Call answering services are lifesavers. They help keep larger businesses afloat by contending with the massive volume of calls they attract whilst also enabling smaller companies to present a professional facade.
But finding a decent call answering service like ours is easier said than done. Most service providers go out of their way to make exaggerated claims in an effort to land contracts. As such, you can’t always take what they say seriously.
You have to keep your eyes open, looking for signs and attributes like the following:
Personnel
A decent answering service is filled with happy call agents. Call agents are the lifeblood of call answering services. Without their skills, service providers cannot function. This is why reliable companies make every effort possible to keep their operators happy.
That means training them where necessary, paying them on time, offering rewards for stellar performance, creating satisfactory conflict resolution programs that will produce a conducive working environment, etc.
An answering service is only as good as its operators. If the operators are not happy, if they keep grumbling about their own company, their productivity is going to suffer. This, in turn, will affect the quality of services they deliver.
Pricing
An attractive call answering service isn’t necessarily one that has the cheapest prices on the market. You need to look for flexibility. Experienced businesses in this field understand the importance of providing products that can cater to the needs of a variety of people.
Whenever an answering service emphasises flat fees whilst also limiting the number of pricing options, you can assume that it doesn’t have its customers’ best interests at heart. Look for companies that are determined to match their pricing policies to the varied budgetary constraints of their customers.
Reliability
Reliability is essential in customer service. You need to know that your service provider will answer every call it receives in a timely manner, reducing waiting times where possible and making sure that all queries presented are resolved to the satisfaction of the caller.
There is no way for you to definitively determine the reliability of an answering service before you use it. But you can approximate their reliability by looking at reviews from their customers and using their experiences to figure out whether or not the answering service in question meets your standards.
Features
Call answering services are primarily designed to answer phone calls (of course!). However, the best service providers in this field will go out of their way to offer additional features such as appointment setting, voicemail, order processing, call transfer, and the like.
Obviously, the company you choose should excel with answering phone calls professionally. But it would be more cost-effective to give your money to a service provider that performs additional tasks like Planet Numbers. This way, you can remove the responsibility for some of those tasks from the shoulders of your employees.
Reputation
Don’t transact with a service provider that’s surrounded by complaints and criticisms. There is nothing wrong with a service provider having detractors. Every company in the world has at least one customer that isn’t satisfied with their offerings.
You cannot please everyone and the presence of criticisms shouldn’t prevent you from doing business with an answering service. What you should look out for are companies with persistent complaints. This shows that their business practices are problematic.
At Planet numbers, we have capable team members who are ready to handle your calls in a professional manner. For further enquiries, please call 08000 886 886 to discuss your requirements with one of our friendly agents.
