Non-stop calls from clients, leads and vendors can be exhilarating and also overwhelming. It’s great that they’re calling, that means business is doing well, but it also means that you or a staff member has to stop every few minutes to answer the phone, put the caller on hold or transfer them elsewhere.
Being so in-demand is killing your productivity.
Better Ways to Use Your Overflow Call Answering Service
If you have an after hours answering service, but aren’t sure if you have overflow call answering, now is the time to ask!
It’s a really basic part of many answering service packages, so chances are decent that you either have it and aren’t taking advantage or it can be added for a small fee. After all, you can’t really justify hiring another person or two to help handle the ebb and flow of those extra calls. An answering service is an affordable alternative, provided that you use it properly.
Are you using overflow to its full potential? Try some of these techniques to get more out of this inexpensive service:
Use Follow Me to reroute calls. Follow Me is a great way to ensure that your customers can find you should an emergency pop up, but it can also be used to reroute traffic from one phone to your answering service. That way some calls are still allowed to go to voicemail or be answered by specific employees, while the rest are handled externally.
Carefully plan your overflow voice menu. You know how much callers prefer a human to answer their calls, but sometimes it just can’t be helped. If calls are overwhelming, you can start to reduce the volume with automation that gives out basic information with the press of a key or allows callers to pass to the answering service.
Just make sure it’s easy to use and the information that callers want most often is listed near the beginning of the list, otherwise you’ll do yourself more harm than good.
Mind the clock. A voice message explaining why you’re not answering the phone should accompany any voice menu. Make sure that your greeting message makes sense for the time of day it’s playing. You don’t want callers to get the idea that you’re closed for the day at noon, instead have a special message that explains that the office is out for lunch instead.
The Sweet Sound of Silence
Your office is hectic, what with all the new customers coming and going, but you can knock some of the chaos out with the help of your live answering service.
By optimizing your overflow call answering feature and using it in conjunction with other useful functions like Follow Me or voice menus, your days of an ever-ringing phone are over…in a good way!
Depending on the nature of your business, you may also be able to encourage more callers to self-service questions from your website or connect to your answering service via chat. There are plenty of ways to cover your overflow callers without spending a lot of money on new employees.
