Episode 269 transcript
Have you ever thought that your sales team might be getting dragged into things that they should not be doing that’s stopping them from making sales? Then this week’s episode is for you. Welcome to this week’s episode of Mi TV. My name is Emma Mills, and I help business owners to leverage their time, focus on the stuff they love, and win the week. And this week, this episode is about the implications of getting team members dragged into roles that they should not be doing, and it will cost you time and money. And it’s inspired by a conversation I had with one of my clients last week, and he was telling me how he’d realized recently that they were missing calls every single day. And as we worked through the conversation, there were seven big impacts that it was having on his team, their profitability and customer success. I wanted to go through these seven things with you today because if you are not aware of at least one of them, it might be one of those marginal gains, those tweaks that you can make in the business to have big impacts. So, number one, when he started to look at the data of missing calls, what he realized was, because so many calls were being missed, other people in the business were picking up the phone that shouldn’t have been picking up the phone.
And in his case, it was the sales team. And so the sales team were picking up customer service calls. Now, you don’t have to be a sales expert, a Grant Cardone, or Alex Hormozi to understand that if I’ve got my sales team picking up customer service calls, they’re not doing what they should be doing, which is making sales. And so it was kind of a knock on effect in his business that he had people picking up calls that weren’t meant for them, trying to take messages, trying to handle things that, like, was just a waste of their time because there was a number of calls coming in. They didn’t have enough people to answer the phone, and it was having a knock on effect in all parts of the business. And my number one for you is first to, like, understand if you’re missing calls, but if you have got lots of calls coming into the business, which your frontline or your receptionist or whoever it is who’s meant to take them can’t handle them, or they’re like, they’re missing them, there’s too many. Where are they going? What is happening to them? Because even missing them is bad enough. But then also if you’ve got the wrong person answering them, it’s a distraction.
It’s a time drain. It’s a money waster. So that is my number one. Number two, how many calls are you missing in the day, in the week, in the month? And if you don’t know, which if you don’t know, this is absolutely no judgment because when I talk to lots of business owners, they don’t really know. But it’s a stat that is such a game changer to tweak and get better at. So if you’re not missing calls, let’s sort that out. You could. Most honestly, unless you’re on some kind of really old BT landline, most systems now have got the reporting to show you how many.
When you’re missing calls, the data is there. So if you can get that first and then look at when you’re missing them, maybe it’s that lunch times, you know, you miss all your calls then or after hours, but the solutions for all of them to get them covered, if your team are missing any at all. Number three, can you report on it? When I was having the conversation with my client last week, and we help him in other parts of his business, and he said to me, I said, how many calls are you missing per day? And he’s like, on average about 50. 50 is a lot. And you can imagine that those numbers are inflated as well because people will ring back who’ve not got through to the first time. But he’s able to report on that now and make a change in his business and improve on it, because as we know, what gets measured gets done. So can you report on what is happening with your phone calls? Because if you can’t, it’s definitely a thing that should go to the top of your list. If any way, shape or form customers or new inquiries ring into your business, you should be able to report on how many calls you’re missing and when.
Number four, distraction. I’ve talked about it a lot in recent weeks, but the average employee in a business is productive for 2 hours and 53 minutes per day. So it’s quite, let’s say the average employee works for seven and a half, 8 hours. It’s like way less than half, 2 hours, 53 minutes is like quite productivity time. The rest of it is a lot of distraction. You know, checking apps, notifications, emails, chat, flicking between things like not really getting the good work done. If we then increase distraction by the wrong people in the business answering the phone, it happens a lot with us, with mortgage brokers. So mortgage brokers will effectively, you’ll generally have the initial person who has started the business is a mortgage broker.
They will bring advisors on, they’ll have an administrative, and as they’re growing, the brokers that they bring on, or the original founder themselves, they’ll be answering the phone. But that’s not like that. It is guaranteed that most of those calls, it would be one of those things they shouldn’t have answered. Whether it’s picking your brains, something they’re doing right now, maybe they’re in the middle of submitting a case with the, with my client who I’ve been talking to. His sales team are answering the phone because the customer service calls are overflowing again. It’s like it’s a distraction. It’s not what they should be doing. And it happens in so many businesses that the phone will just flood to everybody, and whoever grabs it, grabs it.
And we know that being reactive, answering a call completely takes you out of the zone of what you were doing. And if you’re in that 2 hours, 53 minutes of deep productivity work, why would you have them distracted by phone calls they’re not meant to be answering? So distraction is a massive one when understanding what’s going on with the phone. Phone calls in your business, number five, and this is a biggie. If somebody rings your business and you miss it, are they ringing back again? Now, if they’re an existing customer and they’ve got a query, a complaint, or they need some help, or they’re looking for progress, they’re likely to ring back because of an existing customer and they need your help. Now, obviously it’s not the best impression that somebody’s had to ring back and you couldn’t capture it straight away, but it’s kind of savable. If it’s a new inquiry, it’s really unlikely that unless potentially somebody’s referred you or what you sell that is so specific that they can’t easily get it elsewhere. Most people are going to ring once and then move to the next line on Google or, you know, move to somebody else. That’s maybe come through on a leaflet through the door, depending on what you do.
Like if with most businesses you’re going to get one chance and if that’s not answered, it’s really few and far between that they’ll ring back. So if you’re missing a call, you don’t know, and this is what we were going through with my client the other day, is that out of the 50 that they’re missing? Okay, they’re not all new inquiries, we know that. But even if five of them are, are they ringing back? How do we know the new inquiries, how are we capturing them again? So, honestly, your ability to be able to capture every single call as it comes in is really key to, like, maximizing marketing, maximizing reputation, customer service, and just making sure that nothing slips through the cracks. Number six, we love when we answer the phone to get people booked straight onto a call, a discovery call, whatever comes next in the new inquiry journey, if you’ve got the wrong person answering the phone in your business, the likelihood is they’re taking a message, probably taking it badly because it’s not their actual job to do it anyway, and then you’re going to have to ring them back and then they might not be available. So having the right person answer the phone, who can progress that? Whether it’s a new inquiry or a customer query into a secured call or calendar link, like booking a call is a really key part of understanding if the right person is answering the phone for you. And last but not least, number seven. And it just, you will definitely have experienced this. You know, when you ring up a business, a restaurant, a hotel, and somebody answers it and you’re like, hello, have I reached this? You know the business? Because you just answer it, hello.
Or they’re like, you know, you’re trying to get some help and it’s like one word answers and you’re thinking, does this person even work there? Like, it happens so often that the wrong person grabs the phone. That’s not their skill set to do it. They don’t want to do it. It’s taking them away from what they should be doing. So I do like, it’s criminal in lots of businesses where, you know, somebody’s answered it and probably the owner is like, you know, the friendliest person alive. Customer service is really important, and unfortunately for them, somebody in the business has answered it who’s just a kind of a one word, I’m not meant to be on the telephone kind of person. And it happens a lot. And so making sure as well that where your calls are rooted is going to the right people who should be giving that, like, hello, how are you? You know, that really great first impression is again, like another quick win.
And today after I’d had this conversation with my client, I just feel like these seven things, even if you just took half an hour, if you’ve not considered it before, to go through it in your business, to go, right, okay, well, where are the calls going when they come in? Who is answering them? Are we missing any calls? Do I know if I can see if we miss calls? Do I report on it weekly. Like, all of these things are just those lovely marginal gains which makes such a difference to the happiness of your customers, your reputation, and most importantly, your bottom line as well. And so I hope it’s been helpful for you. Go and run through my seven points and I’ll see you next week for episode two-seven-zero. See you then. Bye.
