Many organizations find using phone answering and virtual receptionist services incredibly helpful for a number of reasons. Here are six benefits of utilizing a telephone answering service.
1. More Cost-effective
The main draw of using a phone answering service is its cost-effectiveness. While you do need to pay to use a phone answering service, the cost is much lower than that of seeking applicants, hiring and onboarding them and providing benefits. The employees of a phone answering service will have been hired by that service and therefore be paid by that company. This means you’ll pay one monthly fee rather than multiple salaries and benefits.
2. Better Customer Service
Most phone answering services, such as VoiceNation, focus on providing excellent service, both to the organizations they work with and the customers of those organizations. At this type of service, the focus of the whole job is customer service. If you have an in-house phone answering service, those employees may not be dedicated solely to answering phones, particularly if your organization is small. Outsourcing your customer service allows you to ensure your customer service will be good without needing your own employees to perform double duties.
3. After-hours Service
One of the great but lesser-known benefits of outsourcing your phone services is after-hours service. If, for example, your employees keep regular nine to five business hours, then once they leave the office or log off their work computers, they’re unlikely to be answering any calls or emails. Depending on the service, its employees may be in your time zone or a close time zone and working different shifts to your employees, or the employees may be on the other side of the world. Either way, with a phone answering service, you can be more sure any calls that come in after hours will be answered.
4. More Productivity
Phone service associates can assist in a variety of departments, not just in customer service roles. They can act as virtual assistants to a specific office within your organization, such as taking calls for your CEO for example. Alternatively, you could contract a phone answering service to field basic IT questions and divert more complex issues to internal staff with more experience and knowledge of your products. Employees in departments supported by these services can then focus on other tasks, which makes your employees more productive. No one will need to stop what he or she is doing to answer a phone call, which can both break his or her concentration and slow down his or her workflow.
5. Easier Scheduling Services
If your organization does a lot of appointment or meeting scheduling with clients, customers or patients, you’ll know that phone tag can and does occur. It can be frustrating to deal with missing a call, calling back, getting the caller’s voicemail and possibly repeating this cycle several times over. If you work with a phone answering service, those employees can handle all of your scheduling needs more quickly and without requiring your customers to leave so many voicemails.
6. Better Time Management
Virtual phone answering and receptionist services allow your employees to not only be more productive but also to better manage their time. Employees who are used to taking time out of their days to answer the phone may feel rushed or like they’re constantly missing deadlines. By utilizing a telephone answering service, your employees can take the time they need to focus on important tasks without worrying about needing to stop to answer the phone and then rush work or request later deadlines.
Think about your current customer service and reception practices. If you find things that could be improved or made more efficient, it’s possible a phone answering service may help.