All businesses need to be able to handle calls from customers in an understanding and professional manner. However, this is particularly true of funeral businesses. If you run an organisation that provides funeral services, you already know that your customers need to be treated with respect and sensitivity. Each customer has recently lost a loved one and is likely to be distraught and emotionally vulnerable. As a result, we believe that your telephone answering service should have three very important qualities. If the person answering the phone can embody these qualities, they will be able to soothe prospective customers and interact with them in a professional way.
1. Empathy
The most obvious quality your call answering service needs is empathy. The person answering the phone should be able to project a sense of empathy and compassion when they talk to a customer. They can’t sound detached or uncaring: they must be emotionally invested in the customer’s well-being. However, they can’t become over-emotional themselves. Striking the right balance to convey an appropriate level of empathy requires a great deal of call-handling experience, which is why call answering in a funeral business should be done by experienced professionals.
2. Patience
Distraught customers may not be able to articulate what they want as quickly or concisely as more composed customers. Funeral businesses have to be ready for this. Their call answering service should be handled by patient individuals who don’t mind talking with individual customers for the length of time required to understand their needs.
3. Clarity
When a person has lost someone dear to them, they’re unlikely to have the emotional or intellectual energy needed to decipher unclear or inarticulate speech. It’s therefore important for a funeral business’s call answering service to be clear and easily intelligible. Having someone who is easy to understand and doesn’t use overly-casual speech patterns or idioms on the other end of the phone can help minimise a customer’s stress.
Here at Frontline, we’re proud to provide telephone answering services to a wide range of businesses, including funeral businesses and other care services. We specialise in providing a clear, patient and empathetic call answering service. If you run a funeral business and need a team of experienced professionals to handle your calls, get in touch with us today.