Telephone Answering Services: Your Modern Day Receptionist and Customer Service Team

A call centre, otherwise known as a telephone answering service or inbound call handling, is a very popular tool for many companies worldwide. In modern business, a telephone answering service plays a vital role in creating stronger bonds between the company and its customers.

These services work as a sort of virtual receptionist. Incoming calls are forwarded to the inbound call handling centre, where the customer is taken care of by a staff of knowledgeable, professional, and friendly representatives. These call centres handle tasks such as taking customer calls, scheduling appointments, processing sale orders, and offering technical support or information on products.

These services are very cost effective and have many benefits for large companies as well as for any business with a large call volume that they are having trouble taking care of in-house, businesses with traveling executives, or businesses who would like to be able to offer customer service 24 hours a day without needing to hire their own overnight staff of customer service representatives.

The Many Benefits of Inbound Call Handling

There are many ways that a business can benefit from using a telephone answering service. Whether their call volume is so high that they decide to hire a service full-time, or they just want to take advantage of the services after business hours, inbound call handling is the perfect solution to issues that arise due to large call volumes.

These services are very cost effective. The price you would have to pay to take advantage of telephone answering services is much lower than hiring a person or a team to handle the phones for your business. If you hire people, there are salaries and benefits that you need to consider in addition to time used to train new employees to answer calls. A call centre charges one lower rate and will always be able to provide your company with trained and friendly professionals who are there to help your business.
Telephone answering services also work as a stand-by should one of your employees need time off. You will have the option to use the staff that handles your inbound calls to take on some of the work that your employees would usually cover, which will lighten the workload for the rest of the staff during the time the employee is away.

Taking advantage of the 24-hour inbound call handling is a great benefit to many services, especially for ones whose client base extends across the country or around the world. Being available to your customers 24 hours a day will help to establish stronger relations with them. It also keeps your business open around the clock for taking on new customers who are interested in your products or services.

Services for Any Kind of Business

There are many different types of businesses who can and do benefit from using telephone answering services today. The businesses that benefit most are the ones that have grown large enough that it is impossible for the staff at one location to take on all of the customer calls. These calls include new customers, existing customers who may have questions or concerns about the product or service they have purchased, or new customers who would like to purchase whatever it is the business has to offer. The most common types of businesses that take advantage of inbound call handling include:

• Property management companies, and especially ones who deal with large apartment complexes or buildings such as shopping malls or business parks. These companies usually receive a large volume of calls from customers inquiring about various properties. They may also have existing customers who call with maintenance requests or other issues. These companies have a great chance of benefitting from the customer support by using a telephone answering service.

• Information technology businesses who provide computer or other technological support to their clients can benefit greatly from using an inbound call handling service that specializes in information technology when call volume gets too high for the employees to handle on their own. Many customers who call into these businesses have very simple issues that someone with minimal experience could handle.

• Government agencies, such as the Department of Health and the Food Standards Agency bring in hundreds or thousands of calls every single day. The volume is much too high for one office to handle, so these agencies really benefit from the professional services that a telephone answering service can provide. When government officials are much too busy to speak with callers, they pass them through to an inbound call handling service where a friendly professional is available to answer questions as best they can.

• Telephone answering services are essential for any cable, satellite, internet, or cell phone service provider today. Between inquiries about services, billing issues, technical issues, and new customers, these businesses have enormous call volumes to handle and often take advantage of several inbound call handling centres in order to keep their customers satisfied.

What to Look for

If your business is seeking a company to provide telephone answering services, there are some important areas to focus on before choosing one to handle the calls. It is advised that your always do some background research on the companies you are considering and make sure you choose one that is best for your company, otherwise you could end up losing business by frustrating your customers.

A good idea is to find a call centre in your area and visit the physical office. Speak to the agents who work there and see whether or not the managing director is involved in the daily operations there. If the inbound call handling centre has seen a high turnover rate with their employees, or if the managing director is not involved in their everyday work, they are probably not the best option as they may not be too concerned with customer satisfaction.

Another important thing to look for is whether the call centre is knowledgeable about what your business specializes in. It is good to find a company who has served similar businesses to yours and has developed a good reputation through their work.

Netcall Solutions is a reputable telephone answering service and is a good place to begin your search for inbound call handling centres in the UK.