Like any other business decision, you have to weigh the pros and cons of using alive answering service during your businesses off hours – or to supplement your receptionists during peak hours. The pros are pretty obvious – your clients have a real human being to speak with when they call and aren’t left on hold or with the frustrating “leave a message after the beep” or (worse) one of those automated menus that no one is happy about listening to.
From the perspective of most types of businesses, there are really only two cons to using an answering service company. The first, and most obvious, is that there is a cost associated with using answering services. Like any other contracted service, you have to decide whether the cost is justified. The other potential con to using a call answering service is that those answering the phones may not be as knowledgeable about your field of business as those you have trained yourself. This can especially be a concern if you work in a highly specialized field.
Medical Answering Services, Legal Answering Services, etc.
Let’s face it, when you offer medical, legal, real estate or other specialized services, you don’t want just anybody answering your phones or fielding your calls. It’s important to ensure that any telephone answering service you use is staffed by people who understand your line of work at least as well as your own receptionists and secretaries do.
Fortunately, there are specialized phone answering services that train their operators, much as you train your own receptionists, in how to field the types of calls that come into those types of businesses. Generally, these types of call answering services can accommodate any specific instructions you may have for them when dealing with your clients.
If you have specialized needs from your telephone answering service, it’s important to make sure that any phone answering service you use has specially trained operators or, at the very least, is willing and able to give their operators the special training needed. If you run a realty company, you want a real estate answering service in which the operator can intelligently answer any basic questions your clients have. After all, a live voice that can’t answer questions and doesn’t know where to direct them is little better to your clients than the annoying recorded voice and beep.
Wait, You Said A Good Answering Service Doesn’t Cost…
Every business has expenses. Like the old adage says, “You have to spend money to make money.” That’s why successful businesses advertise and spend money on the best marketing available. They realize that, at the end of the day, those things will make them more money than they cost them – in other words, when a business invests in those services, there is no net cost, but rather a net gain, a return on investment.
The same is true with a good telephone answering service. While it’s a little harder to calculate the return on investment, ask yourself this: “How much is one client worth?” and realize that every time a client calls and speaks to someone who can actually help them – or at least explain pass their message and contact information on to someone who can – you have potentially gained or saved a client. Assuming the client is happy with your services and continues to do business with you over the course of his lifetime, the return on investment for having someone there to field his call could be substantial.
Answering Service Care handles all your general and specialized telephone answering needs, including medical answering services, legal answering services and real estate answering service. Contact us for more information about how utilizing a specialized or general answering service can provide a return on your investment.
