How many times have you called a business, only for the phone to go to voicemail? Depending on the day you’re having and the type of call you’re making, this could result in you feeling inconvenienced, frustrated, or downright upset. The fact is, no business wants to evoke these kinds of emotions in a customer or prospect.
When it comes to communication, the best way to avoid this outcome is by using an answering service that can handle your customer calls—no matter the time of day— in a professional, caring manner. In this blog, we’re exploring just some of the benefits that an answering service offers to businesses and their customers.
What Is the Role of an Answering Service?
The role of a third-party answering service is to take and manage calls for a business. Answering services, which employ specialized agents, handle tasks like:
- Taking messages
- Routing calls
- Troubleshooting customer issues
- Making appointments
Of course, the best answering service for a small business—or a business of any size, really—offers additional features on top of live calling, including live chat and live SMS answering to meet modern business communication needs. Organizations like Answering Service Care even offer automated solutions, like Interactive Voice Response (IVR), intelligent call routing, spam blocking, call recording, and more.
What Are the Benefits of Answering Services?
An answering service for your business—whether it’s small, mid-sized, or enterprise—offers a host of benefits including reliability, availability, productivity, time savings, brand reputation, and cost savings. Let’s explore each of these advantages in more detail.
Increase Reliability
How important is answering a call that comes into your business? In one word: critical. Destination CRM reports that about 80% of callers who get sent to voicemail hang up without leaving a message. Now, consider the fact that small businesses miss roughly 62% of inbound phone calls. Missed calls, especially when customers are unlikely to leave a voicemail, lead to a poor customer experience and dissatisfied customers. Not only that, but this sense of unreliability may just lead to a decrease in revenue from lost deals or churned customers.
When you partner with an answering service, you’ll have access to trained call agents who ensure that calls don’t go missed, deals move further down the pipeline, and customers receive excellent care.
Enable 24/7 Availability
Customers don’t operate on a standard 9-5 schedule. Not only do you have to consider customers living in other time zones, but the fact is that problems and questions can arise at any point in the day or night. Yet, offering 24/7 support on your own likely means hiring two or more full-time staff to manage the phone lines or eliminating work-life balance from the equation all together.
That’s where a phone answering service shines. The best virtual answering service, like Answering Service Care, offers 24/7 live support to better serve you and your customers.
Boost Employee Productivity
Every time we’re disrupted in the work day, it takes roughly 23 minutes to get back on task, according to a study by the University of California Irvine. While that might not seem like much initially, consider how often you and your employees are interrupted by a phone call. Even one call an hour could yield about three hours of lost productivity over the course of a single workday.
But, of course, your customers and prospects are important, and you don’t want to miss out on those calls. That’s exactly why an answering service can be so instrumental to your operations. You and your team can focus on your work while call agents manage and prioritize your call stream. With a service like Answering Service Care, agents can even manage your appointment scheduling to further streamline the workday.
Enhance Brand Reputation
There’s no way around it: missing out on phone calls or other customer inquiries can damage a brand’s image. If customers can’t get a hold of you when it’s most convenient for them, they may sour on your business and turn to your competitors for help.
With a partnership with Answering Service Care, this simply isn’t an issue. Your calls will be received in a timely, professional manner. This strengthens your customers’ experiences—and their feelings about your business as a whole.
Reduce Expenses
According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the average cost to train and recruit a new hire is about $4,700. That’s not even considering the impact on productivity that comes with bringing a new team member on board. A lot of effort goes into screening applications, conducting interviews, and onboarding new employees.
The best answering service enables you to reduce recruiting and training costs. Whether you’re looking for a healthcare answering service, a legal answering service, or any other industry, the highly-trained agents at Answering Service Care can hit the ground running to provide knowledgeable service for your customers.
Answering Service Care: We Get it!
Every call you miss could be funneling your revenue to your competition. With the support of Answering Service Care and our US-based agents, your customers and prospects can reach you any time, day or night—even on holidays! With expertise in industries like medical, home services, legal, and real estate, our highly-skilled call agents provide the attention and experience your customers deserve.
When you’re seeking the best answering service to support your operations, look no further than Answering Service Care. Get started today with our quick and easy self sign-up!
