First in Social Media: The Phone

With all this talk of social media, some companies have forgotten the most primal of all social skills — how to answer the phone.

In the past few weeks I’ve been working on a project that has required me to call about 20 different product-oriented special event firms throughout the country. What seemed to be an easy task turned into an eye-opener on phone etiquette, or lack thereof.

FIRST I had to find the phone numbers. I quickly learned that many web sites don’t have a phone number on the “contact us” page. Many just have a form for potential customers to fill out. I’ve heard these forms help with SEO, but is that everything? If someone comes to your site and wants to find a way to connect and there is no phone number, then no amount of data will increase revenue. Many others completely bury the “contact” button. To me, this is the same as putting a “closed” sign in the store window.

SECOND once I had the phone numbers I was in for another surprise — operator error. One company used a community answering service that had no idea what the company did or who worked for it. Another had someone answering the phone who was clearly annoyed that he had pulled the short straw and was on phone duty. He grunted the name of the company and I think he took a message, it’s still not clear. Finally another company bounced me around to so many different numbers (eventually I ended up where I began) that it actually became funny. So funny it was sad.

While we try to find our authentic voices in blogging and on Twitter, it’s important not to forget the one real voice that matters above all — the one that talks to your clients (and the media should they call) every day on the phone. It’s this social media tool that is in serious need of an upgrade.