First impressions and speed of response are mission critical in business
If you are a small or growing business a telephone answering service makes it easy for customers to contact your business and you never miss a call.
Talking to someone rather than a machine or answering message creates a total different perception. This can make all the difference in the sales process.
Many of our clients have a divert set up on their current lines so if its not answered within 3 rings it diverts to our call answering service.
Here are a few reasons why it is so important:
1. Sales opportunities
Although there is a growing online presence, there are still a number of people that prefer to talk and use the phone. This allows business to communicate their expertise. Having calls screened first ensure you can prioritise and prepare before returning calls.
2. Employing Staff
Employing staff to answer calls is expensive.
Firstly there needs to be enough incoming calls to justify paying someone to handle them full-time and if you have a number of calls coming in at the same time you need more lines and support teams to answer them.
There is also the issue of holiday and sickness cover.
Telephone answering services represent a huge saving in comparison to handling your calls in-house, many of our case studies show this.
If you have teams based remotely, calls can be taken in one location and patched to the appropriate person where required and or messages sent to the person the call is intended for.
http://www.oberoibusinesshub.co.uk/case-studies/
3. Open all hours
A call answering service allows enquires to be processed at all times.
4. Arranging appointments
A growing part of our business is supporting our clients with their calendar bookings, especially in the case of osteopaths, podiatrists and massage therapist.
This means we can book, cancel and rearrange appointments on behalf of our clients.
Often service provision goes beyond calendar management, in that we also process SMS reminders for appointments arranged.
This is a great way to cut down on time-consuming admin.
5. Perception of Size
Call answering services allow one to portray a much bigger presence, sometimes this is key in gaining the bigger and corporate clients.
6. Messages Taken Can Be Sent To The Business By Text or Email and include an End of Day Summary Report
Messages are comprehensively logged and securely stored, so you’ll never lose or accidently delete an important message ever again.
Even more importantly, many services give you access to a catalogue of your messages wherever you are, which is a great resource when dealing with potential customers or pitching to new clients.
It also helps with coordinating the activities of everyone in your team.
With a messaging service, everyone is kept in the loop and there are no slip-ups in communication.
7. Additional Lines and Numbers
Additional Geographic numbers may be important for your business such as a London location. This can be set up quickly, including 0800 numbers to encourage calls through marketing or website materials.