An answering service is usually provided by a company that answers calls on behalf of other companies. It serves as an alternative to hiring a full-time in-house receptionist to handle your customer or client relations needs. It is when an outsourced provider provides you with someone to answer calls as if they are staff from your office.
The answering service company provides you with a group of personnel who will receive and answer phone calls from your clients. The personnel are able to screen calls, transfer to colleagues if there is a need to, resolve issues and take messages which they can send via email or text as the case may be.
In answering your calls, the outsourced provider act as an extension of your company. They help to keep tabs on your calls 24-hours a day or during times when the business is closed depending on your choice.
Phone answering service companies hire and train professionals who are certified, disciplined and adept at speaking to customers from different industries. These professionals are courteous and friendly and before they start answering your telephone calls, they would have taken out time to learn and understand what your business is all about.
As a company, it is possible to tailor the phone answering service to fit your business. One obvious benefit of this is that you have made it possible for customers to reach you at any time and this will help improve customer relations and trust in your business. You can find out what an answering service renders in this article.
How an Answering Service Benefits Your Business
There are several reasons why an answering service is good for your business. Below are some ways it can help you.
It Helps to Extend Your Business Hours
Except you are a big corporation with a lot of money and infrastructure or maybe a health care facility that needs to be up and running for 24 hours, no business operates 24/7.
With an answering service though, you can extend your work hours all through the day and all through the week no matter what time of the year. Your clients will still be able to reach you whether it is a holiday such as Labor Day, Christmas, or New Year, or during the weekend.
The call answering service providers may just simply take a message or respond appropriately to an inquiry but you can be certain that your customers are well taken care of.
It Helps to Get the Job Done Faster
As mentioned earlier, answering service receptionists are trained professionals. They can answer calls as well as gather information in a fast, efficient and effective way. Because an answering service typically is a group of people rather than just one person, they can handle multiple phone calls simultaneously.
When a call has ended, if there is an important message that needs action, the receptionist will relay the message swiftly to a representative of your company and this helps to ensure that you can take the necessary steps immediately.
It Helps in Retaining Your Customers
As it is today, most customers expect to be able to call into a business for enquires or resolution of their issues at any given time especially if your company is into essential services.
This means that you have to find a way to ensure that they can be heard all through the day as well as at night. More than 70% of people will hang up if they find out it isn’t a real person speaking to them and this might mean the loss of customers for you.
For your business to grow, you need to be able to retain your customer base asides from getting new ones. If they feel that they are not able to reach you, they may move on. This is one reason an answering service is important. They help to keep your customers happy and satisfied. You will see how to turn a service call into customer retention here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/allbusiness/2020/07/15/turn-every-customer-service-call-into-customer-retention-conversation/?sh=100f385f4812.
It Results in Lesser Work Load
There is a lot to do to ensure the growth of your business so whatever you can delegate helps to make the workload lighter. Although receiving phone calls from clients is an important part of business development, a lot of the time, it could be tasking, time-consuming and may not bring direct or immediate benefit to your business.
For instance, it is possible to spend an hour guiding a customer to resolve an issue. Imagine if one of your staff has to attend to 5 such clients in a day, they will not have time to attend to more productive work. Even if they do, they will tire out more readily without achieving the main job they are supposed to do.
Using a phone answering service helps to reduce workload, helps your growth and helps in better time management.
It Helps to Save Money
When your business grows, your budget grows with it. Dedicating employees to specifically answer your phone calls can be expensive. You will also need to invest in certain gadgets or maybe even facilities such as computers, phones, desks, chairs and the like.
Asides from these, you will also need to provide power 24 hours and this increases your energy bill. You will also need to pay more staff and offer health benefits to them. All of these will cost you more money.
Outsourcing eliminates all these costs and as such saves you money on overhead costs as you will only need to pay a fraction of this to a phone answering company.
You Do Not Miss Any Call
Each phone call that your business receives is an opportunity to grow it. Whether you are trying to assuage an old client or persuade a new one, answering services helps you to ensure that you do not miss important calls and the opportunity to market your business.
You can find more reasons why your business need this here.
Conclusion
Customers whether new or old are at the end of the day the reason why your business exists. Providing them with a way to reach you easily at any time of the day is essential and this is why you need an answering service.