Running a business where you provide services to your customer requires a seamless connection between the back and the front office at all times. It can sometimes become difficult for a professional to juggle between all the tasks and answering calls. Professionals that need help manning the phone, an answering service is a viable solution.
What is an answering service?
An answering service is a call center that takes and manages calls on your behalf. These call centers convey the appearance of as-in house staff to the people who are calling.
These professional answering services perform a variety of tasks. Here is the list of most common services you can expect from a professional answering service provider:
1. Answering calls: It is a 24/7 service. The personnel who answer the calls can answer questions asked by your customer if you provide them with FAQs and scripted answers.
2. Taking messages: The call center will receive calls and evaluate urgency. If the call does not require your immediate attention, the call center will take a message for you.
3. After–Hour Answering: Call centers help protects your personal time. When you close your services for the day, your customers might call you for all sorts of questions. The call center will take those calls and only forward those calls that require your attention immediately.
4. Overflow of call: Every call you answer, you are putting a potential call on hold. To avoid such a situation, you should hire answering services. For example – if you are a property dealer, you receive calls constantly, which means there is a chance that you might miss 2 to 3 potential customers because you couldn’t answer the phone. To avoid that, hire a property management answering service, who will answer the call if you are busy.
5. Setting appointments: The call center can set up appointments as well if you provide them with your calendar details.
6. Appointment reminder: We know you are busy this is why the professional answering services offer an appointment reminder service where the call center will call the customer to remind them about the upcoming meeting.
7. No hold times: As mentioned above, when you are answering a call, there is another potential customer on hold. But when you choose to answer services, there are almost no hold times. The call will be directed to the call center where your customers will talk to highly trained professionals. This helps in reducing hold times.
8. Payment processing: Many companies offer payment over the phone option where the customer can make the payment using their credit or debit cards.
9. Secure messenger: When dealing with sensitive information, it is important to keep you and your practice safe. Some companies provide a messaging service where you can text your customer safely.
10. Call recording: The call center also provides a call recording feature. This allows you to record all the calls along with time-stamps, which provides accurate and irrefutable records.