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.
Posted in News & Updates, Tips & Tricks | Tagged customer service, Local Numbers, tips, Toll Free Numbers | 3 Comments
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.
Posted in News & Updates, Small Business | Tagged customer service, Small Business | Leave a comment
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
Posted in Marketing & Brands | Tagged customer service, social media | Leave a comment
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.
Posted in Marketing & Brands, Small Business | Tagged customer service | 1 Comment
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?
Posted in Marketing & Brands, Small Business, Tips & Tricks | Tagged customer service, tips | 2 Comments ← Older posts
