Requiring a telephone answering service is becoming more and more common. One of the top reasons for this is that companies are trying to stay on top of their game by staying close to their customers.
Here are some reasons why you and your business should consider outsourcing to such a service:
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Take control of the situation
Let’s say you limit your phone answering capabilities to the resources you have in-house, leaving a great deal of communication with customers to chance. If they need urgent assistance and you are unable to answer their calls what will happen then? You will be left with a lot of unhappy customers or no customers at all. By employing a telephone answering service for your business, you do not miss out on the chance to communicate with your customers. Not only does this potentially leave your customers happier, but it also helps you build a good business reputation.
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Improve brand reception
Developing a level of trust between you and your clients is key to the success of any business. Answering calls quickly not only presents your business as being active and on it’s toes, but it also establishes or increases an image of professionalism.
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Keep customer loyalty intact
Obviously hearing someone’s voice is much more personal than a faceless email exchange. People hear your tone and language and find it much more inviting to get their point across and ask questions at that moment rather than going through the process of drafting an email for their inquiries. This can be a good hospitality tactic to make customers feel welcomed.
To outsource or not to outsource: That is the question
Handling calls seem to be an easy business on the face of it, but time and time again, it has proven to be an essential component for customer satisfaction. The speed of your response, ease of contact, employee helpfulness, competence, etc. all comes under the umbrella of handling calls.
The only question that arises out of this is that; is it cost effective to have an in-house receptionist or should you outsource some, or all, of the telephone answering duties?
Managing a callers expectations
We have recently observed a trend where companies are outsourcing their call answering services and they are doing so in an attempt to keep their customers satisfied and to focus on other important business decisions.
This is great but it only works if the business continues to respond to enquiries taken by the answering service. A recurring problem our receptionist face is repeat callers as our client has either not kept us up to date with their movements or have not given us realistic response times with which to manage a callers expectations. A solution to this might be to go one step further and look into hiring a Virtual Assistant. A service like Virtalent can provide you with the support you need to respond to customer enquiries.
Outsourcing is not all that easy
It should be, but it isn’t always, especially if you are looking to cut corners or simply hide away from irate callers.
You first need to see if you can afford to outsource, and will it be profitable. Most small businesses or start-ups might not be able to take this decision while other small companies may find it easy to outsource. So it all depends on your business situation.
You can start off by evaluating how your in-house call answering service is doing. One excellent way for companies to find out about their call-handling skills is to use a call-tracker, what this tool does is that it helps you count the number of calls that got an engaged tone, how many calls were missed, and how long did it take for an agent to answer a call? If there is a problem there, you know you need immediate solutions because you cannot risk losing your customers or hurting your company’s reputation.
If you don’t have access to such software then you can always try and ask for a free trial of a service without committing financially (shameless plug coming up), Connect offer all new business enquiries a 30 day free trial.
More reasons to give it a shot
Improved customer service
Once everything is in place and outsourced, the sole job of your agents will be to answer calls and resolve all customer queries, this way your customer service will only improve.
Your customers will feel like they are listened to, and will have a way to connect with your company/brand/service.
You can focus on other important aspects
Now that you have outsourced your call answering duties, you don’t have to worry about your calls going unanswered, as it is the outsourcing company’s job to worry.
You can now focus on other crucial business goals such as making your brand better, increasing sales, increasing employee motivation, taking your organization to greater heights.
Outsourcing can be cost effective
For any company, it is best to have customer services available at least 8- 9 hours a day. We never know the time a customer might want to call and ask a question. This would lead to an increase in cost in the form of salaries, utility bills, office space, etc. Is a company really ready to take on those costs?
If not, it is best to outsource the work and save on all those additional costs.
Save money on hiring
An outsourcing company that solely exists to take on such job roles is well equipped with the talent and staff to get the job done.
Additionally this could save you from the headache of looking for people who specialise in answering calls or training them to take on such job roles.
Deciding whether you want to outsource your call answering service or not, can be a difficult decision for many companies. But if you do decide to outsource, make sure you consider all the advantages and disadvantages of doing so. If it is just to save your business money in the immediate future, be careful as you do not want to end up hurting it in the long run if you do not have the resources available to deal with all the newly answered enquiries.