When it comes to handling customers over the phone, is it enough to just be able to give your customers a smile and treat them respectfully? This is a quick “NO”. If you are to provide the best customer service, you have to be prepared to answer any questions that a customer may have about what you do, and who you are, not just as an individual, but also as a company or business. While charm’s always good, a great customer service representative is trained in ways that most small business owners aren’t; completely customer savvy. Sure, most businesses out there have the resources to hire an entire staff of their own to handle these types of things. But what if you’re just a small business? More often than not, you may not have the means necessary, or the funds even, to hire a special support team of your own.
And that’s just one reason why you need a business answering service for your small business. There are more reasons than that, however, and we’ll cover them here!
- By saving a little bit on support, you gain more in the capital.
Many times, you may want to run your small business in a team environment; however, this isn’t always the best option. By having your entire staff act as customer service representatives, you’re taking their time away from what other things need to be done. And time is money. By paying a smaller fee to have someone else shave that time off for you though, you are able to make sure that you or everyone else in your job can actually get their work done more efficiently, and save time, which ultimately saves you money, and can help you actually make more money. - With a live answering service, you can actually keep your customer base.
This factor is simply because nobody likes to have to answer to machines. Think about it.
How many times have you called a number, had to go through a bunch of automated system options, only to find out that you dialed the wrong number sequence to reach somebody? By having a virtual answering service, you can ensure that your customers don’t have to go through this, and can always reach someone before they want to hang up. This can help you make sure that you can keep these customers, and resolve any issues necessary before they escalate or become frustrated. - You can’t be everywhere at once.
This is a common problem. Think about how many times on your own, you would have a customer or client call in, and then your phone gets blown up with a ton more calls at the same time, all because your system may be having an issue, or the customers themselves are. You can’t answer all of these calls at once, and neither can everybody in the office (remember the first paragraph in this list). By having a live answering service for your small business, you can ensure that your customers are always answered, taken care of, and sometimes you won’t even have to pick up the phone or be the one to resolve their issues. Only those calls which are of the top priority will get passed along back to you, so this enables you to save even more time than mentioned above.
