Why use an answering service to grow your business
6 reasons why use an answering service to grow your business
If you’re like most owners or managers, you’re always looking for ways to grow your business. But you face numerous challenges that can prevent growth. One is competing with bigger rivals that have established brands. Another is taking on companies with huge marketing budgets.
What you need is a way to level the playing field. A good telephone answering service does that. In fact, today’s answering companies, like Unicom, offer a variety of services that can not only boost but also increase profitability. And that can be just what the doctored ordered when fighting for life in a crowded marketplace.
Why use an answering service?
Today’s answer services, however, aren’t your father’s answering services. They go way beyond answering phones and delivering messages. Answering service often offers capabilities—24-hour answering, appointment scheduling, bilingual answering, email response, and social media monitoring—that free you to critical activities, like helping clients or customers.
Below are six ways telephone answering services can help grow your business:
Increase customer satisfaction
Keeping customers satisfied is the key to creating brand loyalty. That generates repeat business and boosts revenues. Answering services add a personal touch to handling your phones, provides around the clock support, and increases your call capacity.
They also deliver streamlined messaging and enhance employee focus. In other words, they help deliver good customer service, which boosts customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers usually stay with these types of companies.
Make a great first impression
You only get one chance to make a good first impression, which means you can’t afford to botch it. If you have professional answering service handling your calls, you can be sure that callers will form a favorable impression of your company.
If you’re a lawyer, doctor, architect, or another professional service firm, making a good first impression is especially imperative. Research shows that 50% of consumers won’t call another firm if they talk to a person when shopping for professional services and have a “positive” experience with that call.
Reduce call abandonment
Call abandonment a concern for many small businesses—especially if they need to provide 24/7 support for customers or clients. That requires a full-time staff to answer the phones around the clock—which is costly.
A 24-hour telephone answering service provides round the clock support cost-effectively. Plus, it prevents hang-ups that occur when people get automated messages or voice mail. Or worse, when they get no answer at all, which can result in a lot of lost business.
Boosts industry reputation
Research shows that more than 50% of unhappy customers voice complaints when they get poor service, hurting your reputation throughout the industry. Poor customer service costs US businesses $60+ billion annually. Much of this business comes via phone-based service problems with the most common complaints about rude staff and being put on hold too long.
A professional answering service eliminates these problems. It also increases consumer accessibility and market presence for your business. That, in turn, improves your reputation industry-wide, giving you a competitive edge over rivals that aren’t as responsive.
Increase positive customer reviews
Getting positive online reviews is like finding gold. That’s because customers greatly value online reviews. In fact, research shows that 97% of customers admit that online reviews influence their buying decisions.
Increasing accessibility through better telephone support eliminates one of the critical frustrations consumers say they experience with companies while boosting customer service and satisfaction. That, in turn, can generate positive online reviews.
Strengthens customer service
Improve employees focus on customer needs. Help troubleshoot product or service problems. Cut time spent on monitoring and addressing business communication. These are just some of the ways that an answering service can help you boost customer service.
That, in turn, leads to consistent revenue streams. While this may not seem like a big deal, it helps significantly in the long run. More importantly, reliable customer service delivers business value to customers.
Growing your business is a must if you want to thrive in the long run. But growing a business is a challenge no matter what the industry or how big or small you are. That’s why business owners and managers like yourself are always looking for ways to grow their company.
A good telephone answering service can help. It levels the playing field when facing well-healed rivals with more resources or bigger marketing budgets. More importantly, a good answering service can help you boost growth. And that can make all the difference in the world.
