Admittedly, not all businesses are in dire need of live answering services. Some companies can afford their in-house communications team, while others handle only a small volume of calls.
However, some businesses are better off outsourcing their live answering. A live answering service brings them better ROI and gets them more clients. More importantly, it frees up the time of their employees to perform core functions.
Here are five signs that your business needs a live answering service.
You Lose Sales Because You Miss Calls
You or your staff can’t always answer the call. The employees are busy performing their core functions while you’re occupied with meetings and troubleshooting. As such, not all calls are answered.
Missed calls mean missed revenue opportunities. With fierce competition, a customer who feels unappreciated can easily drop your brand and switch to a competitor. In fact, 96% of customers say that customer service is a key factor in brand loyalty.
You won’t encounter these problems if you have live answering services. No call will be missed.
Clients Hang Up on Voicemail
The last thing people want to hear over the phone is a voicemail. Five years ago, the average voicemail response rate was about 5%, and that figure continues to dwindle as customers demand personal attention. In addition, about 80% of callers don’t leave messages. When it comes to the live vs. automated answering services, there’s no question: a live person wins.
When clients hang up on voicemail, that’s as good as a missed call and, by extension, a missed revenue opportunity.
In contrast, 24-hour live answering services ensure that clients don’t go to voicemail. Instead, there’s an agent who’s always available to answer their questions and give them the attention they expect.
You Don’t Have Excellent Customer Service Skills
Customer service is not easy; it requires certain skills that not all employees have. While your staff is, no doubt, excellent at creating products and providing your services, they might not be adept at answering phone calls.
About 33% of customers say that talking to a friendly and knowledgeable representative is the most important aspect of a good customer service experience. That, however, is easier said than done. Customers are notoriously impatient and want issues resolved in a single interaction. Your staff might not be well-versed in that arena.
If you outsource customer service to trained agents, your customer experience is in better hands. Live professional agents know how to direct a conversation toward a resolution. They’re attentive, responsive, and knowledgeable.
Phone Calls Take You Away from Business Priorities
Let’s say that customer service is your strength and that you’re effective at turning leads to conversions over the phone. A possible drawback is that the phone calls might be taking you away from your core function.
If you outsource the calls to a trained agent, your customer service is still in good hands, and you’re free to focus on business priorities. Remember that a professional agent can take care of the calls, but only you can perform your job role within the company.
You Have Limited Resources
An in-house receptionist can easily solve all the problems we’ve mentioned so far.
However, not all companies have the resources to hire a live operator to man the phones. It can be expensive, especially for a small business, to hire, train, and retain an employee whose sole job is to answer calls. While invaluable, a human operator is not something all companies can afford.
This is why businesses outsource their live answering. It’s a cost-effective solution because they manage the influx of calls at a fraction of the cost of hiring a live operator. Businesses have the confidence that their customers will be attended to, no matter the volume of the calls.
