As a business owner, it is vital that you are easily accessible to your customers. Whether that be via phone, email, or mail, your customers want to feel like they can reach out to you and your staff should they have questions, concerns, or want to inquire about your products or services. A missed call could mean a missed sale. While every business owner must decide what business hours they will implement, with a live telephone answering service, you won’t have to wonder whether you are missing important connections with your customers.
What Is a Live Telephone Answering Service?
Live telephone answering services are generally offered by telecommunications companies. On-call personnel are specifically trained to process incoming phone calls. The primary functions of answering services are to relay urgent calls and messages to key personnel in your company, to screen calls in an effort to protect your company’s personnel from superfluous calls, and to provide off-site receptionist and front desk services, which ultimately leads to cost savings. If you have irregular business hours or want to ensure your customers can at the very least leave important messages while you are away, a telephone answering service might be the solution you have been looking for.
How Does an Answering Service Work?
A reliable answering service can truly bring your business to the next level. Understanding how the service works is key to realizing the benefits. First, you will have the option to chose how many minutes you want in your plan. The minutes are paid for on a monthly basis and can be used to enroll in additional services if you chose. Add-on services may include live call answering, appointment scheduling, live chat, call screening, or email text alerts. Next, you will identify your objectives, outline the instructions agents are to follow, and set your expectations. The answering service will rely on call scripts and information pages in order to process your incoming calls, and they will want to make sure they are meeting your expectations and handling your calls in the best way possible. Finally, you will get the opportunity to select a local number, using any city or state you’d like. This is important for smaller businesses who may want to represent themselves in an alternate location. You can also select a toll-free number to promote a national presence or use your own phone number and forward it to your answering service account. Following the setup process, the live telephone answering service company can begin taking your calls.
