What to Include in the Call Answering Script for your Plumbing Service
If you’ve hired a call answering service for your plumbing company, you will need to write up a script for your new receptionists to use when they answer a call. You’re used to personally defining the way your customers perceive your business with every call. But now, you won’t be able to pick the words your customers hear on a moment-to-moment basis. Instead, you’ll need to pick them beforehand with a script.
You may be worried that the script will sound robotic. But, your call answering service should have qualified staff who will express your script with warmth and attention to detail each time. So long as your choose words that reflect your company’s culture, your customer should respond. So, what should those words be? Here’s what you should include in the script.
Greeting
All calls need to start with a greeting. You probably already answer your phone a certain way, and you may be able to build off that answer. For example, if you say, “This is Reilly of Star Plumbing, how can I help?” Then you can adjust that to “Hello, this is [name], you’ve reached Star Plumbing. How can I help?” It’s a simple greeting that gives your customer the information they need, and brand the experience too.
There are plenty of other greetings that you can try. You can be more or less specific with your question, perhaps like, “what plumbing help do you need?” or “do you need plumbing help today.” You may be tempted to add in extra information too, but try to keep your greeting short. Customers want to get to their concerns.
Positive and Negative Responses
When your client calls, they may immediately launch into the problem, in which case your receptionist can skip this part. But, sometimes, they need more prompting. If they respond positively to the greeting, you need one response, and you need another if they are upset.
A positive response might be, “I just have a quick question,” or “I just wanted to commend you guys for your service. Your receptionist needs to match your customer’s mood. So their response to a positive customer might be, “No problem. How can I help?” or “No problem, what did you want to ask?”
A negative response might be, “I have a serious plumbing problem,” or “I need to complain about a technician.” An excellent reply to this might be, “I’m sorry to hear that; what’s going on?” or “That’s unfortunate, how can we help?”
Responses to Multiple Call Types
Once your client is talking about their specific problem, you need your receptionist to narrow down the problem so that they can make good scheduling decisions. This part of the script could likely get pretty long. But, it is essential for you toto walk through every call type, so your receptionist is prepared.
For example, if a client mentions a leak, you may want scripted questions to ask how much water there is, where the leak is, and if the customer knows how to turn their water main off. Or, if the client mentions a clog, you might ask where the clog is. Some client issues will need many questions, and others will be straightforward.
Closing
Lastly, you’ll need a closer. The closer can be as simple as your opener and impart the customer with a sense that the receptionist cares and is available if they need to call back. If all this seems like more hassle than it’s worth, you should consider starting your free trial of our professional plumbing scheduling services today!
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