Long ago, in what seems like a galaxy far away, people used to love getting phone calls! It was like a treat—a fun surprise to hear from a relative or friend who wanted to catch up.
These days, though, the phone call doesn’t get the level of affection it once did. An unexpected ring is often viewed as a nuisance, met with a Scrooge-like grimace or perhaps a sigh of annoyance.
Even some small businesses have gotten to the point where they’d rather redirect incoming calls to some interactive voice response (IVR) system. That’s a shame because if you’ve ever called a business as a consumer and got rustled into one of those automated systems, you know how irritating they can be.
The sheer impersonal aspect of IVRs is enough to turn many callers off. They’d rather reach out to a business that cares enough to pick up the phone. Customers would rather, you know, be treated like people instead of inconveniences.
So why do some of us refuse to answer the phone anymore? Let’s take a look at the main reasons—and the ways small businesses can avoid those problems entirely!
