Challenge: Fall is such a wonderful time to get married. The warm colors, the cooler temperatures and the fact that every church isn’t booked with a ‘summer wedding’ make autumn weddings wonderful. A potential customer called in to tell us that fall is the busiest time of year to plan weddings… for the following summer! He should know, because he holds an enormous wedding exposition each year to show the latest bridal fashions and trends to ‘brides-to-be’ across the United States. The blessed event is held in none other than New York City, of course.
The customer needed a way to direct his vendors for the show to different departments. He was operating off of one cell phone which was his own. He said that by the time he got off one call, he’d have three messages waiting for him. He had to listen to the messages and then give his assistants the message, and things were getting very complicated. He wanted a way for the potential vendors to call in and speak to his associates who handled specific wedding accessories. That way, he didn’t have to be the middle man, and things would be much more efficient.
The customer had a problem though. He had been in business for over ten years and he had always used his cell phone as his main point of contact. He had his cell number advertised on all of his business materials, but he just didn’t want to answer it so often. He certainly did not want to change the number though!
Solution: AccessDirect came up with a solution that the wedding expert was very happy with. We ported his existing cell phone number to our VoIP service, and his cell phone provider gave him a new number which was unpublished. We created an auto attendant for this customer to provide his vendors with options. When someone tries to reach him on his old cell number, they now hear “Thank you for calling The Wedding Expo, please choose from the following: For dresses press 1, for cakes, press 2, for music, press 3, etc.” This way, the calls are directed to the proper contacts and our wedding expert didn’t have to play ‘middle man’ anymore.
Results: This solution worked perfectly for our customer. He was so grateful because his cell phone no longer rang off the hook. He likes the auto attendant so much he offered me a free wedding dress with extreme gratitude! I told him I was already hitched, but I’d probably be interested in something else. Instead, he sent me a nice selection of desserts from one of his vendors. The card said ‘To AccessDirect, thank you so much. You take the cake.’
