If you are like most business owners, you want to take advantage of every sale lead to increase in your profits. However, you may also be fighting for the sometimes-illusive work-life balance, which may require that you don’t answer business calls outside business hours or that you focus on your tasks without the constant interruption of phone calls. If this is your desire, you may be researching telephone answering services.
No Call Goes Unanswered
If you work with a virtual answering service, every call that you or your company receives is answered. It doesn’t matter if it is 6:00 am, 12:00 noon or 11:00 pm. Therefore, you never miss an opportunity. You know that a single call can lead to an immediate sale as well as a loyal customer who returns for additional purchases and shares their experiences with their friends. If they receive an “out of office” response or voicemail prompt, they may not purchase from your company now or in the future. Instead, they may work with a competitor who has a person available. Worse yet, they may share their disappointment with their networks.
An answering service is available 24/7 with live people who answer your calls. You can also choose a service that has native speakers. For example, a US-based company may want US-based agents who speak English as their native language because the agents’ language suggests that they work for the actual company.
Reputation and Impressions
Companies, whether big or small, want to appear well-run and profitable. You want your customers to think your company is thriving. You want them to believe that you can handle any request or order they have. The best way to do this is to ensure that your phones are answered. Most clients want to build strong, lasting relationships with reputable brands, and they want those relationships with companies that value customer relationships.
Because their calls are answered immediately by knowledgeable agents or can be transferred to someone who can address their concerns right away, companies with an answering service often have loyal customers.
Eliminate the Split-Focus
Working on complicated tasks is frustrating when you are constantly interrupted. Whether you are the owner of a business making management decisions or a front-line worker focused on increasing production efficiencies, constant interruptions affect your concentration, process and flow.
A virtual service eliminates these interruptions, allowing you to focus on your tasks. In addition, the calls can be prioritized, so may ask to receive high-priority calls. You can also ask for specific calls to be transferred to different departments so clients aren’t transferred multiple times to different departments, which frustrates them.
Cost Reductions
Most answering services have flexible, affordable plans for small businesses. These companies help you save money because you aren’t hiring a full-time receptionist or customer service agents to handle your calls. Instead, you can take that salary money and reinvest it in your company or hire employees who will help your bottom line by increasing production or making your processes more efficient.
In addition, you don’t have to train new customer service or reception staff members. You can provide scripts and talking points to the answering service, but you don’t have to pay for their training.
Provide Additional Services
Today’s answering services are not like the answering services of the past. For example, they don’t just take messages. Now, they take messages, process orders and payments, forward calls, schedule appointments, and any number of other tasks.
These agents are also trained to sound like they are part of your company, not an outside customer service company. They adopt your language and wording and learn about the products and services you offer. Your customers shouldn’t know the difference between an in-house customer service representative and your contracted call center’s agent.
Never Miss Calls
People are typically impatient. They don’t like to wait on the phone for “the next available agent” and they rarely leave voicemail messages and wait for a return call. With an answering service, you will never miss another call. Whether your company is open during regular business hours or 24 hours, your customers will always get in touch with an agent.
Don’t miss another opportunity to build a customer relationship. Consider researching all the ways you can benefit from a call answering service.
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