In the modern world, many institutions, facilities, and businesses handle many inbound and outbound telephone calls daily. It could appear like your business does not have employees to pick these calls adding to their daily tasks. Therefore, phone answering services are ideal solutions for these business types.
The answering service you hire should employ highly trained virtual receptionists to handle your business calls from clients, prospects, or anyone who seeks your services. Besides answering phone calls, your service provider will also manage other communication needs like solving customer problems, scheduling appointments, and taking messages on your behalf.
A virtual receptionist service could be a lifesaver for your business when looking to attend to your clientele base regularly while keeping it running flawlessly. At Best Call Center, we work hard to ensure that your customers seeking phone answering services in the US are satisfied and business keeps running around the clock. Hire our Philadelphia answering service today to improve your reputation and brand image.
What A Telephone Answering Service Means
Hiring an answering service is the ideal alternative to a full-time in-house receptionist. An outsourced service offers a virtual receptionist to handle your calls as if they were working from your premises. Your phone answering agent screens incoming phone calls, transfers the callers to you or a colleague, records a detailed message, and relays it via email or text message. Acting as your internal team’s extension, our virtual receptionist handles your calls during after-work hours or throughout the day - you pick.
When you are on another call, attending a meeting, or away from your offices for other purposes, your service provider offers customer support. As a business owner, you control when your calls should be picked. You tailor your answering to meet your business needs, whether all or some of your calls.
A virtual receptionist is a go-to option if you want to have calls answered outside normal working hours. That means weekend and evening calls are picked without having extra staff in-house. A welcoming and devoted virtual receptionist handles your calls. They take their time to learn your business and how you need your calls received.
The Purpose Of An Answering Service
According to credible sources, about 1 in 4 business calls are unanswered. Unanswered calls mean missed sales opportunities. With so much money, effort, and time diverted into marketing and business branding, unanswered calls mean that you are missing out on potential revenue and wasting your efforts.
Not many people leave voicemail messages. So it is likely that a prospect will jump to the next business, or an existing client will leave a negative review if they cannot speak to someone concerning the matter. Missing prospects’ or existing customers’ calls are a major problem, but being distracted by unwanted phone calls is another.
At Best Call Center, not only do our Philadelphia answering service agents offer unmatched customer experience to people with relevant inquiries, but they also filter out any unwanted calls on your behalf. While hiring a full-time in-house receptionist could solve your business problem, it could be beyond many businesses’ and entrepreneurs’ budgets. However, with a phone answering service, you could enjoy the benefits of a full-time hire for a fraction of the price.
Also, you could choose to use a Philadelphia answering service that offers around-the-clock service; hence, revolutionizing your working week, allowing you to switch your phone off in the evenings and weekends without worrying about missed calls. Below are specific answering service solutions:
- Supporting services and products.
- Taking messages and orders.
- Providing excellent customer service.
- Handling emergency calls.
- Setting management meetings.
- Scheduling appointments.
- Processing outbound marketing campaigns.
Why Your Businesses Should Use A Phone Answering Service
There are many reasons why your business should use an answering service. These include:
- You will never miss a call from a potential client.
- You will manage high call volumes internally.
- You are certain that your calls are routed to employees.
- You have additional support during peak hours or marketing campaigns.
- You provide costumes with unmatched service consistently.
- You gain more time to focus on handling your business and growing it.
- Your calls are handled even when a staff member has left your business, and you seek an interim solution.
- You reduce the time your in-house team spends picking unnecessary calls like unwanted sales calls.
- You reduce costs and avoid the associated expenses of hiring a permanent employee.
- Your inbound calls are catered to throughout the year and around the clock.
- When working from home or traveling and offering a more professional customer experience.
Benefits Of A Philadelphia Answering Service
The benefits of using a phone answering service are many. These benefits include saving money and time, allowing you to work more efficiently, and offering your customers an unmatched customer experience. However, these are only scratching the surface of what your Philadelphia answering service could do for your business. Other benefits include:
- Improving customer service — Credible studies show that customers become disappointed with over-the-phone customer service every year. However, virtual receptionists are highly trained personnel who could offer your business world-class customer service.
- Customizable services — An answering service handles each business’s needs and preferences. The virtual receptionist appointed to your company trains on your greetings, scripts, and business culture. Therefore, you feel confident that they are representing your brand well. Whether you need a receptionist to transfer all calls to you or give you a report daily, a Philadelphia Answering Service has got your back.
- Reducing unwanted business overheads — You accrue many overhead expenses if you hire a team of receptionists on-site to handle inbound and outbound calls, not to mention time-consuming. An answering service could cost less for you out-of-pocket than hiring your team. Businesses that hire phone answering services pay a fraction of what you pay salaried employees.
- Providing a 24/7 point of contact for your clients — Like other businesses, you want to offer your workers regular working hours. But customers could seek help or services at any moment of the night or day. As a business owner, you don’t want to give your customers the impression that you are unreachable. Hiring a phone answering service to handle clientele calls around the clock saves you from the need to work after hours.
- Increasing your productivity — Without answering all incoming calls, you are open to other tasks and business meetings that need your attention. With a Philadelphia Answering Service, you lower distractions, focus on your tasks, and have professionals handle your customer service department.
- Capturing every opportunity. You cannot miss a call if you partner with a phone answering service — It takes one call to seal a multi-million deal. You could also delight a return customer who could become your biggest advocate. It is safe to know that your returning customers and prospects are in the hands of professionals, and you do not have to worry about losing a client or missing an important message. Your answering will help capture every moment.
- Creating a great first impression — Whether you are a business with many years of experience or a start-up, hiring an answering service creates a solid relationship between you and your clients. Also, you maintain a top-notch professional image. You begin a relationship with your customer the instant you answer the call. Make a difference today in your business by hiring a Philadelphia Answering Service.
- Bilingual phone answering agents.
- Saving time on receiving unwanted phone calls.
- Enhancing your business’ reputation.
- Appearing as a bigger business with full-time receptionists.
- Avoiding missed calls.
As an entrepreneur, you enjoy many benefits when hiring a virtual receptionist. You could be working remotely or on a mobile basis, anywhere in the world, and have a Philadelphia answering service handle your calls. At Best call center, our answering agents learn your business model, needs, and clientele base down to the finest detail.
Types Of Businesses That Can Use Philadelphia Answering Service
Any industry could use a telephone answering service from a merchant to a real estate agent to a solicitor. With an array of customized solutions available, Best Call Center entails many years of experience offering a first-rate telephone answering service to all enterprises, whether small scale or international conglomerates. Whatever the size of your establishment, our Philadelphia answering service could help.
Below are typical businesses that could use phone answering services:
- E-commerce businesses — In the current world, companies are moving online, and customers embrace the trend. Since many e-commerce stores and establishments lack physical offices to handle business calls, they outsource their customer service needs.
- Healthcare companies — Doctors and physicians handle many inbound calls from appointment scheduling/postponement, billing queries, and patients.
- Retail stores. Big retail shops receive many inbound calls from customers. Phone answering services could help handle calls and customer queries.
- Construction companies — For instance, construction workers could require phone answering services to respond to client calls while they are on a construction site.
- Marketing agencies
- Real-estate agencies — These companies could need telephone answering services to handle overflow calls or after-hours calls and set up appointments to showcase their property.
- Accounting firms— Accountants are tasked with a heavy workload while handling client concerns and questions. An ideal way to lighten up the workload is hiring an answering service.
- Law firms — Attorneys have tight schedules filled with daily workloads to answer calls around the clock. Virtual receptionists could help law offices redirect calls to the right lawyers, set up appointments, respond to billing queries, and much more.
- Other big businesses, especially those handling high call volumes, like health and safety companies, dentists, insurance companies, franchises, and IT firms.
Whether you are an independent plumber receiving one or two calls weekly, or an expansive law firm handling 200 plus inbound calls, a telephone answering service could help manage your calls more efficiently.
How To Choose The Right Phone Answering Service For Your Business
You want to choose a phone answering service that meets your business’s needs. This is because your answering agent is the door to your business. They will be talking to your new and existing clients every day. Therefore, you should be keen when picking your virtual receptionist. Great tips of picking the right phone answering service are but are not limited to:
- Insist on knowing who will be handling your business’s calls. You want to know if a dedicated receptionist or many people will answer your calls.
- Find out where the virtual receptionist is based.
- Schedule an appointment with your Philadelphia answering service. Visit the offices to meet your receptionist, who will be handling your calls.
- Ask your service provider what services they cover. For example, do they offer support around-the-clock, voicemail systems, or business phone numbers?
- Check out if the contractual terms meet your business’s needs.
The costs of Hiring a Philadelphia Answering Service
As explained earlier, phone answering services save you money because it is cheaper out-of-pocket than hiring a customer service team. Different service providers have different pricing models. However, the companies have a standard pricing strategy, including:
Pay Per Communication Unit
Under pay per communication unit, your service provider charges you every time you talk to your customer or virtual receptionist. If your virtual receptionist sends you an email update, customer’s text message, or forward a customer call, you pay for eerie interaction. On average, a communication unit could cost up to $1. Be sure to inquire what one “unit” entails from your answering service to avoid receiving bills you cannot decipher.
Pay Per Call
If you opt for the “pay per call” model, your phone answering service charges you a price per every call with a customer, regardless of the call’s length. If your company demands length call times, hiring an answering service could be ideal. The industry-standard rate per call is approximately $1 per call.
Pay Per Minute
The pay per minute is the most common pricing model amongst business owners. You pay for every minute you spend on the call with a customer if you choose the pay per minute option. The average cost per minute could range from anywhere between $0.5 and $1.5. Normally, businesses that use this pricing model receive discounts, especially when you buy packages that entail more minutes.
Hire a Philadelphia Answering Service Near Me
Your virtual receptionist’s attention to detail and professionalism allows your customers to relax and do the work at hand, knowing that your calls are in safe hands. The good fact about a phone answering service is that you could run your business while enjoying the benefits of a full-time receptionist without the administration and paperwork associated with a worker.
Outsourcing your phone answering service is not only cheaper, but it is also less hassle. You won't worry about sick days, pensions, holidays, and lengthy contracts. Also, it is a good way to improve your productivity and grow your business without the need to hire new staff. To enjoy these benefits, consider hiring a Philadelphia Answering Service.
At Best Call Center, you benefit from our first-rate technology, amazing virtual receptionists, relentless commitment, and affordable call rates. You have nothing to lose. Reach us at 800-385-4656 if you seek a reliable answering service in any part of the United States.