Companies We Love
GH in the news- @Grasshopper
- Interested in getting an 855 number? We're taking reservations now - http://bit.ly/ailETt
- RT @chrisgeyer: excited i get to talk with more of our @grasshopper customers today as well
- RT @melilitts: I use @grasshopper as the main means of communication within my business, since our team is spread all over the US!
customer service Archive
Creating a Dedicated Support Line for Your Business
One of the great things about our phone system is that it can be used in different (and creative) ways. While yes, it’s intended to be used as a full-featured, make your company sound big phone system, our customers have made it their own. Some people use it strictly as a voicemail service, some use it as a call forwarding service and one customer uses it to provide clients with personalized extensions.
A new use we came across recently was a customer using their Grasshopper number as a dedicated support line. What a great idea! We certainly have customers who use extensions for support/sales/departments/etc, but I’d never really thought about using an account just for Support.
As it turns out, there are actually quite a few benefits to this:
Professionalism
One of our main priorities here is to “Help entrepreneurs stay connected and sound professional”. Why? Because to customers, perception is reality.
A dedicated support line certainly shows customers that you are professional, successful enough to have a support team & you are there to help them when they need it. Whether this line forwards to a 100-person support team or your home office doesn’t really matter.
Free Grasshopper Accounts for Small Businesses in Nashville
With the recent flooding in the South many companies, including the Small Business Association, are unable to answer their phones.
Grasshopper is offering free service to small businesses in Nashville affected by the flooding. Set up custom greetings to let customers know what is happening or have your calls forwarded to another number.
Contact Grasshopper at 800-820-8210 to get set up.
What’s Twitter Have to Say About Grasshopper?
One of the great things about Twitter is that it has allowed us to connect with our customers and other entrepreneurs better than we ever have been able to before. We can answer questions within minutes, promote our customers and keep everyone up to date with what is new at Grasshopper.
We’ve gathered a few of our favorite tweets from the past month and are sharing them here on the blog. We also want to send a big thank you to everyone who has helped promote Grasshopper over the course of our six years!
Will Smidlein @nullfear
Core Values and the Companies That Do Them Well
A crucial task of companies big and small is to define their core values. In his contrarian management book The Art of Demotivation, E.L. Kersten defines these as “the values that are most important to the direction of the organization and the decision-making within it.” Management consultants Francis Goullart and James Kelley describe core values as “the essence of the corporate culture” and an “expression of its personality.”
Which core values a company adopts (and how consistently they are adhered to) influence the future of that company and how customers, employees and stakeholders come to perceive it. Unfortunately, it is all too common for companies to profess allegiance to their core values while behaving in utter disregard of them. Consequently, many entrepreneurs now regard “core values” as synonymous with TPS reports, synergy and other Dilbert-esque platitudes.
With core values being such an important aspect of Grasshopper, today we examine nine other companies who not only have core values, but also embody them through their business.
Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines is the textbook example of a company that takes its core values dead seriously. From day one of operations, co-founder Herb Kelleher let it be known that Southwest was committed first and foremost to the customer experience. To that end, the company took great pains to hire only enthusiastic, outgoing and friendly employees who took pride in theirs job and bought into the corporate culture Kelleher & Co. had established.
3 Ways to Not Suck at Chat Support
I don’t think online chat is the best way to communicate. In fact, it’s probably the worst. So it may surprise you to hear that we’ve been considering adding chat support to our lineup of support options at Grasshopper.
Why do I think chat sucks?
For one thing, you never really know if the other person is still there, if they’re AFK (that’s chatspeak for away from keyboard) or if they’ve fallen off the face of the planet (that’d be FOTFOTP).
Still, I’m convinced that there are great uses for it. For example, asking quick pre-sales questions when you’ve got laryngitis. That’s why I go out of my way to try other company’s chat support. I’m looking for the company that’s finally found a way to make it work.
I’m told that chat is great because it’s instantaneous and convenient. Well, if that’s true, why do I always feel like I’m waiting for the service rep on the other end to finish their 15 other chats before they finally get back to me? Read more »
Unlimited Extensions Create Personal Touch with Customers
It recently came to my attention that one of our customers, The KARS Consulting Group, is using our Unlimited Extensions feature in a brilliant way.
As a small consulting company or freelancer with a handful of clients, your relationship with each client is imperative to the success of you and your business. Any extra effort or personal touch goes a long way. So what is this entrepreneur doing that is so great?
Creating personalized extensions for each client.
Each client has their own extension with a personalized name greeting and voicemail. When the client calls in, they’re addressed with a greeting specifically for their company, the business knows who is calling so the call can be routed to the right person, and even when no one can take the call, there is a personalized voicemail message. What a great concept!
By creating these personal extensions, your business is able to accurately track call time through online call reports, save time by automatically directing calls to the right people and eliminate miscommunication issues. All without any extra costs.
An Unlikely Entrepreneur
Laura Legendary, the founder and owner of of Eloquent Insights, is our featured entrepreneur and guest author this week. She gives us a look into her life and accessibility issues on the web.
You spend your days as maestro of carefully controlled chaos. Conducting conference calls, contacting clients, closing contracts. You email, tweet, blog, post profiles, and tap out text messages. 
You rehearse your elevator pitch, tune up your marketing plan and attend industry conferences. For relaxation, you consume every classic business book and must-read relevant weblog just to keep current.
Now, do it all with your eyes closed.
What makes me an unlikely entrepreneur is that I am a business owner who is blind. My success as an entrepreneur with a disability has less to do with how I feel about it, and more to do with how well I manage it.
Grasshopper Sponsored Dinner for Customers & Friends
Hi Customers & Friends,
I wanted to share with you a new initiative we are trying here at Grasshopper. It is called “Grasshopper Customers & Friends Dinner” (pretty straight forward right?). If you haven’t realized it yet we here at Grasshopper love interacting with our customers. Not only do we enjoy meeting new entrepreneurs, but some of our best business ideas have come directly from our customers.
If you have seen our “Friday Flix” you also know Grasshopper employees love good food (see Grilled Cheese Wednesday) and the occasional beer (coming soon – view of the office from Beer-Scooter Cam). So we thought, “What could we do to combine all of these things?” Hence, we arrived at “Grasshopper Sponsored Dinner”…because oh ya, everyone loves free things!
As we travel across America going to various conferences/business meetings, we are going to make an effort to have “Grasshopper Customers & Friends Dinners” along the way. Having said that, I leave you with 2 action items:
- If you live in the Greater Boston Area we have our first dinner this Thursday (Nov. 12th), 7:30 pm at Skipjacks Seafood in Newton, MA (on 55 Needham St.)
- RSVP here: http://ghdinner.eventbrite.com
- If you are not in the Boston Area but are interested in this sort of thing please note in the comments section what city you are near and we will try and reach out next time we are there!
Thanks so much, and hope to see you as SkipJack’s on Thursday.
Jonathan
** jkay@grasshopper.com with any questions comments, or concerns **
Hate Traffic? Try Talking to Customers.
In an effort to engage our customers and help them get the most use of our service, we at Grasshopper make sure that every new customer gets a personal phone call within the first week or so, asking them if they need any help, have any questions, etc.
As a manager, I make a handful of these calls each week and I always end up learning something new from talking to customers – seeing how they use our service to run their business and the types of questions that they have.
I really enjoy making these calls but one of the challenges I face each week is finding the time to make them. Read more »
