Why you need a telephone answering service in 2022
Many business’s small and large use a form of Telephone Answering Service to meet their customers expectations. There are many reasons for doing this and you could start today.
This article is going to explain what the service is and why all around the world, it’s used by so many.
What is it?
An outsourced service that answers inbound telephone calls when they can’t be answered. The calls get diverted to the call handling service who answer the call in the clients business name as if they were in their office. The customer is dealt with and the resulting message and contact details are sent to the client/business using the telephone answering service for them to deal with the customer at their leisure.
Why use it?
There are many reasons to use a virtual receptionist service, many! The first and foremost is that when a business doesn’t answer a call, (an everyday normal independently owned business that doesn’t have some sort of monopoly, like energy firms) the caller will end up ringing elsewhere, not only does it look bad when a call isn’t answered and dents the potential customers trust, it means you have more than likely lost that customers purchase.
It’s the same concept if you have a poorly designed website, if the user can’t get what they want, they’ll go find it much easier elsewhere.
Benefits of a Telephone Answering Service
- Increased profit.
- Increased trust.
- Increased customer satisfaction.
- Increased perception of overall brand/business image.
- No need to pay a staff member with all associated costs and responsibilities.
- Can cover existing staff for holidays, sick leave, maternity leave.
- Provide freedom for clients to concentrate on jobs/task in hand.
- Low cost, lower than most people think.
- Usually can provide other services too, like admin tasks.
- A good telephone answering service will be able to answer some of a callers questions too.
Cost of a Virtual Receptionist
Cost can vary quite a bit, however you may need to remember that the people offering this service, need to be able to provide a great service. There are pay as you go options, monthly packages and everything in between.
Some of them will charge you for every time they answer a call whether a message is sent or not. Typically this is what you may get from a PAYG service. Whilst others won’t charge for sales, spam, automated and staff/family calls.
One that’s taken our particular interest and helped us curate this page is Call a Real Person. They’re situated in Cornwall, UK. Their telephone answering service is a low cost rolling monthly contract that includes a number of messages. Then discounted rates once you go above that. You won’t be missing out on unused quota’s as they place you in the cheapest band every month. No charges for any spam, sales, family/staff calls either and with a free trial, you get to see how this service could help.
Conclusion
In summary a business call handling service is an absolutely vital asset in any business to level up the customer experience you should want to give your potential and existing customers. Higher customer trust and satisfaction will only help them in their decision to buy from you, return again and recommend you. Customers are loyal, if you give them a reason to stay and this is one of many tools that any business of any size from freelancers to multi office organisations can utilise.
