When customers or potential customers try to contact your business, your availability really matters to them.
If customers are met with a voicemail or placed on hold, it can lead to frustration that ultimately impacts your bottom line.
A professional answering service can address these concerns.
By outsourcing your calls to an answering service, you can make use of flexible and cost-effective methods for being in contact with your customers while maintaining your company’s efficiency.
So it is that many businesses, small and large, use answering services on a regular basis.
Here are 10 things you probably didn’t know about answering services that might be helpful as you consider the benefits of relying on one:
You Can Customize Your Reception
Answering service staff act as a virtual receptionist that answer your calls as if they were part of your regular office staff. The people who call will never know that the professionals they reach are not a part of your in-house staff.
You determine how you want them to personalize their responses to your customers. You can create detailed scripts for receptionists to follow to ensure a sense of consistency.A customized reception means that you ensure how you are represented and your customers will communicate their needs directly with a person.
Each of the answering service professionals will be able to help your customers per your instructions. You will be in complete control of how these services are carried out, so nothing is left to chance. Just because your customers aren’t always dealing directly with your normal staff doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to get what they need from your company.
Answering Services Can Set Your Appointments
The best answering services have functional scheduling platforms that allow them to book appointments for your business on your behalf. These booking notices and appointment changes are delivered straight to your business so your regular employees can stay on the same page.
It is important for businesses to stay organized, and using an answering service can help you do just that. This particular function will save time and effort on a daily basis. Forgetting to schedule an appointment can be costly, but these automated services eliminate the possibility of such mistakes.
They Can Serve As A Fully Functioning Customer Service
For customers who have questions or are seeking information, the answering service can be prepared to answer each inquiry when you or your employees are unavailable. Maintaining high-quality customer support can help grow your business exponentially.
These answering services will guarantee that your customers get the help they need when they need it. The specialized support services your customers receive will provide them with an efficient solution to their problems. Your customers will also be able to get the help they need even after regular business hours.
Live Web Chat Support Is Available
Today’s answering services don’t just answer the telephone. Since so many people now make their purchases online, live chats are the perfect way to encourage website visitors to interact. Answering services can offer live web chat support to make this possible.
The answering services you use can provide your customers with a fast and effective way to get assistance anytime they need it. Businesses of all sizes offer this support option because it is so efficient and convenient for customers.
This form of customer support can increase your sales or business opportunities while improving overall customer satisfaction.
Order Entry Makes Life Easier
Order entry can often require a lot of time and the right CRM program. Qualified answering services can offer these resources for you as an extension of your company. Your customers will be able to place their orders whenever and wherever they want.
If you are not able to take orders efficiently, you will lose out on potential sales. A professional answering service can interact with your customers to take their orders and put them into the system as they come. This will help your business run efficiently as well as expediting the delivery time of orders. Each of your customers will deal with an actual person when placing an order, and you won’t have to set aside any additional in-house resources. It’s a win-win situation.
Tech Support Can Be On-Hand
There’s nothing more frustrating for customers than having a product breakdown and then being unable to contact tech support to get it resolved. Technical support is essential and a trained answering service can facilitate this process. Business answering services will ensure that your customers get the help they need with velocity.
Answering services can offer access to 24/7 tech support for all of your customers, so they can connect with a real person to get assistance any time of the day or night. These customized solutions will help resolve issues that your customers have quickly and efficiently. Answering services can provide personalized training that meets all of your exact specifications.
Email Response Is More Efficient
Responding to hundreds of emails is time consuming and often difficult to get back to all the customers in a timely manner. Outsourced email response is an integral part of many answering service companies.
The professionals that you hire can guarantee that each email a customer sends to your business gets a prompt response. If you want to keep customer satisfaction high, you need to ensure that each inquiry is handled promptly.
An answering service can send out replies to your customers’ emails 24/7, so none of them are forgotten or neglected. These professionals can also redirect certain customers to your staff members if they are unable to help them for whatever reason. Considering the number of people who still send emails to businesses each day, this service is vital.
Language Options Are Available
Becoming a global company means you need the ability to communicate with people worldwide. To create these relationships with customers across borders, a multilingual answering service is a perfect solution. You can start making connections with people all over the world in many different languages.
Your foreign customers will appreciate the ability to speak with an actual person in their own language. This will make it much easier for each of your customers to get assistance with whatever they may need. Having the ability to help many people in the global market is good for your business’s bottom line.
Your Business Can Be “Available” 24/7
One of the most common reasons for hiring an answering service is the ability to respond to customers, clients, or patients around the clock. This is especially helpful if your business involves people in various time zones.
When your customers no longer have to wait to place an order with your business or get help with an issue, they will be satisfied with how you conduct business. If you simply don’t have the staff to handle customers 24/7, professional answering services can definitely make the difference.
Businesses that can respond to customers at any time of the day or night tend to be more profitable overall. It is difficult to sustain a high level of customer satisfaction with limited office hours.
Ditch the Voicemail
Forget the worry of having clients or customers wait on hold or leave multiple messages on voicemail. Having a professional answering service take each and every call means you can let go of voicemail for good.
On-call answering services can handle high call volumes without your customers having long wait times or being sent to voicemail. If your in-house staff cannot handle the sheer number of calls you receive on a regular basis, it’s time to look into outside help.
If your customers are not able to reach a representative of your business the first time, they may choose to go elsewhere for what they need. When you have the ability to answer every call, you won’t lose customers that need prompt service.
Try Out Our Answering Services
To learn about how our expert live answering services can benefit your growing business, contact us today. We’re sure you’ll be pleased with how much more smoothly your company runs with us on your team.
BONUS CONTENT: 6 Reasons Why A Live Answering Service Can Increase Your Productivity
Did you know that 34% of small businesses fail after their second year? As a small business owner, you need to take every step to ensure your operation is as productive as possible.
Customer satisfaction is increasingly important in today’s marketplace. With so many ways to interact with customers and quickly provide products or services, it’s crucial you streamline your process.
You may have looked at techniques to help increase productivity and may have even implemented a few. However, the key to boosting it may be as simple as an answering service.
If you’re having trouble envisioning how your phones could be holding you back, keep reading. We’re going over six benefits of a live answering service for small business operations.
1. You’ll Never Miss Calls
Live answering services ensure that every call is handled by a professional. This means you and your staff will never miss an important call because you’re in a meeting or otherwise unavailable.
In the past, voicemail was the solution to missing calls. Today, however, most people have stopped leaving voicemails altogether.
A huge benefit to using an answering service is that you can decide what happens to the calls coming in. You can have them forwarded to you or can opt for a live representative to take a message. Either way, the important calls you’re not able to take at the moment are getting to you.
What does this mean for your productivity? You’ll spend less time trying to reconnect with business associates or customers. Instead of a prerecorded, outgoing message handling your calls, a live person can properly manage them.
2. Only Focus on Daily Operations
Handling phone calls is a full-time job in itself, especially if your call volume is high. For a small business, this can become a juggling act.
This is especially true when several employees wear many hats, which is common for smaller businesses. However, implementing a live answering service takes care of this problem immediately.
With the burden of answering calls lifted, you and your staff can concentrate all your efforts on daily operations. Instead of handling phone calls as they come in, turn the responsibility over to an answering service and then set aside time each day to go through any important messages.
You may also opt to have only high-priority calls sent to a specific employee. This ensures calls are going to the right person so the rest of your team can concentrate on other things.
Not only does this boost productivity, it increases the quality of service you’re providing clients or associates.
3. An Answering Service Can Field Questions
Providing quality customer care is important for any business today. Unfortunately, smaller businesses don’t always have the personnel and resources to provide quality service over the phone.
An answering service solves this problem. Giving over the incoming call responsibility to dedicated reps boosts the quality of your service while freeing up your employees.
Plus, when you opt for a live answering service, you ensure that clients are still getting the attention they need. Reps will field questions and help callers get the information they’re looking for. Or, they can filter calls and make sure the more important ones get to you.
In addition to taking this responsibility away from your busy in-house staff, it helps streamline your operation. An answering service provides a more organized way to service incoming questions or requests.
4. Fewer Interruptions
Interruptions of any kind hurt productivity. For an office, a ringing phone can significantly decrease the amount of work a staff gets done.
However, as a small business owner, you can’t risk missing important calls. Doing so could result in loss of business or the staining of your professional reputation.
Using a live answering service kills two birds with one stone. You’ll cut down on interruptions while still maintaining strong communication with clients and associates.
You’ll then be able to concentrate on tasks without interruption. Plus, your answering service gives you peace of mind that high-paying clients are getting the service they need.
5. Become More Organized
One of the most difficult aspects of dealing with phone calls isn’t the actual answering of the phone. It’s the organization that comes with each call.
When you use an answering service, all information is recorded for you. You have dedicated representatives gathering information, taking messages and taking care of client requests.
If you need to respond to calls taken by an answering service, you can do so all at one time instead of throughout the day. This level of organization helps boost the productivity of your entire operation.
You no longer risk losing track of information and will be able to respond to important calls in a timely and organized manner.
6. Save Money
When you use an answering service, you can opt to pay for what you use, as you go. This means you eliminate the need to pay a full salary to someone whose only job is to answer phones.
Freeing up an entire salary (or a number of salaries) allows you to spend that money on making your office more productive. This could mean purchasing necessary equipment or hiring a much-needed team member.
The great thing here is that you already have an idea of what your call volume is. If it’s low, you may not need to spend too much on an answering service.
If you need 24-hour call coverage, you can achieve this without hiring another employee.
Get a Live Answering Service for Small Business
Even with all the automation available today, businesses still need to provide live phone service for clients and associates. The problem smaller organizations run into is the sharp reduction in productivity this causes.
If you’re finding yourself inundated with phone calls and are starting to fall behind on daily operations, consider a live answering service for small business. Then, take advantage of better overall productivity.
We provide a wide range of answering services to help your business. Contact us today to learn more.