by Ed Mass

If you hate voice mail and are putting off installing it, or if you have it and callers to your company, hate your voice mail (although you may not know they do), you’re not alone. But let’s put the blame where it properly belongs — on people, not technology. Before you dispute this, have a moment’s patience and “listen” to the rest of this article.

“I get locked in voice mail jail where my call gets sent around in circles”, “I can’t get to a real person”, “I can never reach ‘Jane/John’ because they never answer their phone and I know they’re not always away from their desk.” If these are your frustrations or your callers’, people are the cause.

Voice mail is simply a technology with specific functions. Whether these functions are turned into benefits or frustrations for the caller is totally dependent on the people who design the system and those who use it. Before we look at the people issues, let’s look at the key benefit of voice mail.

The Single, Most Important Benefit

Imagine you want to get hold of someone and they truly are not at their desk or anywhere in the office. Which would you prefer: 1) to leave your name, phone number, and a message with a person, or 2) record this information in your own voice directly for the recipient to hear? Consider the possible consequences of each.

If you’ve never experienced any of these scenarios, consider yourself to be as fortunate as someone winning the lottery. (But without the money.) Now wouldn’t you rather have the caller leave their message, as long as necessary, in their own voice? The single, most important benefit is leaving a message in one’s own voice and eliminating all the potential problems above.

A large percentage of calls don’t require discussion but only one-way transfer of information. In these cases, voice mail can be more efficient for both the caller and the person called so you don’t become engaged in unrelated and unnecessary discussion.

Here’s another strong benefit of voice mail. If you listen to the message in the caller’s own voice, you’ll hear all the inflections and tone changes, and therefore the additional meanings, that are carried in spoken language.

Even if it’s typed into an electronic mail (e-mail) system, all the problems of incorrect information being typed can occur. In addition, if your out of the office and can’t get to your e-mail system, you can’t get your messages.

System Design

1. A caller should be able to press the zero button on tone phones and get to a person immediately. This button should be able to be pressed immediately after a message starts playing without waiting until the end of the message.
   
   
2. At anytime, during any message, a caller should be able to press the zero button for an attendant.
   
   
3. In order to get to an attendant, someone must be assigned to be available at all times to answer these calls.
   
   
4. If a menu of options are used, the menu item should be described first followed by the number to press. This is logical but not always done. The caller needs to hear the description first, in order to know if that’s the choice they need. If you state the number first, the caller is likely to forget it by the time the description has finished.
   
   
5. The first choice in a menu of options should be to press zero for an attendant.
   
   
6. For a menu of options, a maximum of four, maybe five, options are best with the use of sub-menus rather than having six or more choices to which the caller must listen. It becomes confusing to try to remember too many choices at one time. Also, descriptions for menu options can state two items, or three at the most, for one option. (Look at the example below.)
   
   
7. Keep the words describing each menu option friendly but to a minimum. Don’t use unnecessary words such as “please” or “now” as in “for customer service, please press one now.” In this case, “please” is not a courtesy, it is a discourtesy. The goals are quickness and convenience to get to the right person or department. Adding unnecessary words, adds to the total time to get through the choices, defeating the goals and efficiency of voice mail.
   
   
8. If customer service is provided as an option, it should be given as the first choice. This is a courtesy to your existing customers; they should be served first. This has the added benefit of showing callers who are prospects for your products or services, that you emphasize serving your customers. This will make the caller feel good that you will service them after the sale.
   
   
9. Tell the caller how many choices to expect. This tells the caller that the menu selection will be short and the message won’t be going on forever.
   
   
10. Ideally, your voice mail system should allow callers to wait in queue if the extension is busy, tell the caller what number they are in the queue, and while waiting, give the caller the option of pressing a button to leave a message if they decide not to continue waiting. This is a very powerful benefit to the caller. It allows recapturing an option that is often unavailable in many voice mail systems when switching to voice mail from a real person.
    
    
11. After getting an individual’s voice mail message that they aren’t available, the caller should be able to press zero to get to an attendant. At this point, the caller may want to know if the person is anywhere in the building or to have the person paged.

Let’s put these design principles together in an example message that callers would hear upon reaching your company: “Hello. You’ve reached Proper Voice Mail Company. At anytime, you may reach an attendant by pressing the zero button on your phone, or you can reach a specific extension by pressing it now. Select from the following four options. For customer service and technical support, press one. For sales and marketing, press two. For billing, press three. For any other department, press four. Make your selection now or to repeat the options, press five. If you stay on the line, an attendant will answer.”

Then if the caller presses “one”, the message can say, “For customer service, press one. For technical support, press two.” You can see (and hear) how short and friendly these messages are. They are convenient, quick, and easy to remember, and therefore create an easy to use system. At this point, you might want to review each design principle above with reference to the example message just given.

Some people will disagree with the design steps above. Let’s look at one of the main arguments for not designing the system with the principles above. The argument says: “If you tell the caller they can go to an attendant as the first option stated, you’ll have lots of people doing this without using the system.” My response to this is, “that may happen but that’s good if it’s what the caller wants and it’s probably not as likely as you think.” Remember, the goals are convenience and ease of use for the caller.

If the caller immediately goes to a live attendant, you have satisfied the need of the caller; you have served the prospect or customer. Every company’s existence depends on serving the prospect and customer. The goal is not to force everyone to do things your way, it is to increase your efficiency and effectiveness with those who will take advantage of the voice mail system and even prefer it, as long as the caller can control it and it doesn’t control them. Callers will often listen to the other options — if the system is properly designed.

As some companies do, you may choose to position the “press zero for an attendant” at the end of the first level menu list instead of at the beginning of the list. If you save statistics reports from your voice mail system before and after you make this change, you’ll be able to see if there is a difference in the number of callers going directly to an attendant or first going to another option.

Lastly, for those companies that still want a person answering all calls, you can still obtain a significant benefit for both your callers and you by providing a “back door” number for customers, suppliers, and others familiar with your company and individual employees. The back door number goes directly to an automated attendant, with an appropriate message to the caller, that allows the caller to immediately press the extension of the person they want to reach.

This is much quicker for the caller in reaching the person called in several ways: 1) they don’t have to wait for the phone to be answered by a person which could take several rings while an automated attendant usually answers on the first ring; 2) once they are familiar with the system, as soon as the call is answered they immediately press the extension instead of having to ask a person to connect them and wait for the person to take action. This process is not only quicker for the caller but it simultaneously reduces the load on the person answering the phones. It is a win-win situation for both the caller and you.

Use and Misuse

In addition to the designer of the voice mail system, the users have a major responsibility in making the system a benefit, and not an obstacle to callers. People who have voice mail should not use it to keep from answering their phone. This is just plain wrong! This behavior negatively impacts your relationship with callers, their attitude toward your company, and potential sales.

When voice mail is first implemented, and periodically after the initial installation, a clearly stated and positively worded memo should be circulated to everyone who has a voice mailbox. The memo should explain the proper use of voice mail, as identified above for its main benefits to callers and those called, and the consequences to the company for the misuse of it.

Proper Voice Mail

The single, most important benefit for voice mail is to leave a message, of any length, in the caller’s own voice. This eliminates a variety of potential problems (as itemized above). Voice mail is very cost effective in reducing attendant time. And, if designed and used properly, it’s very efficient in reducing the amount of time a caller and the person called need to be occupied on the phone.

Properly designed and used, your callers will appreciate the quick and convenient service of voice mail even more than immediately reaching an attendant. They will still feel in control of their call which will make them feel at ease with your company and pleased with the efficiency of your organization. Voice mail may be the first step in establishing efficient and effective voice processing communications systems for your company.