WHITE PAPER. Bring back the Officer of First Impressions!

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AUSTRALIAN CALLER INDEX

tm

Bring back the Officer of First Impressions! The Australian Caller Index™ 2014 reveals that

First impressions count when customers are calling.

Ineffective call handling will result in lost business opportunities.

introduction Somewhere between the late 1980’s and the early 2000’s the role of the Officer of First Impressions, a.k.a. the Receptionist, was eliminated. It was deemed that anyone can answer a telephone. “Why not put our most inexperienced employees on the front line where they can learn the business?” Or better still, replace the head count with interactive voice recognition technology (IVR) or send the calls off shore! And when all else fails, let the phones go to voice mail. With the proliferation of mobile technologies and multi-channel contact alternatives, it is reasonable to presume that investing in live, professional reception services is an unnecessary expense. The research findings strongly refute this hypothesis. The Australian Caller Index™, a study of Australian caller preferences and behaviour conducted on behalf of OfficeHQ in May 2014 by ACA Research, has revealed that 92% of callers prefer a person to answer their call. Despite this, Australian business continues to underinvest in this critical aspect of the customer experience. The survey findings indicate that perhaps business is unaware of what they don’t know. If a business is monitoring call abandon rates, they will find that this is a very reliable indicator of lost business opportunities. However, the surveyed respondents revealed that depending on what has caused their dissatisfaction or irritation with their caller experience, up to 70% will simply hang up and call

another business and 83% would share their dissatisfaction with friends, family, and other potential customers. Based on these statistics, lost opportunity cost is not difficult to estimate. Executives measuring the ROI in new business acquisition strategies can quickly calculate the lost revenue and unrealised investment of a prospect that has as the result of a single poor experience, opted to go with the competition.

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AUSTRALIAN CALLER INDEX TM Australian Caller Preferences and Attitudes The 2014 Australian Caller Index™ conclusively reveals that the phone is the consumers’ preferred mode of contact and clearly points to poor or ineffective call handling as being very bad for business, especially new business. Figure 1 (below) provides compelling evidence that Australian callers will pick up the phone to make contact with businesses – despite the increased availability of multiple customer contact channels such as email, landing page sign up and chat, 6 out of 10 Australian callers still prefer to make phone contact. Even more compelling are their reactions and responses to the quality of the caller experience. More than 9 out of 10 callers to Australian consumers prefer to speak with a person. This should raise alarm bells with any business who has done away with the receptionist function by replacing it with technology or with nothing but voicemail. However, even if a real person is the voice at the other end of that call, a poor experience will have a substantially negative impact on the outcome of the call, in spite of the personal touch. Q: P  lease indicate the extent you agree or disagree with the following statements All respondents n=1026

Effective call handling is critical in creating a positive first impression

3

I prefer

a person to answer my call

3

If my initial call is not handled well I will call elsewhere

3

I would tell my friends or family to avoid a business if the call handling was poor

3

Phone is my preferred method of contact to a business

3

94% 92% 84% 83% 62%

Figure 1: Caller Preferences & Attitudes (Australian Caller Index™ 2014). Source: OfficeHQ/ACA Research May 2014

According to the OfficeHQ research, businesses that invest in the caller experience are more likely to engage new prospects. When surveyed, 94% of Australian consumers said that the call handling experience is critical to their forming of a positive impression. Conversely, an unsatisfactory or poor caller experience is likely to cause a caller to go elsewhere (84% of those surveyed) or worse still, 83% of those surveyed will tell others about their bad experience. If they do this on social media, it can be crippling for businesses because the investment in a call handling solution has simply not been a priority.

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AUSTRALIAN CALLER INDEX TM Australian businesses can, however, turn to options including Reception as a Service™ provided by OfficeHQ to more than 25,000 global companies, enabling them to leverage the best of both worlds; bringing together leading edge technologies with best in class, professional receptionists for a fraction of the cost of a permanent resource and with much less risk to the customer experience than a technology-only solution. It is essential when selecting an outsourced service provider to ensure they can demonstrate a proven track record of superior caller experience. Even more important are clearly defined and measurable Service Level Agreements (SLA’s), which eliminate the things that particularly irritate callers and create a bad first impression; protecting your business from potential customers hanging up and calling your competition.

 our competitors are only a phone call away! Australian callers will Y hang up on your business and call someone else if they are not happy with the caller experience. Australian callers have demonstrated quite strong views on the things that irritate them. They are more likely to move on and disregard businesses that do not meet their expectations for call handling, especially on first experiences. When asked to share their greatest irritation when contacting a business on the telephone, the Australian Caller Index™ 2014 survey top three responses were: 1 When the person who answers the call is not located in Australia 2 When the person that answers the call lacks courtesy and professionalism or lacks knowledge and

can’t answer their questions 3 When the call is answered by technology such as IVR or speech recognition

The vast majority of respondents were very definite about this with only 10% of respondents citing other reasons. Figure 2 (below) highlights what is even more concerning; the responses or reactions by callers and the actions they will proactively take in response to what irritates them. Depending on what has caused them to be dissatisfied with their caller experience during a first time call, they will very likely hang up and in a significant percentage of cases will not give the business a second chance, opting to call another business. Q: What do you typically do if you are faced with the following scenarios when first calling a business to buy or enquire about a product or service? A: Hang up and call another business. All respondents n=1026

#1

#2

Person who answers the call lacks courtesy,

Person who answers the call is not

located in Australia 37%

#3

professionalism, knowledge and can’t

answer all your questions

28%

Call answered by technology such as

IVR or speech recognition

27%

Figure 2: Caller Preferences & Attitudes (Australian Caller Index™ 2014). Source: OfficeHQ/ACA Research May 2014

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AUSTRALIAN CALLER INDEX TM The callers surveyed were also willing to share their past reactions to bad caller experiences and revealed that in almost 90% of cases, they had disregarded a business at least once in the past 12 months (prior to the survey) due to poor call handling. 75% of cases cited multiple instances (from twice to more than 6 times) when they disregarded a business within the past 12 months based on a bad first time caller experience. (Refer Figure 3 below.) Q: A  pproximately how many times over the last 12 months would you have disregarded a business based on the way in which your call was answered? All respondents n=1026

11%

12%

6 times or more often

never

13% once

63%

2-5 times

Figure 3: Caller Preferences & Attitudes (Australian Caller Index™ 2014). Source: OfficeHQ/ACA Research May 2014

 ception as a Service™ is the best alternative for professional Re phone answering on behalf of Australian businesses. Grow revenues through improved customer service, increased productivity and reduced cost to service. Evaluating the best in class solution that will meet your expectations for call quality, receptionist availability, service reliability and most importantly, customer experience is the key to successful outsourcing of this critical business service: 1 Your Reception as a Service™ provider should be able to demonstrate a proven track record of

consistently providing better quality call answering services than even your own receptionists could deliver, consistently achieving the highest level of customer service with highly trained, experienced, professional receptionists. 2 Your Reception as a Service™ provider should guarantee scalability, flexibility, reliability and failover

risk management strategies to ensure 24x7 continuity of services. This will only be achievable with state-of-the-art integrated technology solutions (telephony and customer relationship management) that can support in excess of 100,000 calls per day.

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AUSTRALIAN CALLER INDEX TM 3 Most importantly, your Reception as a Service™ provider should give you peace of mind that your

first and future contact with customers is being managed by professionals, allowing you and your staff to focus on your business. Outsourcing the critical role of the Officer of First Impressions to a professional Reception as a Service™ provider can deliver a superior customer experience and protect your investment in new customer acquisition, resulting in new revenue and growth opportunities.

Conclusion According to the OfficeHQ Australian Caller Index™ 2014, local consumers prefer to speak with a real person and they expect the person at the other end of the phone to be professional, courteous, knowledgeable and helpful. In the absence of this, particularly on first contact with a business, they are highly likely to hang up and call your competition. Proudly, the premium Reception as a Service™ provider, OfficeHQ can confidentially state that we will respond to 90% of calls within 10 seconds with a live, professional receptionist representing your business, via our real-time integrated telecommunications and client relationship management portal. Compared to the industry standard of 80% of calls within 20 seconds, this KPI means significantly reduced abandoned calls, highly improved caller experience and satisfaction, Whether you are using outsourced reception services to handle overflow, after-hours callers, manage peak periods and staff shortages or to replace your total business phone answering requirements, your service should be both efficient and seamless to your callers; delivering great first impressions and the highest levels of customer experience. OfficeHQ can provide a tailored solution for your business that will ensure your callers are greeted by your friendly and professional Officer of First Impressions every time they call.

About OfficeHQ OfficeHQ provides specialised, professional, outsourced telephone answering services, including messaging and appointment scheduling - all built and delivered on a cloud-based platform serving over 25,000 global customers. Founded in 2003 by David Atkinson, an IT entrepreneur with 30 years’ experience building software and telephony systems for large corporates, OfficeHQ is a fast growing, locally based, Australian private company with global operations in the US, Canada, UK and Japan. We were the first virtual reception service provider to launch with an in-house developed, cloud communications platform, comprising of an integrated, real-time billing, voice and CRM system, with the ease of instant activation and pay-as-you-go subscriptions. OfficeHQ embraces activity-based and flexible working; employing a fully-trained remote workforce, located in collaborative hubs around the world in Australia, the US, the UK and Japan.

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