Running a business can feel utterly time-draining, to say the least, with many different people competing for your time; it’s far from a side project. Especially despairingly, you might not always be ready to meet up with concerned staff or customers face-to-face.
For example, you might be notified of an incoming call on your day off, while on a business trip or simply when your schedule is already looking punishing. Could you still manage to take that call?
Could an answering service be the answer?
An answering service works through receiving calls that were meant for your firm’s staff but are instead redirected to the service’s staff, who will handle the caller’s issue on your company’s behalf.
At Planet Numbers, we offer a telephone answering service where between 8:30 and 18:00 from Monday to Friday, our professional UK operators can take calls and, if you wish, transfer them to another line, such as your mobile.
A choice of voice with a voicemail service
While being greeted by a blatant voicemail message can cause disgruntlement in a caller, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you should completely forgo voicemail as an option. After all, the real issue could be the voicemail greeting itself. Does it sound unprofessional?
If your voice disconcertingly wavers in the existing greeting, you could have it updated. In fact, this is likely necessary anyway if that greeting has been left unchanged for over a year, says HubSpot.
Consider recruiting remote workers
If your employee base already includes a few remote workers, you might have originally chosen them to reduce your expenditure on office space or simply permit a degree of flexible working.
However, they can prove surprisingly useful for taking business calls in your absence, too. Minutehack says that this is the case because these workers are “always contactable and can action things from home, rather than making people wait until they’re back in the office again.”
Implement a VoIP phone system
Still feel uneasy about the idea of relinquishing too much control of your company’s customer service? You could find that the company’s phone system is the real culprit for your struggles.
If you haven’t yet updated it to a hosted VoIP phone service, you could be missing out on as much as 90% in monthly savings on phone bills. The service would let you manage calls online and can be integrated with mobiles to make even communication across geographic borders surprisingly simple.
Live and chatting: the appeal of live chat
The merits of a VoIP system include the options of making video calls and holding video conferences, but either could feel like overkill for handling minor issues. Hence, people could opt to send you quick questions in an email, but those queries could quickly be obscured in a crowded inbox.
That’s why you should consider setting up a live chat amenity allowing people to submit simple questions – even along the lines of “Are you ready to take this call?” – to your prompt notice.
