There is an interesting balance in the business world, where consumers rely on their smartphones and the internet to seek immediate solutions. However, the customers and clients still expect curated and custom communications with your business when they need your services. Customer service and relationships are significant in ensuring business growth and professionalism. When your phone rings, most callers will appreciate human contact.
Therefore, partnering with a call answering service will be a significant step to ensure that your callers are satisfied and compelled to work with you. When you choose the convenient telephone answering service, you can put them on the front lines to act as the face of your business. At Best Call Center, we focus on understanding your business and integrating our call center with your business. Our Colorado Springs Answering Service Agents are on standby to answer your calls and represent your business in the best light possible.
Overview of Answering Services
An answering service is a company that provides specialized services to answer calls for your business and provide essential information to your clients or customers. Additionally, the answering service agent can note down messages from your callers and schedule appointment. Whether you run a small business that requires professional answering services or a large enterprise with a large flow of calls, you would greatly benefit from partnering with a Colorado Springs Answering Service.
Answering services often fit in one of the following categories:
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Live Answering Service
The services of a live telephone answering service come in different formats. Some companies will provide a staff of at-home workers who take your calls from wherever they are or employ receptionists to act as virtual receptionists for your business. Either way, a live answering service provides professional and live contact to callers. Additionally, a live answering service often provides 24/7 call coverage and is most desirable to many people who want to contact your business.
The main goal of live answering services is to make callers feel as though they have reached your actual office. The answering agent will answer the phone and represent your business as any of your in-house staff would do. A live telephone answering service is a great option if you want your small business to appear large and professional.
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Automated Answering Services
With the automated answering service, callers receive a computerized voice that allows them to choose their desired service. An automated answering service is suitable when your callers only need basic information provided by the different options. Although automated answering services are much less expensive, they take away the caller’s personal touch and your business.
Listening to an automated message could be frustrating when a potential client calls to seek immediate assistance, like in the legal and health sectors. This can prompt the caller to hang up and contact another person. Since an automated message works more like voicemail, it may not serve the need for many businesses.
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Call Centers
Call centers are telephone answering service that caters more to large enterprises with a high volume of calls. In addition to providing 24/7 services, call centers often provide technical support to your business. The staff at the call center is much more extensive and diverse compared to other answering services. Therefore, you are likely to spend more. Most large companies use a call center as part of their business, while others outsource their call flow to the call center.
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Internet Answering Service
The online answering service is suitable if you run a web-only business. This answering service has access to your messages, live web chat services, and order processing. Although a live answering service could be an option for web businesses, they may not have these additional features. You can use the live answering service and the internet answering service interchangeably.
Business Sectors that Need a Telephone Answering Service
Any business could use a call answering service, especially when you want your callers to reach a real person. Even when you have an in-house receptionist, they will need to go home at one point and have off days. Missed calls on these days could cost your business a great deal. The following are some business sectors that could benefit from hiring a Colorado Springs Answering Service:
Small Businesses
Small businesses and those starting up often work on a limited budget and resources. Most sole proprietors cannot afford to hire an in-house creationist to handle their calls. This can leave you at a disadvantage since you cannot always take the calls. Fortunately, a virtual receptionist can provide a solution. Additionally, the answering service will represent your business professionally, allowing it to grow and attract more clients. Small businesses can utilize appointment scheduling services and customer follow-up offered by the answering service agents.
Transitioning Businesses
One of the greatest assets of working with an answering service is scalability. When your business is transitioning, you do not have much time to concentrate on incoming calls. Answering service agents take some of the burdens off your plate, allowing you to focus on finding a new tool to grow and scale your business. As you upgrade your business, you will not need to worry about replacing call answering equipment. Cal answering service companies come with their equipment and could save you the cost of investing in new and updated devices.
Service Provision Businesses
If you run a service business, you will constantly be on the field handling your client needs, and you may not be near the phone or computer. While handling one client, you could lose another from a missed call or a caller who did not want to listen to an automated message. If you cannot afford to hire a receptionist, you could partner with an answering service that is cheaper and more efficient.
Legal Offices
Lawyers and other staff at a law firm need all the time they can have to handle cases and the legal issues presented by their clients. Sometimes you are in court and would not be in a position to take the calls. By outsourcing a professional answering service, you have more time to focus on your job and let the answering service agents take calls and filter them so you can handle the issues later.
When your business partners with an answering service, the agents can be trained on specific topics and represent the law firm professionally. Issues that need legal insight are often very sensitive. Therefore, clients who call your business seeking legal help or guidance will appreciate the live contact provided by the answering service agents.
Staffing Firms
Hiring and staffing businesses are on the list of businesses that receive constant calls and need all the help they can in handling customer communications. If you run such a business, you understand the significance of providing the best information and resources to your clients and other individuals who reach out to you. During normal office hours, your receptionists can handle the calls. However, a staffing company could receive calls after hours where the answering service agents come into play.
Salons, Spas, and Wellness Brands
The personal wellness industry always has its hand fill. Staff and the spa, salons, and other fitness centers may be too busy, and interruptions to take calls could affect the quality of their services. Outsourcing an answering service to handle the calls and other complex communications with clients who call the business. Client communication is an essential part of this industry and the personal touch. More importantly, the answering service provides a streamlined process to offer availability when the clients need it.
Insurance Agencies
Phone calls and follow-up communications that come through to insurance agencies could consume your time and resources. It can be challenging to create a balance between catering to the needs of your existing customers and taking calls to try and attract more customers. You do not have to jeopardize your service proviso by doing it alone. Hiring a Colorado Springs Answering Service will ensure that you need the help to handle the communications. This allows you and your office staff to focus on other matters that need your immediate attention.
Real Estate Professionals
The real estate sector has some of the highest calls coming in and out. If you run a real estate agency, you will need to run around answering calls replying to emails while still creating time to show homes, and arranging other business deals. Instead of dealing with the unending struggle of communications, you can partner with an answering service to provide the call answering and message taking. This gives you more time to concentrate on the fieldwork and deliver the experience that your clients expect.
The answering service agents can filter your calls and handle inquiries and transfer calls that need immediate attention to you and other office staff. This allows your business to run smoothly and without interruptions.
Medical or Dental Health Care Providers
Medical emergencies are not only inevitable, but they occur at any time. When a patient calls the doctor or dentist, they will need a live answer to know how to proceed. If someone calls a dental or medical care clinic and is sent to voicemail or goes unanswered, they will call elsewhere.
A telephone answering service provides value to your healthcare business by providing accurate, professional, and compassionate services to your callers. Also, they will pass the messages and information from your calls while helping to book appointments. With the increase in competition in the healthcare sector, partnering with the answering service could put your business above the competition and facilitate optimum growth.
Call answering service agents who have experience answering calls for medical professionals understand the trauma and crisis associated with medical emergencies ad treatments. This will make them empathetic in how they respond to your callers.
IT Companies
Professionals in IT are not the best communicators and may not fit the role of their company’s face. With their genius skills in managing complex systems, the ability to interact with customers may not be as effective. If you want to give your IT company the best chances, you need to employ the services of virtual receptionists, which come with hiring an answering service.
Answering Service Pricing
Answering service pricing varies depending on your business’s size and the services you want to outsource. Understanding the variety of pricing methods will help you choose the one that fits your business needs:
- Per-minute billing. In this type of billing method, the answering service providers will bill you based on the duration of your calls. Therefore, the longer their agents speak to your customers, the more you pay. Most answering services will have a standard call duration, after which the additional costs apply.
- Per-unit billing. If you opt for the per-unit billing method, you will have to pay for every call or message the agents take for your business. This pricing method is more complicated and less popular.
- Per-call billing. The service provider will bill you for the total number of calls they handle for your business with this method. One of the setbacks of this billing method is that you may be required to pay even for the accidental calls.
Find an Answering Service Company Near Me
Providing the best customer service is one of the best strategies to rise above the competition and grow your business. You have one chance to make a first impression of your business, and this occurs when you receive the first call from a potential customer or client. If a caller is met with an unanswered call or transferred to voicemail, they will likely seek the services elsewhere. Businesses don’t ignore calls. The workload in the office may be too much that you lack time to answer the calls.
Fortunately, you can hire an answering service company to take your calls and handle communication issues. You can accrue significant benefits by engaging a telephone answering service for your business. From receiving 24/7 call answering services to representing your business professionally, a telephone answering service can contribute significantly to the growth of your business. At Best call centers, we will help provide your incoming leads and potential customers with the accurate and professional version of what they need from your business. Contact our Colorado Spring Answering Service agents today at 800-385-4656.