Benefits of Small Business Answering Services
For thriving small businesses, things can get chaotic even when you have professional internal employees to handle your business communications. Besides, small businesses must compete with large and worldwide operations, exploring various cost-effective solutions for the business type. In most cases, small businesses and even medium-sized businesses lack sufficient resources to hire personal staff to offer 24-hour call coverage.
Handling all the employees’ salaries required for this venture is not always the best use of your resources. However, your business opportunities don’t have to cease when your business closes at 5 pm. This is where the services of small business answering services come in. You can hire a third-party professional team to cover your phones on a 24/7 basis and ensure you don’t miss those important phone calls. It’s also a cost-effective and effective way to create a professional image.
In this guide, we’ll look at the benefits of small business answering services for your company.
More Availability
Small business answering services help increase accessibility to customers and improve response times, reliability, and consistency. Your clients need to know they can count on you throughout, even when they have issues or questions with your products or services. The problem is ensuring your staff follows your quality procedures and provides efficient small business answering services. Working with a qualified business answering service guarantees that employees follow procedures when the customers contact you and provide top-quality service.
If you change your procedures, the dedicated agents have the flexibility and tools to change their activities to meet your needs, ensuring consistency and reliability. Having live representatives ensures that your customers are always satisfied and can reach your businesses to have their questions answered, get assistance in placing orders, or schedule appointments. These services allow you to conduct your business around the clock without your presence.
Appear More Professional
Small business answering services also represent your business well and improve efficiency and productivity. For instance, telephone calls can be a huge distraction in your workplace. Customer calls are crucial for your business as they help you keep in touch with customers and deliver great customer service. However, too many calls can hinder productivity, especially during peak hours, interrupt workflow, and waste time.
In addition, they can hamper momentum when employees are working, forcing them to find out where they left off before answering certain business calls. Live small business answering services eliminate these phone calls and improve productivity, allowing you to get things done quickly and improve profitability. Live small business answering services also help improve communication and customer service. The services also help you cope with the unexpected, as a business can often be unpredictable.
A sudden emergency or an unexpected event can happen at any time, and this is when you must ensure exceptional customer experiences. Having trained and professional agents handling emergency calls can help you cope with the unexpected, even if it’s just a temporary increase in calls during peak hours. Small business answering services can keep your business running when things go south and help meet customer requirements quickly and efficiently.
Maximize Return on Investment
Maximizing your small business ROI is crucial as you don’t have to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on marketing. So, in case you’re unavailable when sales calls come in because of your promotional efforts, this significantly cuts the ROI of these projects.
So, when you hire the services of a small business, answering services 24/7 ensures you don’t miss any sales opportunities when you’re out of the office. With these services, you could acquire hundreds of hot leads in your office in the morning and maximize the ROI of your marketing costs.
Helps Control Your Labor Costs
If you own a small business, labor is probably one of your main expenses. Startups and other small businesses always strive to control their budget, and hiring in-house receptionist services to handle incoming and outgoing calls is not always a good investment or a priority. However, outsourcing a virtual receptionist or small business answering services is the ideal solution to eliminate the cost of hiring in-house receptionists to improve your customer service. Besides, it also helps eliminate the cost of hiring the wrong person.
Helps your Business Cope with the Unexpected
Your business can be unpredictable, and you never know what to expect, regardless of the industry experience you’ve gained. So, a sudden emergency or an unexpected event can happen anytime, and this is when you must ensure exceptional customer experiences. The sudden event could even take your business to the ground if unprepared. Fortunately, hiring small business answering services to handle your emergency calls can help you manage these events and keep you running when things go south.
Other Benefits Include:
- Increase business possibilities
- Personalized customer services
- Instant access to messages
- Increase reliability and consistency
- Help reduce labor costs
- Boost profitability
- Increase customer satisfaction
- Improve value-added activities
- Eliminates the need to train new workers
- Helps control labor costs
- Secure services specific to your industry
Affordability of Small Business Answering Services
Training and paying your workers is much more costly than professional small business answering services. For instance, the average salary for a receptionist is approximately $30K annually. This doesn’t even include other expenses such as employee benefits, office supplies, overtime, and compensation insurance.
For a fraction of these costs, your small business can use My Receptionist’s small business answering services to help your business scale and increase profitability. This remedy provides your business with a cost-effective and economical option, allowing you to compete with other businesses of any size. Besides, you also eliminate the extra costs related to equipment and employee salaries.
Factors to Consider When Selecting Small Business Answering Services
The correct small business answering service can make all the difference in your small business’ success. So, before selecting the best small business answering services for your business side, you must look at the services from different angles. Although this can be challenging initially, the main factors to consider before signing the dotted line are below.
- Easy set-up
- Experience
- Technology such as an online interface
- Training
- Pricing
- Data collection and management
- Corporate social responsibility
- Emergency dispatching system
- Check for third-party app compatibility
- Ensured security for sensitive information
Industries that can Benefit from Small Business Answering Services
Often, small business answering services are linked to larger businesses with a high volume of daily calls. While this is true, virtually all businesses in every sector can benefit from small business answering services. The benefits include improved customer service and allowing your business staff to allocate their resources and time better. Below are the many different sectors that can benefit from small business answering services:
- Law firms
- Accounting firms
- Real estate agents
- Facilities management companies
- Retailers
- E-commerce companies
- Restaurants
- Medical practices and dental offices, and providers
- Recruitment firms
- Corporate businesses
- Service businesses
- Insurance agents and agencies
- Spas, salons, and personal wellness brands
- IT/Software/Computer companies
Closing Thoughts
It’s no secret that your first impression is crucial to your business. When your business receives a phone call from an existing or a new client, their first impression of your company begins with how they’re greeted and treated. So, how do you want to be heard? A professional greeting matching the professionalism of your business or a quick response from an indifferent reception?
This is where small business services ensure a professional appearance or consistent customer service to your client. Besides, small business answering services are cost-effective, boost your business image, improve availability and efficiency, improve productivity, and maximize return on investment, among other benefits.
You can click here to learn more about how a small business answering service can help your business thrive. If you want to learn more, contact us and get started.