With a society that has come to expect instant gratification and immediate information access, business hours are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. Unfortunately for small business owners, this can be a source of stress and fatigue. That's why many business owners are considering an answering service to support their customer service needs. Here's a look at what you need to know about answering services and how they can help your company.
Increased Sales
If a customer tries to call your business and doesn't get an answer, he or she may move on to the next similar business in the area. This can ultimately cost you a sale and potentially a returning customer relationship. When you work with a 24-hour answering service that is trained to answer the most frequently asked customer questions for your business, you have a better chance of retaining that customer and getting the sale.
Lower Overhead
If you were to pay for staff to answer your phones around the clock, the overhead associated with that could add up quickly, including your facilities costs, employer expenses, and more. If, on the other hand, you retain an answering service, you'll get all of the benefits of the customer service at an easily manageable cost. You will know clearly what your costs are, whether it's a per-call rate or a monthly service fee. This makes it easier to budget.
Emergency Call Forwarding
One thing that many business owners don't think about when they consider an answering service is the fact that you don't lose out on emergency calls this way. In fact, most answering services will establish a procedure for forwarding calls when necessary or a paging system for after-hours emergency call response. That way, you have the ability to deal with the calls that you need to while leaving the rest to your answering service. This is especially important for service-related businesses that may have emergency repair calls.
Real-time access is essential for many consumers, and the lack of it can be the sole determining factor for some consumers that move on to other companies for their needs. These are some of the most important things to think about when you're trying to decide if an answering service is the right solution for your company. Talk with an answering service near you today for more information about the services that they provide so that you can determine if it will help your business to grow and retain more customers.
Contact a company like Kim's Answering Service to learn more.
Share15 June 2022
When I started thinking more seriously about saving money, I realized that we had already invested a lot of cash into technologies we weren't taking full advantage of. One great example was telephones, since the entire process seemed like it could be improved. The phones we were using had everything from intercom features to multi-line capabilities, but we were only taking advantage of a small fraction of what they could do. We attended a group training that centered around the phones, and before we knew it, things were a lot better. Check out this website for awesome tips on using handsets.