Top 5 Reasons Why Customers May Not Be Calling Your Business

At a glance, your business may have everything going for it: a well-defined offering, a decked-out office, an omnichannel marketing structure, a strong and quantifiable vision, and a talented crew ready to serve.

You’ve even hashed out all the little details, such as setting up a dedicated phone number where your customers and clients can reach out to you with ease.

But even with all the foundational elements of a sound business structure in place, customer inquiries could be slow, and your phone might just be collecting dust. You could be getting fewer calls each week than you can count on one hand.

At some point, you may be wondering: What gives? What’s with the lack of customer interest in reaching out through your business’s phone line?

It’s easy to assume that people just aren’t interested in what you’re offering, but that’s not always true. It may be the small, overlooked barriers that quietly turn them away.

To optimise your telephone funnel, it’s best to know what you’re lacking and work towards strengthening it. So, without further ado, here are five of the most common reasons why your customers may not be calling your business.

Let’s jump right into it!

1. Your Phone Line Might Be Busy When They Reach Out

A common reason why a customer may not reach out to your phone line could be due to simple frustration. They could be met with a busy line every time they reach out.

If your phone is constantly on call, and if you’re using a personal phone number that can only handle one call at a time, a calling customer who happens to dial in while you’re on call may miss out on the chance to speak to you about your business.

For first-time customers or repeat callers, this can be a frustrating situation.

First-time customers may deem the lack of a response as a dealbreaker, especially if their inquiry is about a time-sensitive matter. Repeat customers may also become fed up with the inconsistency of the response time and may choose to shop with one of your competitors instead.

A solution to this is by posting open call hours on your website or social media pages to notify customers of when your business is ready to accept calls. You also need to ensure that you follow through with that promise and make it so that your customers can actually reach you.

One potential solution to this would be to invest in an inbound phone number like a 1300 or 1800 phone number from Telcoworks. These business numbers allow firms to handle multiple calls simultaneously, provided that there are enough agents to handle the calls.

This increases call answer rates, helping your business improve its chances of converting leads and resolving a variety of customer issues.

2. Your Marketing Campaign Doesn’t Reach Your Primary Customers

Visibility is a crucial element to growing your business’s revenue. If your target market is unaware of your business’s existence or is unaware of the means of contacting it directly, then converting them to customers can be a serious challenge.

As such, you must structure your marketing campaign in a way that actually reaches and resonates with your customers. A misaligned campaign with the wrong targeting or the wrong tone can result in money wasted and no incoming calls.

One example of a badly-targeted marketing campaign is when you’re posting senior-friendly wheelchairs as a TikTok reel. Not many seniors visit these apps, and this reduced visibility can lead to a failed campaign.

To ensure that your marketing campaign reaches potential buyers, you need to have your customer persona on lock. Know who they are, what they do, and where they browse in the digital space. Once you’ve got that sorted out, create a message that resonates with them and post your socials and phone number in that campaign. Calls will come pouring in in no time.

But the work’s not done. Fine-tune and craft your marketing campaign and see what works using data. Revisit ongoing campaigns and make tweaks as necessary. Effective marketing isn’t about blasting to multiple people and hoping they’d bite; it’s about being strategic with your messaging and targeting hot leads from the start.

3. Your Website or Online Branding Looks Untrustworthy

Another reason customers may not pick up the phone to call your number is that they sense a lack of trustworthiness in your brand.

Your design choices can play a big role in captivating your audience or making them question your legitimacy; you should absolutely hammer down your design in a way that gets people to trust your business.

Some red flag design choices to avoid include using stock images, using low-resolution images, having vague service descriptions, and having no consistent brand voice. A slow and unresponsive website can also keep customers away. If you have these problems on your website, then fix them ASAP.

If your phone number is also listed in a hard-to-reach area on your website, then customers may feel uncertain about the thought of contacting it and may skip the process altogether. A bad font or a small font size can also produce the same effect.

In any case, it’s important to design your website and social media page professionally and cleanly. Besides following a good design template, make sure that your site is also secured with an SSL certificate and up to date. This will increase your chances of converting leads into customers.

4. Your Customers Prefer Other Communication Channels

Sometimes, it’s not that customers are avoiding phone calls altogether—they may still want to connect, but choose other communication methods instead, like email, using your website’s live chat feature, or messaging via SMS or social media platforms.

It could be that your business’s model skews towards having more quick, chat-based communication. This is often the case for small-scale products that require no customisation to ship and fulfil.

That said, some business models may warrant the need for calls to get the majority of their business, such as businesses dealing with big-ticket items. If you want to encourage your customers to call, then changing your marketing approach may be necessary.

For instance, you could look into your marketing campaign and revise it to subtly nudge customers to call instead of text or chat. You can also lead with providing value in making calls to your customers, offering things like instant quotes, free consultations, or solutions that may not be available via text.

In any case, if phone calls are necessary for your operations, it’s essential to structure your campaign and customer journey model to prioritise that mode of communication. This will help you convert your customers or resolve issues more quickly and sincerely.

5. Customers May Report Bad Customer Service

Even if you have a quality product or service offering, customers may be hesitant to reach out if they hear (or have personally experienced) that your business’s customer service reputation is lacklustre.

As a business owner, there may be times when you get impatient with your customer on the phone or fail to provide a good response to their inquiry adequately. Furthermore, your agents may also be inattentive or rude during some calls, leading to a negative experience for both parties.

If this is a common issue, then it’s essential to step back and re-strategise your customer service operations.

If you’re the person handling calls and find it too much for you at times, consider delegating it to a more willing person. On the other hand, if there are frequent complaints about how your staff handles inquiries, then retrain them or transfer them to another function.

Consider implementing call monitoring and feedback systems so that you can review your staff’s calls. Inbound phone numbers often have this feature built into their system and visible through a dashboard.

When customers speak with a friendly voice at the end of the line, they’ll be more curious and happy to finish their chat. This makes for a more pleasant experience for both parties, making customers more likely to make a purchase or move past their issue.

We hope we’ve given you enough insights on why customers may not be calling your business’s phone line. All the best in running your business!

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Rebecca Lee