Call answering is a big part of any business and forms a key function in your customer service, regardless of your business’ size.
But when you’re a small business – either a solo owner or one with a few employees – it forms an even bigger component of your business because you can’t afford to miss a single call.
Miss a call from a prospect and you potentially miss a sale.
Miss a call from a customer and you could damage your reputation and potentially lose clients because of poor service.
One answer is to invest in a telephone answering service for your small business.
However, as any small business owner will know, when your resources are limited you need to be careful about every penny you invest, so how can you be sure a telephone answering service is going to pay off and provide the right ROI for your small business?
Here we look at the main reasons a telephone answering service is good for a small business:
1 – It’s cheaper than hiring staff
With a telephone answering service you only pay for the calls they deal with. Whether it’s minutes spent on the call or the volume of calls they handle.
However the payments work it will always work out cheaper than if you hire a receptionist or member of staff to deal with your phone calls.
Plus, with a phone answering service you get access to a team of call handlers who can cover each other ensuring your phone is always answered. With a single member of staff as soon as they’re engaged with one customer, they can’t deal with another one and you instantly lose your call answering resource.
2 – Free you up to be more productive
When you’re a small business, any phone call can take you away from value added tasks, but especially when it’s nuisance calls or ones which just take up your time.
But you can’t afford to miss them when any one of them could be the chance of a sale.
And you don’t have the time to answer every call.
Hiring a telephone answering service simply means you never need to worry about missing a sales call by not answering the phone, while giving you the time you need to complete work and grow your business.
3 – Makes it easier to work remotely
As every business will know, being able to work remotely at least some of the time has become non-negotiable for some employees while it’s also helping businesses expand without the high costs of a single office.
But without a single point of contact it can be difficult for your business to remain connected to customers – or at least not without relying on employees handing out their personal numbers, or investing in business phones for everyone.
With a telephone answering service you can retain your business’ single point of contact (even if it’s just virtually) while ensuring calls are still taken and transferred to the right people, wherever they’re working.
4 – Improve your business processes
Whether you want someone to qualify leads for you so you’re only dealing with hot leads, or you want to avoid nuisance sales calls or add a payment function to your business, a telephone answering service can improve your business processes.
Without investing in expensive technology or full-time staff, you can make your business more productive and effective.
5 – Extend your opening hours
While you’re always going to be busy as a small business owner you don’t want to spend all day every day on the phone, but not everyone is going to call you during your normal business hours.
Hiring a call answering service means you can extend your opening hours beyond the usual 9-5 (including adding weekend services to your business) without the need to extend your own working hours.
6 – Service that expands as your business does
In some cases a small business will go through a growth phase in some circumstances they’ll outgrow the investments they made as a smaller company.
If that happens, they’ll have to spend more time and resources finding new investments and infrastructure to fit their new status.
But telephone answering is a service that can expand and grow with your business so you can retain the same level of service you’ve always had – just more of it.
Invest in call answering and thrive as a small business
If you’re a small business, your investments should achieve a couple of objectives:
- Improve your efficiency
- Reduce your outgoings compared to other investment options
- Help you improve your productivity
- Help you grow your business
While these can’t always be guaranteed with your investments, a telephone answering service is a long term one that can continue to grow and adapt to your business as you change.
Want to make good investments as a small business that can benefit you as your business grows?
Get in touch with Face For Business.
