I wonder what Alexander Graham Bell would think of the advances in communication technology since his life changing invention allowed us to pick up a telephone and speak to someone on the other side of the world.

After all, it's 133 years since some bygone retailer perhaps picked up a handset to hear a client informing him that one of the doors on his contemporary Maple Shaker style kitchen, (it was, of course, yet to be called traditional) had just fallen off. Maybe this is one of the reasons that the phone is considered by some businesses as an unpopular invention.

Although all businesses have a landline phone and almost everyone a mobile: often the mobile is switched off and the landline is left to ring out precisely at the moment an issue occurs.

I learnt very early on in my work that every business will suffer issues and customer concerns but it's how effectively and how speedily those issues are addressed that will ultimately define a company's reputation.

At a time when the credit crunch will relentlessly shatter many businesses into forgotten fragments it is of the highest priority to learn lessons from the best business communicators and we plan to incorporate this as one of our own aims for 2009. Of course, downturn or not, our businesses depend on customers but this downturn should be sharpening our resolve to remain at the forefront when customers look to buy.

It is a very complex social change that is happening now: because our customers are undergoing financial restrictions and are having to change so much in their daily lives, they get very angry if retailers saunter along as if nothing has changed for them. 

There seems to be a clear expectation now: the customer is aware how important it is to the economy that they continue to spend and they want that acknowledged by the retailer in the way he responds. Woe betide any of us who don't take that seriously.  There is a customer perception out there that we, the retailer, have been in charge for too long and have been laissez faire about customer service and the power is now switched. 

As a consumer, if I was in the manager's office of any retailing outfit now, looking at my spreadsheet and trying to win business - I would focus all my efforts on ensuring that the person who answers the telephone to the customer is acknowledged as the most important person in the company. If I was in any doubt that they weren't capable, I would focus on re-training them asap. 

In my mind a telephone that doesn't answer automatically equals a business that doesn't want to sell which results in a customer taking their money elsewhere. I've observed many companies investing in whizz-bang, costly marketing drives and expensive corporate branding but allow their telephones to ring out for so long that you eventually hang up (apparently to answer after six rings loses a callers confidence - according to a psychologist friend of mine). More often than not however, the call transfers you to a music track that assumes we are all fans of Enya and Peruvian Pan Pipes. And this is meant to soothe your frustration while you wait a further 20 minutes on the line?

It would be a clichŽ to bemoan the use of answer-phones but I encourage my colleagues to keep the use of it to an absolute minimum. Recently, I had what I thought was a "brilliant" idea. At the times when we were very busy, we would leave an answer-phone message on our main number but hey it was going to be different: our message would encourage the caller by sympathising with our "mutual hate of these things" and then list all of our alternative means of communication; you know the kind of thing: "or...call our mobile....or if you prefer visit our website at....or why not e-mail us at...etc etc." The first day it was used, no one ever got past the second "or....." before hanging up.

The "brilliant" idea was quickly ditched.

I'm still surprised how shocked some customers are when a human voice answers the telephone. I am left even more amazed at how grateful a customer is when we call them back when we say we will.

A recent telephone conversation I had with a customer consisted mainly of his berating larger companies who, apparently, kept him holding on when he was trying to place an order....press two if you would like to speak to our sales staff and three if you are trying to track an order.....and then reneged on a promise to call him back. His solution was simple: he researched the product he wanted on the internet, found a company whose telephone was answered by a human voice who investigated whether it was in stock and he quickly purchased the product. It's ironic how difficult companies can make it for the customer to spend their money with them.

I think we all know that if we decide not to answer the call from Mr Jones asking why his order has not been delivered that day then it immediately makes the situation worse, generates more anger in the client and puts them on the offensive from that point on. No matter how great our products are, some businesses continue, even in the downturn, to do just that.

Flip the coin over and if we answer, apologise and tell the client we will jump on it first thing Monday morning and come back to him when we say we will, then we're maintaining a good reputation and saving ourselves the hassle of responding reactively when that customer calls us the next time. It's not rocket science and we'd all be foolish to take our eye off this particular ball.

A bigger frustration for me personally when liaising with manufacturers, retailers and distributors, is that despite the huge advancement in technology, some continue to use fax or even worse, snail mail, as a preferred communication method even though we live in an age of e-mails where attachments can be sent and opened in seconds.

The astonishing fact is that although many invest in a professional website to promote their goods and services, they still invest little in training their staff to use the relative communication technologies at their disposal.
For small companies it takes very little effort to behave and appear as professional as our big cousins (and more so in many instances) so I am continuing to follow my own advice and take time out to familiarise myself and my staff with the tools we already have at our disposal. Not only do I believe will this prove more cost effective, it could win us new business.

Anybody want to buy a fax machine?

Tim Foley is founder of www.kitchensfitted.co.uk, an established research and information resource for the kitchen buyer. T Foley Interiors specialises in the provision of Corian and Quartz surfaces to both commercial and residential clients in the UK and Ireland.