Streamlining Your Company

Posted on: 29 December 2021

When you run a business, you want to look for tools and resources you can use to help your business run more efficiently. This is one of the reasons why you should learn about a business answering service. An answering service can work out very well for your company for a number of reasons. If you are interested in learning more, then read on.

1. What is an answering service?

An answering service is a third-party company that receives the phone calls for your business when there is no staff available to answer calls at your location. The answering service can answer calls using your preferred greeting, make calls, and pass along information. The answering service replaces cold and impersonal voice mails with a real person who can connect with your customers and screen the calls to ensure that emergency calls don't go ignored. Some answering services offer services that differ from others. Some tasks include: 

• Screens incoming calls
• Passes along urgent messages immediately
• Answers all calls on weekends, holidays, and after regular business hours
• Sets appointments and adds them to the calendar
• Uses appropriate means to pass along urgent messages, including text or email
• Provides some customer support
• Provides caller with basic information, such as business hours and address

2. What are the advantages of using an answering service?

When you have an answering service tending to your calls after hours, you will be able to take advantage of a lot of different benefits. Working with an answering service can be to your advantage for the following reasons:

• Cut down on your staffing costs
• Improve customer support
• Increase the number of leads
• Increase the number of appointments
• Increase sales
• Prevent important calls from being missed
• Offer a professional, personal touch for everyone who calls

Without an answering service, someone would have to go through the many voice mails each day and decide which ones are most urgent. They would then need to pass the urgent messages on to the right people, ensure they have the full context of the message, and then return those calls when it's convenient. Since the messages wouldn't be received right away, the urgent ones may not be returned as soon as they should have been. This can cause problems depending on what the urgent call was regarding.

This is a quick look at answering services. Consider reaching out to these businesses to learn more about your options.