Retail store phone answering: hours, stock and holds

Most shop calls don't need you

An unpopular view, if you own the shop: most calls to it don't need you. They need your opening hours, a yes or no on whether you carry something, and a promise that the thing will be behind the counter when they arrive. You're needed for the judgment calls, and there are fewer of those than it feels like at 2pm on a Saturday with a queue at the register.

Retail store phone answering, done properly, means the routine calls get a real answer while you stay with the customer in front of you. An AI line can do hours, parking and returns from your script. It can set up holds by your rules. And it can answer stock questions, but only from a list you give it. That list is the part to think hardest about.

Stock questions need a list you keep

The line can't see your shelves. CosVoice doesn't connect to a register or an inventory system, so there's no live count behind its answers. What it has is the list in its instructions. It confirms products from that list and nothing else.

So "do you have it in a medium?" goes one of two ways. If the navy jacket in medium is on the list, the caller hears yes. If it isn't, the line doesn't guess. It takes a name and a number and says someone will check and call back today.

A caller who gets an honest "let me find out" is fine. A caller who drives across town on a wrong yes isn't coming back.

Keep the list short

Don't try to type up the whole shop. A boutique that turns its stock over every few weeks would spend more time on the list than on the floor.

Put in what people phone about. The brands you carry. The lines you always have. The candle that was in the local paper. The thing everyone wants in December. For sizes and colors, list only what you're sure of, and go over it when you do your Monday tidy. Everything else becomes a callback, and that's no bad thing. A callback with a name, a number and the exact item is a customer who's already half decided.

Holds for pickup

A hold is a promise, so the rules have to be yours. How long you'll keep something (until close tomorrow is common). Whether sale items can be held. Whether it takes a deposit. The line takes the name, the number, the item and size, and when they plan to come in.

You get the note, and somebody puts the item behind the counter with a name on it. If the item wasn't on the confirmed list, the caller is told it's a request until someone has the thing in their hand.

The line never takes a card number. If you want a deposit on a hold, or the customer would like to pay ahead, that happens at your register or your online checkout, with you.

Returns, read out straight

Returns calls come with an edge. The caller has already decided what the answer ought to be. A person at the counter, mid-sale, tends either to cave or to get short with them.

The line reads your policy the same way to everyone. How many days. Receipt or no receipt. Refund or store credit. What's final sale. It doesn't make exceptions, because it can't, and we think that's useful. When someone wants one, that's a judgment call, and it comes to you as a callback with the story already written down.

Calls that should come to you

Some calls are yours. The customer with a complaint. A special order. The rep from your best supplier. Someone asking for you by name. The line can't put any of them through to you. It doesn't transfer calls, and it won't ring your mobile while the caller waits. What it does is take the story properly, tell the caller you'll ring them back (by when is up to your instructions), and send you the written note as soon as the call ends. People you want treated as known (that rep, your regulars) can go on an approved list, so they're greeted warmly.

The line makes calls as well. Ask it to call a distributor about a late delivery and it'll sit through the hold music and write down the date. The retail page covers both, and how to handle inbound calls in a small business is worth a read if you're sorting out the phone in general.

Before the holidays, change five things

Holiday hours are the easiest win in this whole article, and the one shops forget until the week itself. Well before your busy season, open the line's instructions and update these. It's ten minutes, and the plans are on the pricing page if you haven't got a line yet.

• Hours for every odd day. The late-opening Thursdays, the day you close at 3, the days you're shut.
• The last day for special orders that will still arrive in time.
• Gift cards. Whether you sell them, and that they're bought in store or online, not over the phone.
• Holds in the rush. If a hold drops from two days to end-of-day in December, say so.
• Gift returns. The extended window, if you offer one, and whether a gift receipt is needed.

Common questions

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