Jul 5, 2018
Working on the phone is no easy feat. At TK Enterprises Inc., we know from many years of experience that speaking to over 100 people in a day is a grueling process. It’s a process, however, that we are 100 percent committed to. This is what sets our company apart from many others that also conduct business over the phone. Our Event Marketing services provide jewelers across North America with friendly, knowledgeable and experienced phone agents who know how to have warm, inviting and engaging conversations.
It’s all about setting the tone!
As Cedric Roney of AMBS Call Center points out, it’s important to speak with an inviting tone. “Your greeting on the phone sets the tone for the entire conversation,” he writes, “The very first words you speak need to communicate: ‘I am a friendly, intelligent professional, and I am very happy to speak with you right now.’ Weirdly enough, pretending that you’re in front of the caller will make you sound more inviting.”
For the most part, our clients spend the majority of their time meeting and greeting customers in person. They have the luxury of using facial expressions, hand gestures and other forms of body language to communicate how approachable and affable they are. When on the phone, one’s tone has to make up for an absence of an in-person interaction.
Match your caller’s pace.
A talented phone agent is also aware that more than a friendly tone is necessary to endear him/herself to a prospective client. It’s important that the tone and pace of the customer are matched. In some cases, people prefer to be quick and to the point. They may be busy and only have time for short calls. In such cases, small talk is unnecessary as it’s more important to provide the information needed to fulfill the business obligation.
“Some callers will be more or less receptive to your wonderful greeting,” informs Roney, “So while you want to stay on brand, you also want to match the way that your caller responds to your tone. If they skip formalities and get right to the point, you should respond with short, concise answers, while remaining pleasant and approachable.”
Don’t curb your enthusiasm!
No matter how quickly or slowly you may need to pace your call, it’s important to remain enthusiastic about the reason you’re calling. If you don’t sound excited about your products or services, why would anyone else get excited about them? Having energy in your voice should be the norm. And, no matter what, please don’t forget your pleasantries. See what we did there? “Please” and “thank you” always go a long way.
Roney notes that those words can make the entire conversation. “Show your appreciation for your prospect or customer’s call by sprinkling thank yous in throughout your conversation,” he advises, “‘Thank you’ reflects your friendliness and dedication to serving your caller.”
Allow the expert phone agents at TK Enterprises Inc. to make your calls for you! For more information about our Event Marketing services, please don’t hesitate to call us toll-free at 1-877-622-0195. You may also email us at heidi.tke@tomkaufmann.com or fill out the form on our Contact Us page and have someone contact you!
Apr 11, 2018
Texting, emailing and using social media – these are all incredibly popular ways of communicating these days. We live in a world where nearly everyone has a smartphone and, as a result, find ways to get in touch with family, friends, colleagues and co-workers without ever uttering a single word.
It’s probably a good idea to utilize the myriad of social media platforms that are out there to promote your brand. However, it would be a bad idea if you neglect the always-dependable telephone call as a chief source of communication between you and your customers. Believe it or not, your customers would still prefer that you call them.
Here are three reasons why:
1. It offers a more personal approach.
In today’s world, consumers want so much more than high-quality products and services. They value the relationships they develop with the businesses they support. This is why getting to know regular visitors by name and offering pleasant in-store shopping experiences is more important today than it ever was. Similarly, friendly conversations over the phone help to add a personality to your business that can’t be matched by texts and emails.
On MyCallFinder.com, Jeanne Landau explains that phone calls help to keep companies accountable. “When using a channel like email, chat, or social media to contact a company, the customer might not know who exactly is on the other end of the conversation,” she writes, “During a phone call, the agent will provide their name, which holds them accountable for the conversation that ensues.”
2. Information is received much quicker.
With the written word, only so much can be said so quickly. Texting and emailing requires the physical typing of words that simply can’t replicate the speed of a normal spoken conversation. For this reason, it automatically slows down communication. Customers who want immediate answers would much rather receive those answers in real-time than have to sit and wait for the words to be typed out.
“Humans generally speak at 125-175 words per minute and can listen at a rate of up to 450 words per minute,” explains Gregg Johnson of the Harvard Business Review, “In contrast, the average typist does 38-40 words per minute — and that’s on a full-fledged keyboard, not on a mobile phone. A consumer may prefer to make plans with friends over text message, or to order a pizza online, but when faced with a complex purchase, these preferences often change. “
3. Not everyone is a tech wizard.
With mobile devices and social media apps being so popular today, it’s easy to forget that there are many people who either don’t know how to use them or have no interest in trying. Going “old school” is just fine for a large number of people who feel a lot more comfortable speaking on phones than using modern gadgets.
“Though it may be hard to believe, there are plenty of people who still aren’t completely comfortable using modern technology,” says Landau, “They either don’t understand it and have no desire to learn or don’t trust it. Either way, they are completely content using only their phone to communicate with family, friends, and businesses that they patronize.”
At TK Enterprises Inc., our one-of-a-kind Event Marketing services put our experienced and highly-motivated callers to work for your jewelry store, making personal phone calls directly to your customers to invite them to your upcoming in-store events.
For more information, please don’t hesitate to call us toll-free at 1-877-622-0195. You may also email us at heidi.tke@tomkaufmann.com or fill out the form on our Contact Us page and have someone contact you!
Mar 28, 2018
“Twitter, Facebook, email, websites and texts – there are many ways to keep in contact with your customers,” states Rachel Miller on the U.K.-based Marketing Donut website, “But did you know that your office phone system can improve customer service, increase sales and boost profits?”
Yes, we are living in a world with many incredible technological advances in the form of handheld gadgets. Our smartphones give us the ability to communicate with people all over the world using various messaging apps and social media platforms. But one thing has remained the same after all these years. With the exception of the face-to-face conversation, nothing beats the good old phone call!
Live voices make a difference.
As a business owner, it’s important for you to know that hearing a live voice is a very important thing for your customers. It gives personality to your business in a way the written text cannot. Furthermore, phone calls enable customers to get immediate answers to questions. And in today’s world where people expect immediacy, the phone call can’t be beat in the customer service game.
“You can greet a customer by name when they call in – their order history is in front of you,” points out Pioneer Business Systems PR executive, Hayley Stovold in Miller’s article. This simple act of familiarity and politeness is often enough to keep a customer coming back to your store.
Let us do the calling for you!
At TK Enterprises Inc., we’re fully aware that the vast majority of jewelry store owners across North America are far too busy with their daily tasks to call all of their customers each day. That’s where we come in! We have over 30 years of experience in the sales field and a wealth of experience in understanding customer behavior. Our call center is a lively and energetic atmosphere filled with knowledgeable and friendly phone agents who are adept at driving sales.
And we can get them calling your customers for you! Our one-of-a-kind Event Marketing services are designed to have our team contact your existing customers to invite them to your businesses events, teach them about your promotions or follow up on recent sales. Our history has proven that making phone calls is a highly-effective way to deliver the messages of our clients as our callers either speak directly with customers or leave enthusiastic voicemails.
Time and time again, the end result is higher in-store traffic and increased sales for our clients. Sean O’Neill of Ireland’s ThinkBusiness acknowledges that other modern-day forms of communication can be great at relaying messages. However, he admits that they can make it harder to get clear points across.
“With social…where the platform lends itself to a more conversational dialogue…there are more opportunities for misunderstanding and avoidance,” he writes, “Done correctly, a cold call should be all the things other platforms are…Also, it gives the opportunity to open up the conversation straight away with questioning and gain insight into what is truly important to the customer.”
Why choose TK Enterprises Inc.?
In the past four years, we’ve made well over a million calls for jewelry stores continent-wide. We have a proven calling system and an outstanding track record that provides our clients with the transparency and peace of mind that 100 percent of our calls will be completed with passion and enthusiasm.
For more information about our Event Marketing services, please don’t hesitate to call us toll-free at 1-877-622-0195. You may also email us at heidi.tke@tomkaufmann.com or fill out the form on our Contact Us page and have someone contact you!
Feb 14, 2018
Happy Valentine’s Day! On behalf of the entire TK Enterprises Inc. team, we’d like to wish all of you lovebirds a fun and exciting day today. We’d also like to send our best to all those who may not be celebrating Valentine’s Day as they are still looking for love. We do know one thing for sure, however. Those who are looking to impress the objects of their affection should practice the age-old technique of calling them on the phone.
Make the phone your friend.
If you’re lucky enough to get the phone number of an individual you admire, do yourself a favor and give him/her a call. Texting is wildly popular today. But it simply cannot communicate one’s tone, inflections and true personality the way his/her voice can. No matter how popular texting gets – and the concept has only gotten more popular with each new social media platform – it’s simply too impersonal to get a real relationship to grow out of it.
“Talking with someone is an art form,” says Los Angeles-based blogger Lauren on her website, “There is also an element of bravery when talking on the phone versus talking through texting because it takes a certain amount of guts to say certain things out loud to someone else instead of just texting. It honestly means so much more if someone actually picks up the phone to call because texting feels like such a cop-out since it’s so impersonal and you can also really get to know a person on a much deeper level if you talk on the phone or Skype with them over texting.”
Texting breaks up the natural pace of a conversation.
When on the phone, people speak back and forth to each other with immediate responses. With texting, it can be several minutes, hours or even days before a text recipient returns a message. While not necessarily intentional, these delayed responses could connote disinterest or irritation. It’s hard to truly know what the other person is thinking when texting is the main source of communication.
On MedicineNet.com, Randy Dotinga explains that there is research that has actually found that relationships can be negatively impacted by an abundance of texting. He reports that a 2013 survey of nearly 300 people aged 18 to 25 who were either married, engaged or seriously dating found that about four fifths of its respondents texted with their partners multiple times every day.
“The researchers found that both men and women were more likely to report less satisfying and less stable relationships when the men frequently texted their female partners,” he reveals.
As we’ve highlighted, the TK Enterprises Inc. team strongly believes in the power of the phone call. This is what has made our one-of-a-kind Event Marketing services so effective for so many years. By calling the customers of jewelry store owners and offering exclusive invites to their upcoming in-store events, we successfully help to grow the relationships between our clients and their supporters. Naturally, these stronger relationships lead to higher sales as well!
Go for the personal touch!
For more information about our Event Marketing services, please don’t hesitate to call us toll-free at 1-877-622-0195. You may also email us at heidi.tke@tomkaufmann.com or fill out the form on our Contact Us page and have someone contact you!
Feb 7, 2018
It’s the year 2018. It’s a secret to no one that we live in an era where social media and the devices that connect us to them are all the rage. People have become very tech-savvy and internet-reliant. Information can easily be Googled within seconds using smartphones. And who doesn’t have a smartphone these days? The temptation for business owners, therefore, is to invest in social media marketing.
And while it’s not at all unreasonable to consider strengthening the online presence of your brand, there is a business rule of thumb that should never be forgotten. Nothing beats the traditional phone call. There is no substitute for connecting one live human to another. During real live conversations, consumers are able to ask questions, have them answered and develop genuine connections with their callers.
“Conversations help us decide who to do business with.”
“Speaking to actual people helps to reassure us in business situations that the company is real,” affirms Zal Dastur on Lucep.com, “Conversations help us decide who to do business with. Conversations are so important that according to this study by Hubspot 35-50% of sales go to the company that calls back the customer first. Conversations are a tipping point for businesses, and help customers make the decision of who to go with.”
People still want to talk. Emails, text messages and tweets are great ways to deliver information. But they aren’t necessarily the best conversation starters. Quite obviously, conversations are two-way streets. They require participation from both parties. Those other forms of communication may be effective in delivering messages. But they fail to guarantee responses. Customers, it should be noted, much prefer calling the businesses they wish to work with over any other form of communication.
“Annual calls to businesses from smartphones will reach 162 billion by 2019.”
Mike Boland of BIA/Kelsey reports that their latest study in call monetization found that annual calls that customers make to businesses from smartphones will reach 162 billion by 2019. “This is more than double the roughly 77 billion calls generated last year from mobile devices,” he writes, “This is made up of search (paid and organic), traditional display ads, native social (in-feed) ads, and mobile landing pages. Our measurements include the iterations of these formats as they appear in both mobile web and in apps.”
It’s all about building personal connections. Doing so isn’t quite possible when you rely solely on Facebook posts, tweets or requests for customers to visit the “Contact Us” page of your company website. Phone calls help for your company to make legitimate connections with the individuals who are most likely to support your business. As Scott Resnick of Today’s Telecommunications Industries makes clear, text-based communications often come off as impersonal.
Calling your customers shows you’re willing to go the extra mile.
“Plus, there’s lots of room for misunderstanding,” Resnick explains, “For instance, tone can easily be lost. If a customer is confused or upset, a calm, empathetic voice on the phone is often enough to soothe their worries. Even when a client contacts you over email, don’t hesitate to call them. It shows that your company is willing to go that extra mile to serve them better.”
At TK Enterprises Inc., we’ve mastered the art of making personal connections between jewelry stores and their customers. Get us working for you using a tried-and-true marketing strategy! For more information about our one-of-a-kind Event Marketing services, please don’t hesitate to call us toll-free at 1-877-622-0195.
