Dealing With The Objections Your Office May Hear From A New Auto Attendant Installation
Installing a new auto attendant in your office may
come as a surprise to your clients. Make sure you are prepared to overcome the objections with positives.
I was chatting with one of our clients last week about her service. She has two small insurance offices and we have an Auto Attendant service for both of them. She is totally delighted with the service. Callers can reach her office with one button and they can reach claims, billing and her other office without hanging up and redialing.
She told me that she had a few objections to the auto attendant. A couple of people said they "always like to reach a person" and she said "that's the beauty of this, that they do." One button reaches her offices. One button reaches her claims service, they don't have to write down an 800 number and redial it.
She looks at the advantage her system has over her staff taking every call. Since many of the calls she and her staff handle are for billing questions the caller can reach her office or talk directly to a corporate agent about the bill. Or just make a payment over the phone with the automated system.
One of her clients said they would cancel their policy because of it and she replied that "she could not believe they would cancel over a phone system." They threatened but she explained that it's one more button and they can reach her, and if they call for a claim they only have one button for that too.
A couple of weeks ago I spoke with another insurance agent client who has the same auto attendant and he was also very happy with the service. He said they had a bad wind storm in his area and he had over 50 calls for claims one day. His clients could immediately reach their claims service and not have to wait wait for him. He and his clients were happy to have the auto attendant to handle the huge volume of calls all at once.
I don't understand the resistance some people have with auto attendants. Personally I would rather press a button or two to reach the right person instead of being transferred. I find it annoying describing my issue to one person only to find that they have to transfer me to someone else to describe the issue all over again.
A well designed Auto Attendant can save a caller time, overcoming the objections and turning the objections into benefits can make a successful auto attendant deployment that achieves the goals of the business.
