Debunking Myths About Telephone Answering Services
With bad customer service reportedly costing $60 billion a year in lost revenue, it’s no wonder this common excuse keeps offices from using answering services. But as the competition in the field has kept growing, the quality of services has increased. Hiring a telephone answering service is now a better way to serve your customers in a lot of cases.
We live in a time where customers want to get answers to their questions as quickly as possible. Your current or future customers could be trying to contact you, you need to be prepared all hours of the day. Medical offices, real estate firms, and even restaurants and shops could all benefit from having a service to answer calls throughout the day as well as off-hours.
If you want to show customers you care about their feedback and their needs at all hours of the day, you should consider hiring a telephone answering service. If you’ve thought of one of these 4 common myths for not hiring a telephone answering service, let us debunk them for you.
- Answering Services Care Less
Many business owners suffer from a combination of pride and hubris. They think that, since they’ve built the company with their talent, ideas, and time, that they know their customers better than anyone else could. If you’ve created a profitable and strong business, you value your position in the community and should be proud of that.
But that doesn’t mean that you’ve hoarded all of the customer service talent in the world. At an answering service, service agents’ only job is to make people happy. If they don’t care about customer service, they don’t stick around the service very long.
You can trust that your answering service will be deeply professional, without the distractions of the goings on of your own office to break their attention.
- Isn’t Everything On The Internet Now?
The short answer? No. Good customer service doesn’t happen on the internet.
Even with companies that offer 24/7 chat agents on the internet, there’s something that still feels impersonal about the service. And until artificial intelligence makes leaps and bounds, talking to another human being is the most empathetic way to give service.
If you want customers to feel valued, a 24/7 phone agent will beat out a chat window or an automatic email reply every time.
- You Pay People To Answer Phones
While it’s important to have people within your building who can deal with issues around your services, think about what it could mean for them to take calls.
When someone has to stop to take a call, who knows what other work they’re neglecting or what could have been interrupted. There are all sorts of other items that are going to pile up while your employee is telling people what time the office closes or where to send in returns.
What if your employees are just too busy to take calls? Do they even know how to answer your phone properly? What happens when you get 10 calls at one time, will they be able to handle the call volume?
An answering service is going to get every call every time without fail and answer it promptly and professionally without distraction.
- Customers Don’t Like Answering Services
While customers prefer to talk directly to their doctor, dentist, or service agent, how often do they end up speaking with them? More often than not, there are intermediaries who take messages and tell the intended recipient of the call to get back.
A Telephone Answering Service Will Increase Revenue
By showing your customers that you care and freeing your employees from fielding phone calls, you could be running a more efficient office. You will also be increasing the quality of customer service that you offer.
If you’re ready to find out more about answering services, check out our rundown of what you can expect.
