On an average day, how many times would you say your phone rings? 5? 10? Maybe you run a very busy office and your phone is ringing multiples times every hour. Now ask yourself, how many of those calls get picked up, and how many of them get left to go to voicemail, cut off, or just missed altogether? According to studies, missing just two phone calls a week can lead to 104 missed opportunities every year – that’s £90 million in lost revenue worldwide! Just think of the difference it would make if you had a call answering service on board. Plus the chances are, your customers wouldn’t even be aware that you were using one.
1. Save Money
Many businesses will look at a call answering service or a virtual receptionist and think ‘why wouldn’t I just hire an actual receptionist to answer my phones?’ But here’s the thing. Hiring a receptionist is going to cost you upwards of £20k a year in salary, plus holiday pay, sick leave, the cost of cover, bonuses, benefits, training and all the other costs that come with hiring and retaining a member of staff. Hiring a telephone answering service costs a fraction of that, with prices starting at just 40p an hour, and it’s only based on the number of hours or calls you actually use. When you crunch the numbers, the telephone answering service always comes out as the cheaper option.
2. Always Sound Professional
You never get a second chance at a first impression, which is why it’s so important for you to hone yours. To make the most of the calls coming into your business, you need a professional and friendly voice at the end of the line. If you hire an in-house receptionist or answer calls yourself, the quality of your response will vary. You might be having a bad day or be very busy, and you might end up giving a less than stellar impression to some of your callers. With a professional call answering service you have a guaranteed and consistent voice for your business, creating the best first impression possible every time.
3. Spend More Time On What Matters
At the end of the day, you have a business to run. You don’t want to be picking up the phone every 10 minutes and having your day interrupted, even if those calls are all new business. It takes the human brain an average of 23 minutes and 15 seconds to refocus after an interruption (in this study they used emails and phone calls), so if you want to be as productive as possible, you need to cut out the distractions. A telephone answering service can make sure that every time your phone rings, it rings in our offices, not yours, so your day doesn’t get interrupted, but your calls still get answered. Your calls are answered, filtered and resolved virtually, without any input needed from you, so you can go back to dealing with the important things.
4. Get More Than You Bargain For
While the label says ‘call answering service’, there is far more in the virtual receptionist and call answering ‘tin’ than that. Virtual telephone answering services like ours can also help you with other things, like faxing documents, taking payments, making bookings, managing diaries and transferring calls to the appropriate people. If you’re finding it hard to manage your schedule, then outsourcing your call handling is a great way to give yourself back some time. Want to get more done? Use a call answering service.
5. Create The Illusion Of Size
The dynamics of the business world have changed over the years, with modern clients looking for experienced, established businesses who know what they are doing. If you’re going after the bigger clients in the pond, then you may need to appear like a bigger company yourself to get their attention. A telephone answering service can help you there, making your business look bigger than it is and lending some legitimacy to your brands name and voice. It also gives you a professional image and consistent service, making it easier for customers to trust you.
6. Improve Customer Service
Many small businesses worry that if they use a call answering service, they will lose the ‘personal touch’ that makes them special. That might be the case with some of the more generic service providers, but here at Verbatim, the personal touch is what we do best. For over 20 years we’ve been trusted by some of the biggest (and indeed the smallest) companies in the country to answer their calls. We treat every interaction with the greatest care and respect. Your customers are our customers; and we will never forget that.
At Verbatim, we love helping business owners improve the running of their business in any way we can. Whether that’s creating a killer first impression with customers, increasing your booking numbers or just giving you back some previous time. Our team can provide a wide range of call answering services designed to give you the support you need to run and grow a successful business, with prices starting as low as 40p per hour. We’re so confident in our service that we offer a trial with a 100% money back guarantee. To find out more about how a call answering service could benefit your business, just get in touch with the team today.
