{"id":17712,"date":"2021-04-13T11:00:38","date_gmt":"2021-04-13T10:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"\/gb\/en\/blog\/?p=17712"},"modified":"2021-07-13T13:06:55","modified_gmt":"2021-07-13T12:06:55","slug":"the-phone-is-not-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/gb\/en\/blog\/the-phone-is-not-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"The Phone Is Not Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the late 1890s, a newspaper mistakenly printed an obituary for the very alive, very healthy Mark Twain. When word of his death reached Twain himself, he responded to a reporter in the most Twain way possible by saying, “the report of my death was an exaggeration”.<\/span><\/p>\n

This quote by Twain is one of his most notable and my guess is that if the telephone could actually talk, it would say the very same thing about reports of its death. In 2010, <\/span>a TechCrunch article<\/span><\/a>\u00a0reported that indeed the telephone is dead and has been replaced with texting and other means of communication.<\/span><\/p>\n

Lest you are inclined to believe these proclamations, let me make a case for the telephone being alive and well. Even though more costly than chat or other communication methods\u00a0<\/span>in your contact centre<\/a><\/span>, it should still be considered a viable medium.<\/span><\/p>\n

Our need for instant gratification in today’s society has undoubtedly been one thing that people point to as justification for retiring the telephone and replacing it with chat or SMS support. While these certainly can provide a lower-cost means of service, it still lacks in delivering the ability to build a human connection with your customers<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Building human connection\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

This topic reminds me of the software company I worked for in 2003. We recognised that we had done a poor job at engaging with our customers, and as a result, we saw our retention rate begin to dip. In response, we changed our inside sales team’s role and assigned them several customers to manage. The first order of business was to call and thank each customer for their business. There was no sales pitch, no attempt to upsell, just a simple word of thanks and showing them we appreciated them.<\/span><\/p>\n\t\t