Is answering service a necessity for small businesses?
Yes! If you want to succeed in the business world, an answering service is one of many necessary tools. Failure to invest in such productivity tools increases the chances of your business joining the 45% of all businesses that fail within the first five years.
Although there are many benefits to having an answering service for small businesses, these 13 reasons should give you some food for thought on whether it’s time for your company to make this move.
1. Boost Staff Productivity
When you incorporate an answering service into your business operations, your employees no longer have to spend a lot of time answering the phone.
They can stay focused on their duties and complete tasks more efficiently. This is a win-win situation for your staff and your company.
Too many phone calls break employees’ momentum and make them lose focus on what they are achieving.
Investing in answering services near me can help your business boost staff productivity and improve the quality of work executed.
2. Eliminates the Need to Train Employees To Answer Calls
The more you invest in your employees, the more productive they will be.
However, you can’t just hire anyone and expect them to have all the skills necessary for your business to run smoothly.
Your hiring process should include finding candidates who already have the skills needed to fill open positions.
A business answering service comes with a 24/7 call center operator trained without any investment from your company and who knows how to handle calls from clients and customers.
3. 24/7 Availability
No matter what time it is, there’s always someone at the other side of your business ready to pick calls.
This means your customers won’t need to leave voicemails during inappropriate hours like 2 AM. They can call any time, and they’ll still reach a representative within seconds.
4. Communication Value
Employees will enjoy the fact that their phone system also records all calls that come through every day. The recordings are used as tools for training purposes and may boost employee performance via increased education in how certain clients react and respond to different messages/styles of communication.
Keeping a record of all the calls made via your business phone system can also help you monitor how employees treat customers and react to certain situations.
Communicating effectively with clients is one of the keys to success for any business.
5. Reach Out to New Customers
Using the contact information your business phone system records, you can reach out to new customers and manage your contacts.
Contact details are stored in a central location, making it easy to address concerns or send promotions to targeted groups of people.
6. Save Time Tracking Down Clients for Follow-Ups
If you want to follow up with clients, you may often spend hours tracking down their contact information.
With an answering service, this task becomes irrelevant as all callers are tracked through the convenient online portal provided by your provider.
7. Better Customer Service
Many leading companies have a call answering service because they are ideal for providing excellent customer service.
Unlike answering services, sales representatives are usually unable to give the same level of quality assistance.
An answering service is a single point of contact for your company and includes powerful tools to enhance client satisfaction when dealing with inquiries, concerns, complaints, or suggestions.
8. Reduce Phone Costs
An answering service can lower or eliminate phone costs for multiple office locations.
Do you have a branch office in another state? Do you use your cell phone or other mobile devices to check voice messages when outside the office?
Your answering service can provide these features and more with one system regardless of how many sites you have. As a bonus, the answering service will pay for itself by reducing your phone bill.
9. Avoid Stress and Burnout
Stress and burnout are real concerns for small business owners.
The answering service can reduce the stress of answering calls by providing professional, reliable answering services dedicated to answering your calls all day, every day.
This assures you of a convenient way to receive messages from one central answering point for any or all offices. Your employees also benefit from less stress because they only respond to the most important calls.
10. Avoid Lost Sales Opportunities
Every time your phone rings, you have a chance to make a sale. But answering services aren’t just answering phones; they are handling calls consistently and efficiently.
This means that your answering service can streamline call management by identifying which calls are important or urgent. So, you can spend more time on sales opportunities and less time sorting through messages from non-customers.
11. Help Protect Your Business Reputation
Your business relies on its reputation. The answering service provides your company with a professional image and strong credibility through consistent, stellar performance.
This helps create the impression that your entire organization is competent, reliable, and trustworthy.
12. Streamline Communications Processes
How many times do you read your email? How quickly do you respond to text messages or social media inquiries? When’s the last time you checked your voicemail?
With answering services, these tasks are streamlined and automated by professionals who know how to reach customers in their preferred method of communication.
13. Manage Appointments
Managing appointments is a difficult task for small business owners and often takes hours out of each day.
Your answering service will make sure your clients are informed about their schedules while freeing you to focus on running your business.
Enjoy the Benefits of Answering Service for Small Business
Answering services bring many advantages to small businesses.
Whether you’re just beginning your business or if you have been in operation for years, it can only help when your clients are communicating with a professional answering service for small business instead of an inexperienced assistant or secretary.
To read other informative articles, check out our other posts.
