In sales, the person keeping you (the salesperson) from the decision maker is often known as “the gatekeeper.” More often than not it’s a secretary or executive assistant.
I don't have a secretary, but I do have Voxox, and it works great in screening annoying calls from vendors and other folks.
One of VoxOx’s world-beating capabilities is a free personal assistant, which answers, screens and manages your calls better than any service on the market. It’s been compared favorably to Google Voice. I won’t go into all the specifics of the personal assistant, as I’ve written about it many times before. But as I’ve been getting more calls from vendors (salespeople), the service has become even more useful.
Case in point: the other day I received a call from a webcasting vendor I wasn’t particularly eager to talk with. Here’s a breakdown of how the Voxox Personal Assistant helped me manage the call to a favorable outcome. It’s useful in seeing exactly how the service works.When the vendor called my free Voxox number, my personal assistant, customized with a female voice, picked up the call and politely asked who’s calling. The vendor gave her name and company – let’s call her Alice from ABC Webcasting.
- My personal assistant then called me and told me Alice was on the line. She then gave me several options, including picking up the call or sending Alice to voicemail. There is another option called Eavesdrop, which enables me to listen in on a caller’s voicemail and then pick up the call right out of voicemail. So that’s what I did.
- I had no intention really of talking with Alice, but after listening to her live message for several seconds, I decided I actually did want to talk with her. So I hit *1 and picked up the call in mid-message.
- I’m glad I did because Alice and I had a good conversation. But I wasn’t done using my personal assistant yet. With some noisy colleagues in the background, I hit *2 during our call, and conveniently transferred the call from my office phone to my cell phone so I could walk outside. My personal assistant stayed on the call and I could have used her for a number of other functions.
