal about the business you are dealing with and the people on the other end of the phone. To hear nothing, by today's electronic standards is ambiguous at best. Okay, maybe they are trying to respect your need for silence, or did they just cut you off? If you are confronted with one of the employee’s favorite rock stations, you may be lucky enough to enjoy the same music, but are these folks too cheap to give you something of greater value? What if you were to hear information that is responsive to your “need to know” and aimed at expanding your appreciation of all that this business has to offer you. What if the language was so well timed and well crafted that you didn’t feel patronized and you didn’t get bored. You might even wish to hold a bit longer just to finish up on what you’ve been learning. This is a business that is paying attention instead of ignoring the needs of its callers.
Perhaps the ultimate insult is to be simply ignored. It’s because we need to know we “count.” We spend our lives in search of significance. We seek out relationships that affirm our value. When someone confirms our belonging, it strengthens our sense of self-worth. To be disconfirmed is to be told we don’t exist. A responsive telephone on-hold message is a key ingredient in affirming our importance to the business.
A generation ago, this wisdom was evident in the institutions that we so highly value: our schools, our businesses, our families, religion, politics, and even our recreation. There was about us a sense of propriety; a kind of mutual respect for one another that was based in a mutual regard for ideals and ideas deemed larger than ourselves, and thought to be enduring well beyond our collectivity. This mutual respect was embodied in these institutions and carried out in everyday mundane activities: the white-gloved, uniformed doorman at the department store, the gas-station attendant who cleaned your windshields and checked your oil, the table manners, the respect for authority, and the value of giving one’s word of promise.
The coming of a new era that further declared the equality of all sought to rid us of stereotypic forms and bring needed relief from race, class, and gender-based divisions. At the same time, these sweeping changes swept aside the notion that to serve one another in any capacity is noble. As it is, we can’t even drive down the street without fighting for position. This drive for individualism has been fueled in no small way by the electronic technology that further liberates us from relying on one another. Now, we don’t even have to wait for the movie theater. We can demand video entertainment, when and where we want it. Almost half of our meals are handed to us by people we don’t know in places we only visit. In the process, we have ignored our mutual need for affirmation. We all have been so determined to declare our individual worth and liberty we have come to believe we are the best ones to do it. We have forgotten how to humble ourselves in these everyday transactions while each of us take turns affirming one another.
While many may see this movement as progressive, there is a growing discontent especially among the next generation based in what is considered by some a “service crisis”. We still need others to acknowledge us by affording us what once were considered “common courtesies” but these have gone to the wayside. The yearning is so great, that more businesses are restructuring their business model to include the broader needs of their customers rather than simply delivering a product more efficiently. And this is where our technology can be just as useful. Well-produced on-hold messages can easily address the broader needs and interests of callers and give them that additional courtesy and affirmation that so often goes missing.
With current technology, telephone on-hold messaging has the ability to seamlessly integrate timely information with a universe of available production music to suite any taste. With internet exchange, recordings can be updated quickly, frequently, and affordably when only a decade ago, such was reserved for only large companies with big marketing budgets. Now, every business can join the coming “service revolution” and seeking out telephone on-hold companies that provide such service is a great place to start.
No comments:
Post a Comment