When first starting out, many small business owners envision life as an entrepreneur to include freedom and flexibility. But, between managing day-to-day responsibilities, establishing a steady customer base and planning for future growth, it can be a struggle to reserve time for life outside of work. In fact, a recent survey found that 45% of entrepreneurs believe that their greatest ongoing challenge is finding work-life balance.
Keeping business and personal lives separate is even more difficult for home-based business owners, not only because of the lack of separation between work and living spaces, but because of one piece of technology in particular – the phone. Today, solopreneurs use their smartphones to answer customer calls, text with friends, book appointments, call their moms and swipe right or left on their next date. The separation between work and life is blurred, which causes friction when trying to strike a balance. It’s now commonplace for small business owners to receive calls from customers and vendors at any hour, any day of the week. And, the amount of calls can certainly add up, especially when you consider that America’s 30.2 million small businesses receive 400 million calls from customers every day — and that home-based businesses account for 50% of the SMBs in the U.S.
Instead of customer calls interrupting your dinner or taking up time that could be spent on more strategic tasks, you can now utilize advanced phone technology to automate a portion of your phone calls. Learn more about how new phone technology can help you achieve a better work-life balance:
Automatically answer every call
The majority of consumers today choose not to leave voicemails. And many small business owners fear that if they ignore calls during personal time or while they are busy with other work, they’ll miss out on opportunities to connect with customers. Fortunately, with advanced phone technology, you can have a virtual agent available that’s dedicated to answering common questions over the phone 24/7. Imagine a baker that runs a cupcake business from their home kitchen. They’re pulling their latest creation out of the oven and don’t have time to answer the phone. The phone rings and a potential customer calls and asks, “Can you cater a large event?” the answering technology, known as a voice agent, can respond, “Yes, we cater weddings, birthdays and corporate events.” What’s more, if they have a website or digital ordering form, the agent can follow up with “Can we text you a link to our website to take your order?” and send the caller a link via text message to immediately place their catering order. This automated process frees the baker up to work on other tasks, whether that’s putting the final touches on their latest creation, whipping up a new recipe or responding to another customer’s order. The best part? The voice agent works around the clock, so customers are always able to get basic assistance.
Choose when to answer calls personally
If the idea of having a voice agent answering your phone seems intimidating, don’t worry, you have complete control of when the agent answers and how it interacts with callers. If you prefer to answer calls during your standard working hours, you can set it up to only answer when you’re closed. Or, if you’re multitasking throughout the day you can choose to turn it on during specific times, such as while you’re working with a client or reserving personal time for an appointment. This flexibility allows you to keep normal business hours while ensuring your customers get the answers they need from you or your phone agent, no matter when they call.
Keep track of important info with call recording and transcripts
Whether you receive a few calls a day or 10 every hour, it’s tough to keep a detailed account of everything that’s mentioned over the phone. If you don’t want to rely on just your memory, you’ll need to spend time recapping conversations in detailed notes shortly after a call ends. Note-taking is time-consuming and can often push back other important items on your to-do list. If you decide to forego notes altogether, you could easily forget specific details or customer instructions from a call, causing errors or requiring additional follow-ups. To avoid inefficiencies tied to note-taking and errors due to forgotten call details, use advanced phone technology to record and transcribe calls that you can refer to at any time.
As an added benefit, some phone technology platforms can categorize and identify common themes that your callers care about. For example, an in-home salon could see details about specific hairstyles or common questions like hours, pricing or location. With this information readily available, you can update your phone technology to automatically answer these questions and offer links to your website for customers that need in-depth information on your services. This feature prevents you from having to spend extra hours analyzing calls to uncover common questions and gives your customers faster answers to their questions, allowing you to spend your working hours doing what you love — your job.
Whether you run your in-home salon, digital marketing business or a custom cake bakery, it’s essential that you find a work-life balance…and take a vacation once in a while, too! Instead of letting the phone be something distracting that keeps you from achieving this balance, invest in making it more intelligent so that it can help you run your home business more efficiently and effectively.
