There’s one thing that will make your business shine even brighter, and that’s high quality customer service.
From your in-house sales people to your telephone operators, it’s vital that all your customers are given the very best. They’ve made it clear that they won’t accept anything less. According to NewVoiceMedia, when asked “What would you do if you experienced poor service?” 58 percent of the people surveyed said they’d never use the company again and 49 percent would tell their friends and family.
When half of your customers are up for grabs due to poor service, it’s definitely time to sit down and formulate a plan for improvement. Unfortunately well-trained in-house operators can be expensive to maintain and house, but you can spend more time focusing on your face to face staff if you partner with an answering service company.
Your competitors are already doing the same thing, and here’s why:
- They’re saving money. The cost of training and maintaining in-house telephone staff can be staggering, especially if you’re in a high rent location where every square foot of space can add a remarkable amount to your business’s rent or mortgage payment.When you hire an answering service company, you’re only billed for the calls they handle, which means you’re not paying for training or other non-productive time your operators may have during their day. If you’re not getting calls, you’re not getting billed, which is a great way to save big bucks.
- It’s adding more hours to their day. Staffing one shift of operators can be prohibitively expensive for small businesses, but it becomes a monumental challenge to staff three shifts so your customers can reach you around the clock. However, if you hire an answering service company to fill in the blanks, you’ll be able to give your callers 24/7 access to your company without spending your entire budget on workers. You’ll be surprised how many calls you get after closing time, especially if they’re first time customers who are curious about your products or services.
- An answering service can do more than say “Hello” or “Hold On.” Many companies don’t realize just how much an answering service can do for their business, they’re so much more than just a friendly greeting for callers. In fact, your answering service can take over duties like telephone customer service, inbound and outbound sales, emergency call handling and even help with disaster recovery if there were to be a natural disaster or something went very wrong at your business and you needed to close for a while. All these services are usually less expensive than hiring your own teams.
Your competitors know something you don’t know about answering service partners: they save money and help improve your customer reach for pennies on the dollar when compared to in-house staff. Even if you’re a business of one, you can present a professional face that makes your company look considerably larger by using an answering service. There’s so much the right answering company can do for your image and customer service performance that it’s definitely worth exploring the option.
