What Is an Answering Service and What Can It Do for Your Business?
We’ve all been there, leaving an after-hours voicemail and crossing our fingers, hoping our call gets returned the next day. It seems that half the time, it doesn’t, and we end up calling back more frustrated than ever.
If your customers feel this way (and we’re sure they do), then you need an answering service. What is an answering service? Just keep reading.
What Is an Answering Service?
An answering service handles communication between your business and its customers. It ensures timely, efficient, and accurate service that leaves a good impression. A call answering service like Answering365 provides around-the-clock support with professional, U.S.-based live agents on the line to assist your business with:
- Incoming calls
- Appointment scheduling
- Inbound telemarketing
- 24-hour customer support
- Emergency dispatching
What Does an Answering Service Do?
Answering services assist a business by establishing a solid reputation for delivering an exceptional caller experience. It does this by providing the following five services.
1. Virtual Receptionist Services
As a small business, you may not be able to afford a full-time receptionist to professionally greet your callers and route them to the right person. But with virtual receptionist services, you get all the perks without the expensive costs associated with hiring, training, and paying an additional employee.
Furthermore, your client or patient’s information is always kept 100% confidential and compliant with HIPAA requirements when you use virtual receptionist services.
2. Appointment Scheduling
An answering service manages all the scheduling, rescheduling, and appointment confirmation. Streamlined appointment scheduling means your business isn’t missing out on potential revenue when you’re not available to take a call.
This service is also important for small businesses that need to focus on the task or person right before them without interruption. Rather than sending calls to voicemail and chancing a lost customer, let an answering service represent you and get new customers on the books.
3. Inbound Telemarketing
As an extension of your business, inbound telemarketing uses a dynamic scripting platform and the latest database management tools to take and process orders, handle surveys, and offer sales support. Services are customized to meet exact protocols for lead capturing.
At Answering365, our telemarketing services are guaranteed for defined service quality assurance (SQA).
4. Emergency Dispatching
Missing urgent calls that come in after hours, over the weekend, and on holidays can be problematic both for your patrons and your business. A 24/7 answering service provides emergency dispatch for doctors, information technology, property managers, plumbers, electricians, and other on-call businesses.
Trained agents will:
- Precisely follow your script and triage protocol
- Locate, manage, and dispatch on-call technicians
- Process messages through multiple communication channels
- Document the call and its outcome
5. Bilingual Support
The U.S. is the second-largest Spanish-speaking country globally, home to 41 million native Spanish speakers and nearly 12 million bilingual Spanish speakers. There’s no doubt—your business needs a bilingual answering service to reach more potential clients and significantly increase its revenue.
By expanding how your business communicates, you position yourself to:
- Better assist callers in their native language
- Build trust and loyalty
- Increase the value of caller engagement and experience
What Businesses Use a Phone Answering Service?
Small and large businesses use phone answering services to provide 24-hour service for customers, clients, and patients. Answering service agents are trained and certified in call taking, messaging, appointment setting, and dispatching for the following industries:
- Attorney and Legal
- Contractors
- Disaster Restoration
- Healthcare
- HVAC
- Information Technology
- Pest Control
- Plumbing
- Property Management
- Real Estate
- Small Business
Any business that receives incoming calls can use an answering service to its advantage. Never miss an urgent call, save money on salary and benefits, and establish a healthier work/life balance when you partner with professional agents who handle your customers with care.
What Are the Benefits of a Phone Answering Service?
Having a phone answering service for your business brings many financial and reputational benefits.
- Being available to customers 24 hours a day, even on weekends and holidays. Having this option means you can stay in touch with current and potential clients as much as possible, allowing you to deliver exceptional service whenever is most convenient for them.
- Ridding yourself of time-consuming appointment scheduling, rescheduling, and confirming. Appointments will run more smoothly, and wait times will be shorter.
- Getting assistance with lead generation when customers call in response to ads or offers. A highly trained answering agent can provide specialized sales support to help grow your business.
- Saving costs on equipment, staff hiring, training, and salary and benefits. When you choose to outsource your answering service, you’re looking at significant savings that can be put to better use.
- Giving better customer service, both on the phone and in person. Customers value attentive service, so having a dedicated agent to ensure all needs are met is a welcome benefit to phone customers. Additionally, in-person customers enjoy having uninterrupted service without the constant ringing and answering of phone calls during their appointment time.
- Increasing your reach with bilingual agents. Communicating professionally and personably with Spanish-speaking customers and patients helps you break into new markets while building trust with those who require your services.
- Finding more time to focus on growing your business. Ideate, innovate, and develop new products and services with all the time you’re saving by not taking phone calls. You can put your efforts toward more important things, like gaining higher profits.
- Maintaining a better work/life balance for you and your staff. When you have a call answering service, you can enjoy time away from work without distraction. You’ll still have peace of mind knowing your customers and patients get all the help they need.
- Responding quickly to urgent or emergency matters. Dispatching services will follow accurate scripts and triage protocol to ensure no time is wasted when someone calls for help.
Contact Answering 365
It matters which answering service you choose to represent your business. You want to partner with one that has the expertise and experience to give you and your customers the care you deserve.
Answering 365 has been taking professional calls for businesses big and small for over 25 years. We’ve been awarded the ATSI Award of Excellence many times. Our impressive service record is respected in our industry and yours.
For essential business telephone answering support, contact Answering 365!