Heading into SEMA, I’ve been on the phone nonstop. I’ve been calling manufacturers, Top 50 installers and retailers to talk about what’s happening in the market, from Sony’s exit to Pioneer’s retro Heritage Collection. And I keep running into the same thing: voicemail. Sometimes it’s worse, and I get “the mailbox is full and cannot accept new messages.”
I’m not pointing fingers. I’ve spent years working the phones as a rep and now at CEoutlook, and I know how busy this business gets. A rep recently told me he runs into the same thing when he calls local dealers.
And it isn’t just our industry. Just today, I called the sales line of a company outside our industry while working on a story for CEoutlook. I told them who I was, and they asked me to call back because they were on a Zoom call. A sales line, during business hours, asking a caller to try again later.
If it’s happening to us, it’s likely happening to your customers too. And every missed call or voicemail is a possible missed customer.
The good news is that this is one of the easiest fixes in the business. Here’s a 15-minute checklist you can run on a slow Thursday afternoon.
- Call yourself. Call your shop’s main line, your cell and any direct numbers from another phone. Hear what your customers hear. Is the greeting current? Does it give your hours? Does it even pick up?
- Check your iPhone voicemail. Many iPhone users reported their voicemail was wiped or reset after recent iOS updates. Some lost their custom greeting without noticing. If you haven’t looked at your voicemail settings in a while, take a minute now.
- Clear the box. A full mailbox tells a customer you’re not listening. Listen, return the calls and delete the old messages.
- Turn on notifications. Make sure voicemail and missed-call alerts are actually turned on, so messages don’t sit unheard for days.
- Check the company phone system. Work voicemail boxes on office phone systems fill up too. When an employee leaves, their extension can turn into a dead end that quietly collects messages nobody hears. Reassigned extensions and IT changes can mean you have a full mailbox and don’t even know it. Ask whoever runs your phones for a list of every active extension and mailbox.
- Have a plan for when you can’t pick up. Meetings and Zoom calls happen. Make sure someone else can grab the line, or that calls roll to a voicemail that’s set up and has room.
- Make it a habit. Put a reminder on the calendar to run this check every quarter, and any time staff changes.
The Payoff
None of this costs a dime. It’s 15 minutes. If it means one more customer a week who gets through instead of hanging up and calling the shop down the street, that’s more than 50 extra customers a year.
In a business built on relationships, picking up the phone is still the first sale. Make sure yours is ready to ring.
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