{{B}}THE CUSTOMER MAY NOT RING TWICE{{/B}}
Companies spend large sums of money on their telephone systems, but then use them to create the wrong image, according to Ben Lambert, International Performance Manager at a company called Octopus. He claims that many companies have an average response time of 17 seconds Some can take as long as 24 seconds to answer the phone. 'At one time you had to dial the number and wait for the exchange or an operator to connect you. You were aware that it was probably going to take time and if no-one picked up the phone you would probably hang on for 20 rings,' he says. 'Now you bang in the numbers and the phone rings at the other end almost before you have finished.{{U}} (8) {{/U}}Unless it is vital to get through, you are rarely prepared to wait as long as 24 seconds. In fact, the average response time should be five to ten seconds.'
Telephonists are one of the main interfaces with the public and customers. They give the first impression of the company and by definition you get only one chance to make a first impression. The facilities manager should know the fastest response time to the telephone, the slowest response time and the average response time. Mr Lambert points to a television advertisement by a leading bank that promised an answer within four rings.{{U}} (9) {{/U}}'Banks are trying to promote themselves as service providers and this advertisement gave a very powerful message,' says Mr Lambert.
Octopus estimates that telecommunications is the most expensive support service in offices, costing on average ￡1,000 per employee each year.{{U}} (10) {{/U}}Given the changes over the past ten years, the cost of communicating is likely to continue to rise. In 1986, the typical office worker had just a simple push-button, or even dialling, handset. Now the traditional desk-based telephone also has voice mail and direct dialling and the staff member relies increasingly on email, paging, video- conferencing, on-line business seduces and mobile phones. Mr Lambert says, 'Such is the importance of all this to regions and economies generally that cities are increasingly looking on communications as the key infrastructure issue.{{U}} (11) {{/U}}They are becoming as important, if not more so, than physical communications.' Telephony can sometimes get too sophisticated, though. Some American companies, for example, are refusing to install automatic answering systems that tell callers to dial extension numbers.{{U}} (12) {{/U}}This gives the opposite impression to the one that companies would like to project.
A This was a very simple strategy that created a new performance measure.
B Considering the cost of facilities, better systems are out of the question.
C You expect an equally quick response.
D Atlanta, for example, used the Olympic games as an opportunity to become one of the best places in the world for multimedia communications.
E In many cases these are left on all day and the caller is passed automatically from one office to another.
F It is second only to wages within the average company budget.
G He claims that many companies have an average response time of 17 seconds for incoming calls.