When you pick up the phone to schedule an appointment for an oil change or a doctor’s visit, you expect fast, friendly support. If you own a business, your customers are looking for the same thing.
Whether they’re greeted with a reliable answering service and a friendly, helpful voice versus long wait times and complicated call routing can mean all the difference between new business and lost opportunities.
Efficient call handling helps you stay on top of every customer contact, whether that means being available around the clock, quickly connecting people to the right person, or just making sure every customer feels heard. When the phone keeps ringing, how your team handles the high volume of needs impacts the customer experience.
That’s where TrueLark and its AI-based solutions come in. TrueLark’s customized and automated software makes it easy to deliver personalized, quality service 24/7 to a large volume of callers without placing stress on your customer service team. Since we specialize in handling calls, we explain everything you need to know about the best practices for streamlining your business’s phone system below.
What is call handling?
Call handling is basically how your team manages communication. But it’s not just about picking up the phone; it’s about making sure every customer feels well taken care of.
Whether you’re routing calls to the appropriate department or following up with a patient, each interaction contributes to the overall customer experience.
As the person who answers the phone, your role involves communicating effectively so the customer’s needs are met quickly. This might mean answering a question, booking an appointment, or simply giving office directions.
Customers expect fast answers from friendly people, so that’s what you need to deliver. Doing so on a large scale, though, isn’t always easy. How your business handles calls can be a major driver of customer loyalty and long-term business success.
By implementing smart routing systems and various process improvements, your business can handle more calls without sacrificing its high service quality.
Why is call handling etiquette a vital skill in business operations?
Many businesses overlook how they handle and answer calls. Think call etiquette doesn’t matter? Try putting a customer on hold for five minutes and see how they react.
Proper phone support is especially important if you’re in an appointment-based industry, such as healthcare, dental, salon services, or something similar.
In such a client-focused environment, bad call handling or long wait times often mean fewer appointments on your schedule. People don’t want to wait on the phone, so they’ll just call another business.
On the other hand, exceptional service can be the thing that helps you convert leads. For example, when you greet a new dental patient on the phone with helpful customer service in a timely manner, you start their customer experience off on the right foot. That one conversation might be exactly what convinces them to schedule an appointment with your team.
And it’s not just about incoming calls. A well-run system also helps you stay on top of outbound ones, like appointment reminders and follow-ups. Customers can provide feedback on their appointment, and you can prevent no-shows.
The 5 golden rules of call handling
If you want to nail down excellent call handling, your team needs to adopt a few best practices. Mastering the following five rules helps you elevate every customer interaction, streamline your call center processes, and keep your team aligned with what customers really want: fast, friendly, and effective help.
We recommend that you:
- Answer promptly: People don’t want to wait more than a few minutes. By picking up the phone as soon as it rings, you demonstrate to customers that their time is valued. While this may not seem like an easy feat, it is possible if you adopt the right automation tools.
- Be professional and courteous: You should always answer the phone with a friendly, respectful tone. Whether sending an outbound call or handling a request for emergency services, a friendly voice goes a long way.
- Listen actively: Focus fully on what the customer is saying so you can understand and solve their problem. This often means going off the script to ensure you’re actually helping. Call recording and monitoring can help you improve this skill over time.
- Stay calm and patient: Quality assurance means keeping your cool, even when dealing with frustrated or upset callers. If someone calls your business with a complaint or any issues, they expect to be met with compassion and support. Make sure you practice patience, so you can stay in control of the situation and deliver better service.
- Provide clear solutions: When customers call, they’re seeking clear answers with actionable steps on what they should do next. You should be walking customers through what they need to know, outlining expectations, and answering any questions they may have. You’ll likely find that this level of clarity reduces callbacks.
What is the role of a call handler?
We’ve talked a lot about your team handling calls, but who exactly does this apply to? In the context of an appointment-based business, you likely have dedicated call handlers who answer the phone when it rings. Unless you outsource your customer service to a third-party call center, your front-desk staff is likely in charge of all inbound and outbound contacts.
These employees need to be skilled in exceptional customer service. The job entails everything from routing calls to the correct personnel efficiently to answering customer questions in a friendly, helpful manner. In a busy office, they’re managing simultaneous calls with care, efficiency, and enthusiasm.
At the same time, your phone support team likely also wears multiple hats. They may need to support other in-house staff members, answer questions from customers at the front desk, receive payments, schedule and confirm appointments, and more. For top-notch customer support, your team should be active listeners with great time management and communication skills.
Understanding call handling skills
Call handling is indeed a skill, and luckily, it’s one that can be developed and refined over time. Practice, feedback, and some coaching go a long way.
Some people may not be naturally confident on the phone, while others may not be the best at problem solving, but that’s OK. You can improve your team’s customer service by training your employees on these key skills:
- Empathy: If you call your dentist with concerns over a toothache, you don’t want them to minimize your issue. Your phone handlers must learn how to empathize with callers across all types of situations, so your customers feel valued and understood.
- Active listening: Active listening means truly comprehending, responding to, and remembering what a caller is saying. This goes beyond scripted responses and requires fostering a genuine conversation that identifies their pain points and offers solutions.
- Problem solving: Your team can’t solve every problem they’re faced with, but they can route customers to other departments, pull in managers, or send callers resources with more information. Problem-solving involves having every possible tool in your belt so you can help customers in any situation.
- Patience: Patience can’t be taught overnight, but it can be learned through practice, trial, and error. Call recording may help your team identify areas where they could’ve been more patient and understanding with the customer.
- Time management: When handling a high call volume, efficiency is vital to prevent long wait times. Your team needs to adopt time management strategies that help them handle multiple phone calls simultaneously. Striking a balance between handling calls quickly while ensuring all customer needs are met is key here.
- Communication: Every customer should leave the phone call with more clarity than when they dialed the number. Your phone handlers should be experts at using clear, simple language so they can break complicated processes down into simple steps. For example, if they’re explaining to a patient how to create their account online for your practice’s dental portal, they should tell them exactly where to click on each page.
Best practices for efficient call handling
Improving your phone support involves more than just training your team. While the people who answer the phone are a key aspect of the process, they need to be empowered with the proper tools and scripts to do well. We recommend these best practices to streamline your facility’s call processes:
- Leverage routing and automation: The latest phone handling systems leverage AI to automatically route calls to the right department or personnel. Some of these systems even provide AI-based voice assistants that can interact with customers, answer questions, take messages, record calls, and track analytics. By adopting intelligent software, you cut wait times and free up your staff to focus on complex caller needs.
- Provide scripts and training for staff: Providing your team with standard scripts and regular training can help you maintain consistency and professionalism across calls. While your staff will need to go off-script often to engage in the conversation, a standard set of prompts can help them resolve easier problems. For example, your sheet can provide the exact answer that your team should give if a customer asks about a military discount.
- Integrate CRM systems: We recommend integrating your CRM with any of your new call monitoring solutions so you’re able to track customer data and service quality. You’ll be able to view call analytics to understand how your phone interactions relate to things like customer satisfaction, appointment rates, and other key metrics.
Enhancing the customer experience through good call handling
The concept of streamlined call handling leading to improved customer satisfaction and increased revenue makes sense in theory, but does it actually play out in reality? Let’s look at a case study.
SGA Dental Partners gradually adopted TrueLark’s AI-based communication solutions in 55 of its locations to better handle its rapidly expanding network across seven states. The result?
- 900 new patients gained in the first four months
- An estimated EBITDA increase of $90,000 to $102,000 in four months
- A projected annual EBITDA boost of $500,000 once fully integrated
- 100% of missed calls captured
- 70% of conversations automated
- An impressive Net Promoter Score of 87
While it can be hard to measure an exact customer satisfaction score, it’s clear that patients are choosing to come back to this practice based on the figures above. SGA Dental Partners noted the successful adoption of the technology across a range of demographics, citing an 80-year-old patient who easily booked their own appointment via text.
The future of call handling efficiency: Embracing technology and AI
Clearly, AI is reshaping customer service. Tools like chatbots and automated call routing systems help your team handle an increased volume of contacts without spending every hour of every day on the phone.
You can also boost quality assurance by recording calls and leveraging monitoring tools to spot issues early on before you face poor reviews or lost customers. We recommend you use these insights to train your team over time.
Of course, automation isn’t perfect. Many situations still require a human touch. The key to using AI in call handling is finding that sweet spot between speed and personal service.
By automating routine calls, you free up your team to focus on the complex issues that necessitate human knowledge, empathy, and all the skills we discussed above. These sophisticated tools ultimately support rather than replace your human team. When you empower your call center with the tools needed to succeed, you can drive business growth.
Heighten your call quality with an automated outbound and inbound phone handling solution
How your business answers the phone affects everything from customer satisfaction to operational efficiency and revenue levels. With an effective phone support strategy, you can keep customers happy, reduce burdens on your staff, and deliver a brand experience that keeps people coming back. We encourage you to continue refining your call handling processes through training, technology, and customer feedback.
At TrueLark, we’re ready to help you refine your communications. Book a demo of TrueLark’s AI-based software to see how we can transform your business.
