Establishing and managing a business could be among the most rewarding endeavors anyone could do in their lifetime. As a business owner, you feel accomplished when you get the opportunity to oversee all business operations firsthand and watch your business grow. There are many variables that are essentials for building a great business. However, good communication is one of the most essential tools that help to foster a great relationship with your clients.
Hiring a call answering service could be the best thing to do if you want to prevent all of the pitfalls and stresses that come with starting a new business. At Best Call Center, we can help you maintain the good communication that you’ve already built with your clients even as your business grows. Our local Boston employees get extensive training that equips them with the skills that enable them to provide your clients with an amazing calling experience.
What Does a Boston Answering Service Do?
Answering services are services that supplement or replace conventional in-house receptionists. The answering service firms handle your business's calls and client queries during busy periods or when the businesses are closed.
A comprehensive call answering service will provide you with more than outbound and inbound call handling. They could also schedule appointments, receive emails or faxes, handle complex help desk tasks, and much more. By doing so, they give services that often lead to repeat customers as well as increased business turnover.
Industries That Can Use Answering Services
A call answering service can be used by almost any business or firm that wishes to project a professional image 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Some Boston firms employ live answering services far more than other businesses since the nature of their business necessitates it. The following industries may benefit from answering services:
Veterinarians
Just like other health facilities, veterinarians often receive calls from pet owners who require emergency services. A phone answering service assures that they'll always have access to somebody who can listen to and assist them. This in turn strengthens the client's bond with the practice.
Small Businesses
Answering services are used by a variety of small businesses, like electricians, plumbers, IT advisors, flood cleanup companies, and many others. If a potential consumer calls and is unable to talk to someone, they will simply contact the next firm that emerges in their online search.
Non-profit Organizations
Nonprofit organizations play an important role in their communities. Using a customized answering service guarantees the professionalism required to handle callers appropriately and satisfactorily. Since nonprofit organizations operate on a shoestring budget employing call answering services for excess calls, after-hour services, as well as normal live receptionist tasks, help them to be cost-effective.
Healthcare Facilities
The healthcare business is one of the most prominent users of answering services. This is because doctors and clinicians must be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week for emergency calls. Patients seek medical attention when they need it the most. They must have the impression that their demands are being fulfilled by a healthcare professional. Patients will feel appreciated when you use professional and live receptionists that are HIPPA-compliant.
Energy Sector
The oil/gas business demands operators with a high degree of technical competence. Your call answering provider should be well versed in the energy industry and able to handle mission-critical inquiries with precision. Your call center agents play an important role in delivering 24-hour help to your callers as well as keeping a key contact with you during crises.
Real Estate
The real estate business, and particularly property management organizations, provide a level of assistance that frequently necessitates the use of answering services.
Benefits of Using a Boston Answering Service for Your Business
Approximately eighty percent of business interactions are conducted over the phone, implying that the demand for a sophisticated platform is now higher. Customers today expect the best quality of services, and anything they deem less might push them away from your business into the embrace of your competitors. Increased client retention is only one of the advantages of using a call answering service for your company. Below are several more examples:
Increases Staff Productivity
Phone calls could be a major source of distraction. They are, undoubtedly, excellent for business. They help you keep in touch with existing customers and potential, and they assist you in providing exceptional customer care. Excessive phone calls, on the other hand, might stifle productivity at work. They could also disrupt workflow and end up wasting valuable time.
Furthermore, it assists your workers in staying focused on what they are doing. They complete more tasks in less time, increasing profitability.
Helps to Control Labor Costs
Labor is among the most expensive aspects of running a small business. You've become accustomed to it. However, you wouldn't want your staffing expenditures to spiral out of control, particularly if you are beginning. Startups frequently lack the funds to hire a large team.
Employing an answering service could save the expense of hiring a receptionist or administrative assistant while also improving customer service. This frees up capital for further investments in your company. Furthermore, it avoids the expenditures associated with employing the wrong person.
It Eliminates the Need to Train New Employees
Hiring new employees is usually a hassle that may be avoided. Before choosing the right employee, you must examine factors such as their salary, experience, or perks, among others. Once hired, you must ensure that he/ she offers the same exceptional customer service that your company is renowned for. This means you'll need to spend more time — and keep track of — educating new staff to ensure they're executing the jobs properly.
Implementing a call answering service accomplishes two goals. It relieves you of the burden of coaching new staff and the requirement to oversee them till they are intimately familiar with their tasks.
Increases Profitability While You Sleep
It'd be ideal if you would be available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. However, it would be difficult to do so. Only a few tiny enterprises can. Outsourcing a phone answering service is nevertheless a low-cost option to extend your hours and increase income while your employees are not on the job. Furthermore, your calls will always be answered by a real person.
Improves Dependability and Consistency
Clients need to feel they can depend on your services when it matters, such as when they experience problems or challenges with your services or products. The problem is ensuring that your personnel adheres to your guidelines and provides exceptional customer service each time.
When consumers call you, a call answering service ensures that staff follow guidelines and provide excellent customer service. If the guidelines change, the answering service may adjust its actions to match your demands, providing dependability and consistency.
Assists You in Dealing With the Unexpected
With a small business, you cannot always know what will happen each day. However, one thing is clear. An unanticipated occurrence or an unforeseen emergency can strike at any moment. If you are not equipped and ready, the event might devastate your business. Even when the gush of calls is just temporary, the answering service can assist you in dealing with the unforeseen. This could keep you going when things go wrong and allow you to address consumer demands swiftly and efficiently.
Schedules and Manages Appointments
Keeping track of appointments is difficult. In reality, if you don't have the proper employees and technology, it could be a headache, leading to missed appointments, which are not professional.
Using a phone answering service for appointment setup and management will help you address this problem. It makes things a lot easier and relieves your staff of the burden of keeping track of a whole calendar of appointments.
All these are a few of the advantages that a phone answering service provides—advantages that may enable you to move your Boston business to new heights.
How to Tell Your If Business Needs Answering Services
We've compiled a brief list of some factors to consider when deciding whether now would be the best moment to hire an answering service:
Your Staff is Overburdened
This is a clear indicator that you need assistance. You might have begun your firm on a tight budget and gotten far with your staff doing the most for your business, but if you want to experience larger success than what you are experiencing today, you must make the best decisions for your organization. You wouldn't want to continue to stress and strain your crew. It is necessary to choose the right tools that will flex and expand as your organization grows.
That's why using a phone answering service is usually preferable to hiring employees. With a phone answering service, you can count on a specific organization to handle your callers and provide the best level of quality services on your behalf.
You're Getting Texts Late at Night and On Weekends
Only because your company is open from 9 to 5 doesn't imply your customers have logged out till you're ready to accept their calls the following business day. As a business owner, you may discover that your customers or clients are calling after hours with inquiries, or perhaps a desire to place orders or book an appointment with you. It is a huge indicator that the customers want to speak with you during times when you do not offer your service.
Most callers do not leave voicemail messages since they do not believe they will be heard. As a result, any voice messages received after hours may reflect a considerable proportion of people who are just not engaging with you.
Your phones might be answered 24 hours a day by a call answering service for a fraction of the expense of hiring a staff to take calls during normal working hours.
Distracting Phone Calls are Reducing Your Productivity
Calls are coming in, even though your staff appears to be in control, moving from one caller to the next. Things nearly appear to be under control, don't they? If this directly relates to you, it's time to step back and assess what tasks are not getting accomplished while your staff seems to be always on the phone. Internal resources must be concentrated on the specific tasks for which they were employed.
This is especially problematic if your company is relatively small. You're uniquely suited as the owner of the business to embark on the greater, strategic planning as well as decision-making activities that will prepare your company for the unforeseen.
Utilizing a call answering service might liberate you as well as your team and leave you to focus on the critical goals that are holding your company back from becoming successful.
Leads aren't Converting into Sales As Well As They Should
The company does well enough just to generate leads, and your list is growing, but you don't appear to be turning many of them into sales. This might be due to a lack of resources on your staff's part to devote to cultivating and capturing those leads as much as they should. This demands regular and persistent attention to customer engagement and follow-up. You may contact your clients when it's most suitable and efficiently close deals to focus on bringing revenue into your organization by using a phone answering service.
Negative Customer Feedback
If your company has been operating without the proper tools for an extended period, this will ultimately be passed on to your consumers. Even the most talented team will falter when they're not given sufficient help to handle a huge workload. Whenever this occurs, your clients will suffer, and some may find methods to let you or others know about it.
Some may leave a bad Google review or even a nasty Facebook comment. You do not have time to waste if your company has been under-resourced to an extent of disappointing the client. A phone answering service may assist in picking up your slack and reassuring clients that they're appreciated and cared for.
The Cost of Boston Answering Services
The price of a call answering service is determined by a variety of factors. The most important consideration is the business's requirements. An answering service normally provides four price models, which may change based on the provider of the service:
Pay Per Minute
With this method, you simply pay for the services you use. Here, the provider charges you for outgoing and incoming call increments. Other models contain a base fee that provides a predetermined amount of minutes for every billing cycle. Check to see how each provider estimates call time. If you do not know or if it's not clear, ask them to show you how they calculated the charges.
Pay Per Call
You are billed a fixed charge for every call received under this model. As a result, you're charged based on the number of incoming or outgoing calls every billing cycle rather than the number of minutes a call agent spends on a call. Other models incorporate a fixed rate based on the volume of calls made every billing cycle. Inquire about rates for incorrect numbers, canceled calls, or any other fees associated with this model.
Monthly Fees
Some services prefer monthly invoicing. This cost usually includes a specified amount of call minutes every payment cycle. You are then charged a flat cost for each extra minute utilized. Nevertheless, flat rate charging is difficult to master. Based on how consistent your monthly call traffic is, it might be cost-effective or could end up being a budget buster.
Tiered Pricing
Pricing tiers are offered by providers for various categories of services. The higher the tier, the higher the charge. This strategy is typically dependent on the model provider. When you do not know the number of minutes you'll use every month, it can be a good model, to begin with. Within a few months, you will have a clear understanding of the tier that suits you. You may then collaborate with the answering service company to choose the best tier for you.
Find a Boston Answering Service Near Me
It is not easy to run a business, regardless of the size. With all that happens on a day-to-day basis, it is easy to lose your grip and once that happens, things may start to spiral out of control. At Best Call Center, we take pride in providing the best call answering services in Boston. We use real people to receive, handle, and redirect callers to the appropriate people in your business. Call us right away at 800-385-4656 to arrange a free trial and experience the countless benefits of using our services.