As a business owner, you probably learned early on that you can’t do it all on your own. One of the best ways to lighten your load is to work with a professional telephone answering service to ensure your incoming calls never go unanswered. Read on for some of the reasons why paying someone to take your calls can be a very smart business move.
You Won’t Miss Important Calls
As dedicated as you may be to your business, you are only one person and can’t be available every minute of the day. There are times when you might be unable to take an incoming call, like when you’re in a meeting, on another call, or assisting other customers. There may also be times when you are out of cell phone service range or are experiencing other technical difficulties. Unfortunately, unanswered phone calls often result in lost business, since clients want to be able to reach someone rather than sit through an endless ring when they dial your number. By engaging an answering service, you can rest assured that you will never miss a critical call due to being unavailable or out of reach.
Outsourcing your phone calls to a professional service may also free you up to work on other tasks without worrying about missing an important connection. The hours you work can be spent on growing your business and pursuing opportunities rather than staying glued to your telephone.
Your Business Will Always Be Open
Even if your workday stretches from dawn until midnight, there are times when you need to unplug. You have to sleep sometime, right? However, you may be understandably worried about missing prime opportunities that can arise during off-hours. This may be particularly true if your business serves people from around the country or in other parts of the world. With an answering service, your incoming calls can be taken 24 hours a day, and important messages will be right there waiting for you as soon as you’re ready to retrieve them.
You Can Save Money
If you could afford to pay them, you might consider hiring your own receptionist or customer service representatives to handle all incoming calls. However, hiring staff means you have to start shelling out much more money than just their wages. Once you bring employees onboard you become responsible for payroll taxes, workers’ compensation insurance, benefits payments, and many other additional costs. You may not have enough work to keep these staffers busy between phone calls, so a lot of the expense of employing them may be wasted.
Conversely, if you use a call answering service you avoid all of these costs. With most services you are charged based on how many phone calls are taken or how many minutes are used, so you aren’t paying anyone to be idle. The company that provides the phone representatives bears all of the employment expenditures and you are simply a customer using its services. It’s an extremely cost-effective way to meet the important need of being available to your clients.
Your Clients Will Receive Professional Service
Creating a great first impression on potential customers can be a key factor in earning their business. Failing to take a call, or worse, failing to ensure your incoming calls are handled in a professional and courteous manner, can significantly hamper your ability to grow your business. Rather than hiring and training staff yourself, and then relying on them to always practice perfect telephone etiquette, it can be much simpler to place your trust in a telephone service. Employees at answering services are typically highly skilled at taking calls with the utmost professionalism, and their performance is often monitored to ensure they are meeting standards. You can be confident that your clients are being given quality assistance each time they reach the service you’ve engaged.
Signing on with a telephone answering service can be a wise decision for many business owners, as the cost is minimal in comparison to hiring staff to help with calls. Having a professional available to answer your number at all times means you will never miss an opportunity to connect with your clients, and you can free up your own valuable time to work on more important things.
