How Can a Phone Answering Service Help Business Productivity?
If you’re an entrepreneur or running a small business, you know how crucial customer service is when attracting and retaining new customers. Growing your business requires wearing many hats, leaving you exhausted and often with little time to focus on the more important tasks. A phone answering service can help.
During peak hours, it can be overwhelming to keep up with the volume of calls, whether your customers are inquiring about your services or products or have a problem they need assistance with. In such a case, you might lose valuable clients, eventually hurting your revenues and reputation. Fortunately, there’s a solution. Investing in a professional phone answering service could positively impact your business’s bottom line.
Phone answering services can allow you to better meet your customers’ needs, resulting in increased revenues and cost savings, among other benefits. This article looks at how a phone answering service helps boost business productivity.
How Can a Phone Answering Service Help Business Productivity?
It’s a no-brainer that unanswered or missed calls are expensive and affects overall customer satisfaction. According to research, one in three business calls are missed, translating to a third of your current and prospective clients’ calls going unanswered. Moreover, 80% of callers reaching a voicemail don’t leave a message. You must invest in a professional and qualified phone answering service to avoid damaging your business’ brand, image, and revenue. This service offers a dedicated and trained receptionist who’ll know your business personally and work seamlessly as a part of your team.
Below are some of the ways a phone answering service can help boost your business productivity.
Never Miss a Call with a Phone Answering Service
Hiring an answering service or virtual receptionist ensures you capture every opportunity and never miss a call again. A single phone call can seal that deal with a prospect or delight a returning client who might become your best brand ambassador. Unanswered calls can negatively impact your brand and image, lowering the business’ revenues. When calls are answered by a highly trained, competent, and professional receptionist with relevant knowledge in the industry, customer satisfaction is improved.
In the modern competitive world, clients expect instant satisfaction. When they fail to reach a live person who needs assistance, they’ll likely jump ship. A phone answering service ensures your clients can always reach a live person when needed, regardless of the time or day. The service also gives your business a great company protocol, instilling confidence in prospective customers.
Improved Productivity
Every business call is a chance to provide exemplary customer service and improve revenue. However, answering numerous calls every minute can be distracting and frustrating, especially when you’re in a meeting or working on a major project. According to research, it takes individuals approximately 25 minutes to re-focus after an interruption, and it increases the rate of errors as well.
These calls can reduce productivity, especially during peak seasons, disrupting the workflow and consuming much time. Hiring a live phone service can take these responsibilities off your shoulders so you and your team can focus on other productive tasks. This means that your team can complete more in less time, improving productivity and growth.
Save Costs with a Phone Answering Service
Unlike most people, hiring an answering service or virtual receptionist can help you cut costs. How? When you hire an in-house team to answer phone calls and take messages, you’ll have to pay salaries and other benefits, not to mention the process is time-consuming. You’ll also need to get a workspace, hire and train new staff, buy equipment, among other administrative and HR headaches that follow setting up a new team. With an answering service, you don’t have to worry about these costs and only work with this team when needed.
Increased Sales and Revenue
Hiring a professional phone answering service is crucial as it helps maximize your sales and revenue. In most cases, it’s the first point of contact a prospective client has with your business, so creating a professional and positive first impression is important. The answering service can enhance customer satisfaction and experience by ensuring your business appears more professional, accessible, and reliable.
Again, a well-trained and experienced phone answering service team can assist in generating leads by giving prospects key information about your services and products. Customers prefer working with businesses that offer excellent customer service.
24/7/365 Availability
One of the main benefits of hiring a phone answering service is that your business is available to clients 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days annually. No customer wants to reach voicemail, especially when the inquiry is urgent. A phone answering service is especially crucial if your business operates outside the usual business hours or works with international clients.
With someone taking customers’ messages and answering calls around the clock, you’ll capture more leads, and close more sales faster, even when you’re asleep. Research shows that customer experience is projected to surpass product and price as a main brand differentiator.
Gain Competitive Advantage
The modern business world is competitive, making it hard to stand out. An answering service provides your business with a competitive advantage, giving your business an edge over your rivals. The service helps ensure that every call is responded to quickly, reducing the chances of missed opportunities while providing a reliable and professional business image. With the service, your business can better manage its resources and time, focusing on important business areas while providing top-notch customer service.
Improved Customer Retention
Maintaining your current customer base is just as crucial as drawing new ones. A qualified phone answering service can help your business achieve both by offering helpful, empathetic, and friendly customer service. Ensuring all your calls and messages are answered in a timely and courteous manner improves customer satisfaction, bolstering customer loyalty and retaining more of your vital customers. Always being available when your clients need you is one of the best ways to attract and retain new customers.
Customers hate waiting on hold or navigating a complex system of phone prompts. Those greeted and welcomed by real people are more likely to buy your product or use your service and are more likely to recommend your business to others. A professional phone answering service creates happiness for clients, preventing them from jumping ship.
A Personal Touch
Today, consumers expect on-demand, instant solutions, where they depend on smartphones and other devices such as iPads and computers to deliver. However, consumers still expect custom, curated relationships and communications with businesses. While this sounds complex, the right phone answering service can help you easily achieve this. You can put these professionals on the front line, where they can act as your business’ face and integrate with your existing tools, resources, and software to be an extension of your business. In most instances, this becomes even more of an effective and personal connection compared to what your team can provide.
Which Industries Use a Phone Answering Service?
Usually, phone answering services are linked to large corporate businesses experiencing many daily calls. While it’s true, businesses of all sizes and types can use a phone answering service to improve customer satisfaction and enable the staff to allocate their resources and time better. Here are the different sectors that can benefit from a phone answering service to help boost productivity, as well as the top features offered:
- Law firms
- Accounting firms
- Real estate agents
- Facility management companies
- Retailers
- E-commerce companies
- Restaurants
- Medical practices
- Recruiting firms
- Corporate businesses
- Insurance agencies and agents
- Salons, spas, and personal wellness brands
- Software/computer/IT companies
- Growing and transitioning businesses
- Service businesses
- Small businesses
Which Industries Use a Phone Answering Service?
- Operating hours
- Experience in the industry
- Top quality
- Professionalism
- Language assistance
- Degree of support
- Additional services
- Emergency backup plan
- Cost-effectiveness
- After-hours service availability
- Confidentiality
In Conclusion...
A phone answering service can help your business boost productivity and grow. Customer service is key. One way to achieve this is hiring the services of a phone answering service to manage your calls, take messages, place orders, solve disputes, handle inquiries, and more. This helps you and your team get more free time to focus on more important business tasks. Phone answering services help reduce costs, provide round-the-clock customer support, build brand image and loyalty, improve productivity and customer retention, and improve sales and revenues, among other benefits.
To help your business stand out, enlisting a phone answering service and boosting productivity is advisable. Visit our site to learn more about how hiring a phone service works and how you can benefit from the service. You can also contact us to get started; we’ll gladly help.