Do you upgrade your car every few years? Why?
It's likely that you don't drive an old jalopy to work every day. Why not? When did you last upgrade your car? How often do you trade in what you're driving for something newer? More reliable?
If it runs, and it can get you from Point A to Point B, why wouldn't you drive a jalopy to work every day?
Because it's not reliable? Because it's not safe? Because your professional image matters?
So, my question is, why wouldn't you upgrade your phone system on a regular basis?
Perhaps it doesn't make sense to upgrade your phone system for your business every 3-5 years as you would with a car. It does, however, make perfect sense to upgrade your phone systems every 7-10 years at maximum.
Why? Because in today's B2B marketplace, your phone system is the front door of your business. It is the first point of entry for most of your customers and clients when they are engaged in the act of conducting business with you and your team.
"Wait, isn't my website my front door?" you ask.
The answer is, very simply and quite resoundingly, NO. Your website is the welcome mat for your business. Your website is where a prospective customer, client or partner stands to evaluate the exterior presentation of your business and to decide whether it's worthwhile, or safe, to enter your abode.
Your phone system is the key component of the hospitality of your business. It is where your guests are greeted, made to feel welcome and comfortable. It is where they can engage on a personal level with your brand, your expertise and your fantastic staff. At least, that's the hope.
So, why don't we pay better attention to our phone system? I can't tell you the number of companies that I interact with on a daily basis who minimize the importance of this component of their business presence.
I spend a lot of my day on hold. I've memorized 90% of the stock tunes that are played on the major phone systems canned music on hold applications. Music on hold is nice. It's definitely much more welcoming than the cold, dead silence that many companies still greet their customers with.
Interestingly, studies have found that people don't like silence. There is even a name for this condition: Sedatephobia. Many experts believe that in our modern society the inundation of media such as radio, television and other self-selective audio and visual pass times have created a wide-spread fear of silence in the American populace.
With this being the case, why would you leave your customers alone when they're reaching out to you? Music at least is soothing, if a bit monotonous.
There are other options in today's modern telephony equipment such as Marketing on Hold that provides companies a great opportunity to engage their clientele in their brand, while assuaging feelings of unease, restlessness and disconnection they are apt to feel when greeted with utter silence.
When upgrading a car, cool new features such as parking auto-assist, projected HUD and built-in gps are all compelling reasons to upgrade to something more modern. Why don't business purchasers pursue the same covetousness in the technology of their communications systems as they would when buying a new car?
Truly, I haven't discovered an answer to that yet. When I do, I'll be counting my dollars all the way to the bank!
The other, and most compelling reason for someone to trade in their car and get something new is reliability.
Mechanical systems break down over time, and require on-going maintenance. Culturally we have departed from the maintenance mindset and have the fiscal wherewithal to acquire our way out of maintenance, which is why the average American acquires a new vehicle every 6.4 years.
We drive our phone systems daily. In fact, it's arguable that we utilize our phone systems more heavily than we do our vehicles. In our daily commute we drive to work, and drive home. We spend 8 hour a day on average taking and making calls at some level, to drive our businesses forward.
With how critical communication is between our businesses and our customers, I would hazard a guess that you would want your phone system to be just as, if not more, reliable than your vehicle.
What are your thoughts?
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