May 21st, 2009 The Person Answering Your Phone is Part of Your Brand

I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again—your logo is not your brand. Your brand is made up of everything that is a part of your company/organization. I had an experience this week that gives a great example of how everything—the person answering the phone, in this case—affects your brand.

I wanted a pizza for dinner last night. There are many pizza joints to choose from in Bay City, but I have a couple of favorites. I couldn’t find a menu, so I looked them up online and found their website. The website has a menu, but I still had a question about one thing on the menu, so I picked up the phone and dialed.

A young woman answered the phone brightly, with a friendly greeting and the name of the restaurant. This was the high point of the phone call.

My question was pretty straightforward and, having worked in a couple of pizza places in my life, should have been very easy to answer. My question left her baffled…I’m not sure what was so confusing. I repeated my question, but she couldn’t answer it. Instead of informing me that she had to ask someone else, she just put the phone down and started asking a co-worker.

The co-worker then answers the question with this snotty, mocking/condescending tone, as if it were a stupid question. I can hear the whole conversation and I wanted to hang up right there because I was pissed. I let it go and when she gets back to the phone, she repeats what her co-worker said, minus the mocking tone. I tell her what I want and she tells me they have a special on a certain pizza—it isn’t exactly what I wanted, but it sounds fine so I tell her I’ll take it and then try to place my order.

I tell her the size and crust style. She repeats it back to me and gets the crust wrong.

I repeat the crust style and this time she gets it right.

I give her the toppings. She repeats them back to me and gets them wrong.

I repeat the toppings and gets it right.

Then she starts offering side items, which I tell her I don’t need. She tells me that to get the special, I have to get the side items. I tell her that I just want the pizza, but she can’t give me a price.

In the end, I give up.

I wasted several minutes on what should have been a one-minute phone call. The person who answered the phone was uninformed, couldn’t answer simple questions, wasn’t very good at listening, and overall communicated very poorly (outside of the sunny greeting, that it).

I don’t care how great your logo and website are, what people are going to remember long after they forget what your logo looks like is how they are treated. Both on the phone and in person. If I were a first-time customer, I’d never call back a second time. As a repeat customer, I’ve had bad service there a couple of other times, but it’s good pizza. No matter how good the pizza is, though, there comes a point when customers are going to stop coming back. 

The life of any brand can be either shortened or lengthened based on customer interaction. This is why it is crucial to keep in mind that the person answering the phone is as much a representative of your business as your logo and your product. If I know that I am going to have a problem every third time I place an order, why would I bother calling back? There are, as I said above, many pizza joints to choose from. I’ll just go to the next name in the phone book and give them a shot. (HA! I said phone book…how quaint.)