The Irony Of It: Telephone Company With Poor Phone Skills

When you’re in the business of selling telephone services, you would think you would use very good phone skills.   Think about this for a moment —  if you do a lousy job of demonstrating how your service works, would you expect customers to buy from you?  It would be like a restaurant handing out samples of lousy food, all the while suggesting you enjoy a meal with them. 

I’m sharing this as an example of how our own sales processes can impede our sales results.  Each day at exactly the same time, our office receives a phone call from a toll-free number which we know is a telemarketer. We have always ignored it. Recently, though, I decided to pick up the phone, only to be greeted by the 2-second pause as their software connected me to a “live” person, who sounded like he must be two steps away from death based on his terrible communication skills.

And who was this sales call from?  A phone company!  I was shocked how a phone company could themselves practice such terrible phone skills (it only confirmed in my own mind again why we should probably stop using this company entirely).

Take a moment to ask yourself if your sales process is supporting your business or hurting your business.  More importantly, ask people who fail to buy from you the reasons WHY they decided not to buy. These are the opinions you want to hear. Sure, it can be hard feedback to hear, but in the end it will be some of the best feedback you’ll ever get.

Now back to the lousy the telephone skills. The unmotivated individual who was blabbering into the phone was clearly reading from a script, and I had to ask him to stop and to not bother to call me anymore or the little business I did with them would move to zero.

If you’re wondering who the telephone provider is —  it’s Qwest.  I don’t normally mention a company’s name, but in this case it’s deserved, as I have heard from others that their experience with Qwest is similar to ours.  Too bad because not only are they wasting money on telemarketing, but they’re also driving away business.

Take the opportunity to listen closely to your customers to find out if they have any problems with any of their contact with your company, whether it be you or someone in another department.  Pay close attention to the little aspects of customer service (tone of voice, consideration, etc.) that are crucial to a customer having a positive experience with you.   The more you do this, the more your sales motivation (and your sales!) will reflect it!