Is your firm creating the right first impression?

How good is your firm at answering in-bound calls?

Your receptionist (or whoever answers the phone in your firm) is usually the first point of contact for clients, prospects, business associates and suppliers. In the case of prospective clients, this call can often be their first and lasting impression of your firm.

With that in mind, have you ever made ‘mystery calls’ to your firm, to see how well calls are dealt with and what impression is being created?

A mystery shopper exercise can be useful to test the first impressions your firm gives. However, it can also highlight if any additional training is required, not just in telephone etiquette but also in how they handle the call, knowledge of the firm and the services you provide.

Making mystery shopping calls to your office

So why don’t you make some ‘secret calls’ to your own office, or get a friend or family member to make them, and ‘test’ the following:

• How many rings does it take before the phone is answered, or does it go to answerphone?
• Does the person answering the phone sound cheerful and professional, or do you get the impression that you’ve just interrupted them?
• Do they say the name of your firm and their name?
• Do they ask how they can help you?
• Then tell them you’re calling about one of their services (choose one service, e.g. payroll, accounts preparation, starting a new business etc.) and see what they say:
  1. Can they give you some background information in the first instance?
  2. Do they take down your details and say they will transfer you to the relevant person, or get that person to call you back?
  3. Do they say that you don’t offer such a service (and yes I’ve seen that happen in accountancy firms!)
• How do they finish the call? E.g. transferring you to the correct person; assuring you that the contact person will call as advised, or are they abrupt and tell you to ring back later?

Depending on how well your staff answer the phone, you may want to consider training on either telephone handling skills, or perhaps internal training on your products and services. By doing the latter you make sure that all your staff are aware of what you do and more importantly, they know who to transfer the call to if they are not the person to speak to.