Introduction In today’s fast-paced business landscape, small businesses face numerous challenges in staying competitive and ensuring smooth operations while maintaining excellent customer service. One valuable solution that has emerged to support these endeavors is remote receptionist services. A remote receptionist is a trained professional who handles various administrative tasks and customer interactions virtually. In this essay, we will explore how a remote receptionist service can significantly benefit a small business across various aspects.
Cost Savings For many small businesses, hiring a full-time, in-house receptionist can be financially burdensome. With a remote receptionist service, businesses can save on expenses related to salary, benefits, office space, and equipment. The pay-as-you-go model allows businesses to choose the level of service they need, reducing costs during slower periods and scaling up during peak times.
Improved Customer Service A remote receptionist service offers professional and courteous customer service to clients and potential customers. Calls are answered promptly, and inquiries are addressed efficiently, enhancing the overall customer experience. This high level of service leaves a positive impression, potentially leading to customer loyalty and word-of-mouth referrals.
24/7 Availability Small businesses often struggle to provide round-the-clock support. With a remote receptionist service, calls can be handled outside regular business hours, ensuring that critical inquiries are attended to promptly, even during weekends and holidays. This availability boosts customer satisfaction and gives the business a competitive edge.
Streamlined Administrative Tasks A remote receptionist can handle various administrative tasks, such as appointment scheduling, call routing, email management, and data entry. By delegating these responsibilities, small business owners and employees can focus on core tasks, such as product development, marketing, and customer engagement, leading to increased productivity and efficiency.
Enhanced Professional Image A remote receptionist service conveys a professional image to clients and partners. Calls are answered with a personalized greeting and a consistent brand voice, leaving a positive impression of a well-organized and reputable business. This image can help small businesses compete with larger counterparts in their industry.
Flexibility and Scalability Small businesses often experience fluctuating call volumes due to seasonal demands or marketing campaigns. A remote receptionist service offers the flexibility to adapt to these changes. The service can easily scale up or down based on the business’s needs, providing cost-effective solutions to accommodate business growth.
Language and Cultural Diversity In today’s global marketplace, small businesses may encounter customers or clients from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Remote receptionist services can cater to this diversity by offering multilingual support, helping businesses effectively communicate with a broader audience and establish stronger international partnerships.
Focus on Core Competencies Outsourcing receptionist services enables small businesses to concentrate on their core competencies. By entrusting customer support and administrative tasks to professionals, business owners can invest more time and effort in business development and strategic decision-making, fostering growth and innovation.
Data Analytics and Insights Many remote receptionist services provide detailed call analytics, allowing small businesses to gain valuable insights into customer behavior and preferences. This data can be used to refine marketing strategies, optimize customer interactions, and improve overall business operations.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery In the face of unforeseen events such as natural disasters or technical failures, a remote receptionist service can ensure business continuity. Calls can be rerouted to backup centers, ensuring that important communication lines remain open and minimizing disruptions to business operations.
Conclusion In conclusion, a remote receptionist service offers a myriad of advantages for small businesses, from cost savings and improved customer service to enhanced efficiency and business continuity. By harnessing the expertise of remote professionals, small businesses can build a strong professional image, focus on core competencies, and expand their reach to a broader and more diverse customer base. Embracing the benefits of a remote receptionist service can be a pivotal step towards growth and success in today’s competitive business landscape.
Virtual Receptionist service costs about $4 per hour. About 75% less than hiring an employee at $12 per hour. Additionally, businesses save money because they don’t have to manage or pay employee taxes or benefits on the service.
What can a virtual receptionist do for my business?
A virtual receptionist can manage a calendar for service providers, take messages and provide general customer support. Law offices, Chriropratcors and other types of businesses can benefit from having extended support hours, thereby improving the opportunity to gain more customers.
How does a virtual receptionist service work?
A business hires a type of contact center that specializes in helping small businesses. The business owner gives the provider instructions on how to handle calls and access to an online calendar or CRM. This would be the same type of training one would give an employee working directly for the company. The process can be personalized to the business owner’s needs.
How does a virtual receptionist benefit a company?
The many benefits of hiring a virtual receptionist. One, a small business can reduce costs. Two, the company can use the extra support to raise productivity with the inhouse team. Three, Virtual receptionist work in teams, so there is always someone available to handle customer questions or book appointments.
Can a virtual receptionist handle emails or chat?
Yes, a virtual receptionist can respond to email or chat. The small business owner can customize the experience to meet there clients’ needs.
Is a virtual receptionist service the same as an answering service?
A virtual receptionist is similar to an answering service but can handle more complex support calls. Most answering services will take a message and send the information off to on-call staff after hours. A virtual reception, on the other hand, acts as an extension of the team. Typically the caller will not know the difference from someone in the office or vice versa.
Where can I find information about Virtual Receptionist services?
You can find out more about our virtual receptionist service by calling Contact One today. We will provide you with a personalized quote with all the details you need for your business.
Most industries have the traditional impression that an answering service just takes messages on their clients’ behalf. Though they certainly can provide quality message taking, they can provide provide plenty of other services, too. An answering service can benefit your business no matter what industry you specialize in. Read on to learn the “whats,” “wheres,” “whens,” and “hows” about answering services.
WHAT
What is an answering service?
By definition, an answering service is “a commercial service that answers telephone calls for its clients.” We at Contact One define an answering service as “a specialized call center that is focused primarily on the needs of the industry it is servicing.” This may include answering important calls on the clients’ behalf, collecting information from callers, and relaying that information to on-call staff.
What does an answering service do?
Answering services are a valuable tool for sales representatives who can’t afford to miss leads because they’re away from the phone. The answering service gives the caller a human voice to interact with, and lends a much more professional appearance to the business than standard voicemail.
What can answering services offer?
Answering services offer a variety of services: overflow call support, live online chat help, appointment scheduling, order taking, message taking, call forwarding, and information collection.
Overflow call support is when the answering service will answer calls that would normally receive a busy signal of the office staff cannot get to the call in a timely manner. This is especially helpful when our clients have unusually high call volume or a staff member calls out sick, leaving you short-handed.
Because answering services can provide live online chat help, appointment setting services, and order taking for online stores, your business never has to miss a potential sale or new customer because you can’t get to the phone or the computer.
In addition to the services listed above, a good answering service should be able to provide reports on any information that is collected. Reports are a way to find out very important information about the types of calls an office is getting, the exact quantity, or even what the busiest days or times are.
WHERE
Though it’s known that answering services and call centers can be located everywhere in the world, these services can still be located within the United States. Contact One, for example, is located in Tucson, Arizona.
Customers, patients, and clients, however, can come in contact with an answering service over the phone or online. Online chat support is a great option when customers do not want to use the phone.
WHEN
When are answering services available?
Answering services are available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and on holidays.. Depending on your industry, the standard nine-to-five coverage may not be enough. When you outsource your calls to a call center, your calls will be answered and addressed appropriately no matter the time of day, week, or month.
WHY
Why would I need an answering service?
There are dozens of scenarios that could prevent you from conducting business at your office. This could be a simple phone system problem, power failure, or frozen pipes. Other threats could be a bad storm that doesn’t do damage, but prevents or delays you from getting to your office.
Having an answering service could solve the problem by answering the phone when you can’t. They can take a message or transfer the calls to your home or mobile phone.
HOW
How can an answering service benefit me?
There are many was an answering service could benefit you.
An answering service can help you gain new customers and keep existing ones. If your existing and prospective customers encounter a busy line or when their calls go unanswered, they’re more likely to move on to a competitor. A dissatisfied customer may also share their negative experience with other people, which could translate to a bigger loss for your company.
Another benefit is that it can help you contain costs. It improves the quality of your company’s customer service without hiring new staff and paying for additional phone lines. The cost for an answering service is just a fraction of what you would pay for a new employee and other related costs (such as training and taxes).
Talk to your answering service about finding ways to streamline your call process. Sometimes the service does not need to collect all the information you do in your office; maybe you only need the callers’ names & numbers, not full addresses.
Answering services are brand elevators! An answering service team is trained in the art of phone communication, and are provided with specific client information and protocols. The team can answer calls with any provided script, ensuring that your brand is being upheld while inquiries are being handled professionally.
Finally, another benefit is something that has already been mentioned: being available at any time of day. A customer service system that operates at all hours of the day will cater to any type of schedule imaginable. This will allow people who work nights to get the assistance they need, even if it’s not during business hours.
How do I find a reliable answering service?
Hiring an answering service is like hiring a new employee. Take the time to outline what you want the answering service to provide for you.
What role would you like the answering service to fill? Act as an overflow receptionist? Do you need triage support? Do you need sales calls transferred to field reps? Maybe the answering service can assist you with prioritizing service calls?
Ask about quality control, too.
What does the answering service do to maintain quality they brag about during the sales process? Do they use independent quality control testing (secret shoppers)? How do they incentivize their employees? How do they screen, hire, and train their employees?
If possible, meet with the team in person and at their location if possible. This gives you an opportunity to meet the staff and make sure they have the right team for the job.
A high quality answering service will identify your needs and evolve with you as your business grows. Contact One provides professional, 24-hour answering services, and we can customize our services to meet the needs of your business. Contact us today to learn how our services can help grow your company.
Customer service is important in all industries, but it is especially crucial in the healthcare industry. Lasting patient-doctor relationships rely on continuous communication, and that includes after-hours. We all know it’s not fun being a patient because of the pain from certain symptoms. This is why it’s very important for patients to hear back from their healthcare provider in a timely manner — it gives them a sense of relief and support.
If you have a growing number of patients, however, it can be a challenge to juggle your medical practice and maintaining that communication. This is where a medical answering service can be of great help.
Hiring a medical answering service for a doctors’ office is like hiring a receptionist to answer the phone. Incoming calls are routed to live, remote receptionists who are well-trained to handle calls in the healthcare industry. These receptionists know what information to collect and how to handle it, and they can handle basic customer service inquiries, make appointments, and forward emergency calls to the right parties.
A medical answering service can benefit your medical practice in many ways, from being HIPAA compliant, having 24-hour availability with quality service, and financial savings.
HIPAA
TheHealth Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996(HIPAA) is a law that aims to protect the privacy of your patients’ medical information. This includes: everything that that healthcare professionals put on a patient’s medical record (including conversations), any information within an insurer’s computer system, and billing information. HIPAA establishes national standards for processing electronic healthcare transactions and requires healthcare organizations to implement them.
It’s important to ensure that your medical answering service complies with HIPAA rules and regulations, just as your practice does. There are serious legal and regulatory risks if your practice or your medical answering service isn’t HIPAA-complaint. Additionally, your practice or your answering service may face serious fines.
AVAILABILITY & QUALITY SERVICE
Medical emergencies can happen during any time of day or night. If one of your patients needs to make an appointment or speak with a doctor right away, they’ll be relieved to find out that your medical answering service is always available. Your medical answering team will be trained to answer calls at any time of day, and will be able to forward urgent cases to the appropriate extensions. Speaking with a live representative, regardless of the time of day, can make patients feel more confident about their care.
The longer you put your patients on hold, the more dissatisfied they become. Responding to patients in a timely manner is an essential quality to possess in the medical world. Another quality is promptness; it’s important to transfer information regarding patient diagnoses, medications, procedures, and other patient concerns so the information is where it needs to be for the appropriate person.
As a provider, you need to feel confident that your medical answering service is taking accurate notes and moving quickly to get critical information to you. Your patients also have to feel confident that the answering service is responsive to their concerns, knowing that it will act quickly to get their questions to the doctor. Your service needs to be part of a network that gets information to you efficiently, provides message delivery confirmation, and that has a reply capability.
The constant demands of the profession make it challenging for healthcare professionals to promptly answer calls from patients. This can yield negative feedback about the practitioner or the medical facility itself.
A knowledgeable medical answering service will have representatives who can provide expert information on all kinds of medical services and practice. This will ensure that all of your patients are satisfied due to the quick, accurate, and personal attention to their needs because of the trained representative. This helps provide quality service to your patients, which can help improve your practice.
Quality service means being there for your patients, and this includes speaking their language. If you have any number of Spanish-speaking patients visiting your office, you should implement a bilingual messaging system to support them. It’s crucial to look for a bilingual medical answering service, where agents possess both written and oral Spanish communication skills. This will ensure that you receive accurate messages and are providing best-in-class care to your bilingual patients.
COST
Now more than ever, there is pressure on the medical industry to contain costs. Good medical answering services will work within your budget and help you find a solution that works without sacrificing quality.
Hiring and training new employees to do what a medical answering service can do costs more time, money, and resources. A reliable call center trained in medical answering services has established systems and processes to get the needed work done. Utilizing the services of a medical answering service is a more cost-effective way to delivering top-quality customer service to patients instead of paying for an employee’s salary and benefits.
There are two common ways that a medical answering service can bill. The first method is “per minute” pricing, and the second is “per call” pricing. When you look at various packages, 95 cents-per-minute is not always more expensive than 75 cents-per-minute.
When comparing “per minute” and “per call” rates, many times you will find that the “per minute” rate is a better value. If you’re getting a lot of calls that last less than thirty seconds, then that one dollar ($1.00) per call is really costing you about two dollars ($2.00) per minute.
It’s important to do whatever it takes to maintain patient trust and confidence in your practice. A doctor’s medical answering service is supposed to represent the medical practice after hours. If it’s done right, the doctor will build a relationship with the service, much like they do with other employees. The most common reason a doctor leaves their medical answering service is because too many mistakes are being made after hours.
Contact One is a call center based in Tucson, Arizona that provides answering services to various industries. Our team is HIPAA-compliant, available at anytime of day, and will provide everyone on the end of the other line with high-quality service. Our highly-trained team of virtual receptionists will provide you with a variety of services.
Call us at 1-800-278-3347 to find out more about what we do, and how we can benefit your medical practice.
Entrepreneurs have great ideas for products and services, but it can be intimidating to start a new venture. Once that small business launches, that entrepreneur hopes that it will be successful. Though there isn’t a defined road map for running a successful business, there are some factors that should be considered while trying to get off the ground. When the small business proves to be successful, most business owners may not be prepared for how quickly his or her small business will grow. The best ways to enhance your business growth depends on the type of business you own, your available resources, and how much you are willing to invest. For example, choosing the best business growth strategy largely depends on what stage of growth your business is currently in. Additionally, the way you interact with your customers in positive and negative situations directly reflects your company and how the public views you.
The following are tips, tricks, and secrets to help you start your business, grow your business, and maintain your success.
Starting A Small Business
Ask questions and do research.
Consider asking yourself some questions before starting a small business. What problem are you solving? Will you need a loan? Who are your customers? Your answers may prompt you to do further research on what more you can do prior to starting your business. Think critically about your funding, marketing, and potential customers amongst other things.
Write a business plan.
A business plan is a document that will help keep you, the business owner, as well as investors and executive employees, on track for the first three to five years. It will provide an in-depth outline to help you set concrete goals, such as setting a time frame for when you will (or should) open a second location. There are many reasons to have a solid business plan; some of these reasons include prioritization, control, and funding.
Take care of the details.
One of the first things that needs to be taken care of before your business is up and running is determining your legal structure. There are a variety of ways to structure a business, including LLC, corporation, and non-profit. From there, you’ll have to register for state and federal taxes, obtain a tax ID number, and any state or federal licenses/permits. You’ll need to set up a merchant account with your local bank to handle your finances. If you plan to accept payments online, you’ll want to partner with a PCI-compliant vendor who can securely process transactions.
Decide what position needs to be filled, and fill it.
One of the most important factors to consider before hiring anyone is the position you need to fill. Once that’s determined, take some time to decide what kind of employee you need so you can be sure to find the best candidate. One way to do this is by writing down the characteristics your dream candidate will have. Then, take these steps before moving forward with making job posts.
Consider outsourcing the position.
A possible solution to filling a position is outsourcing. There are companies that can handle customer service, reservation setting, and even e-commerce services for you. This article from PCG-Services covers the who, what, and hows about outsourcing.
Growing A Small Business
Make yourself available.
To build up your small business, you should understand your target audience and what they’re looking for. To do this, make yourself available to your customers. Listen to their needs and offer your support. This will help build relationships, which will ultimately turn into a growing following. If you’re already having trouble making yourself available, consider a call center that can handle customer service. Business growth is great, but may not be so great if you can’t keep up with the volume.
Engage with your customers.
Thanks to social media, it’s easy to reach out to and engage with potential clients and customers. Think about what kind of business you have, and make accounts on the social media channels that make the most sense. Facebook is logical for most businesses. Putting out content on a consistent basis will help you show your customers that you and your business are continuing to stay relevant and that you want to continue engaging with them.Should a customer or client come to you with a complaint, be sure to follow up with them. This shows that you care about how they feel about the situation.
Build your brand.
Consumers place a high importance on brands. Is it trustworthy? Reliable? Take some time to really think about what your business does, what your business values, how you do it, and the way that you want to interact with your customers. Once you have a firm grasp on what you plan to do, you can start to figure out the best way to brand it. This includes developing a logo and color scheme. Brand building and brand maintenance can be as simple as maintaining social media. Brand-building can also include the other content you give or receive on the web: blogs, posts, reviews and/or testimonials. Increasing your web presence by working on your brand helps people see why they should be part of your company in some way.
Budget carefully.
Since it might take some time for your business to take off, you should be as careful as possible with your budget. If you don’t think you’re quite ready for a receptionist in the office, a call center could be the right choice. This is an affordable alternative to an in-house employee, which means your finances won’t be so tight.
License your product.
Licensing is an effective, minimum cost growth option, especially if your product or service is branded. Compared to starting your own company or business, licensing allows you to minimize your risks while still profiting from your brand or product. If you are interested in licensing, you should first find a licensing partner by researching types of companies that provide services similar to yours.
Diversify.
Diversifying allows you to acquire multiple income streams which can lead to increased sales and profit margins. Common ways to diversify include selling other products that complement your core product or service, and importing/exporting your products. If you found success in your current market, you can also begin looking toward other markets that might use your product.
Retain an excellent team.
It’s much easier to expand your business if you have a qualified, efficient team. But don’t hire based on resumes alone—make sure that you evaluate a potential employee’s personality and attitude in interviews. (Remember what we said about making a list of characteristics?) Having an excellent team will also reflect the kind of customer service you’re providing. If you want to continue to offer your customers the best services, it is very important to make sure you are up to new customer service challenges. Hire more customer service representatives and get them properly trained so they can continue to keep your customers happy.
Open another location.
Like many business owners, opening a new location can be a great option if you are confident in the level of control in your current location. However, it is crucial that your current location is running smoothly financially and with the right staff. If you don’t want to personally manage the new location, you may want to consider franchising. This allows you to grow your core business while maximizing your time spent improving your business in other ways.
Moving forward…
As your business grows, you should develop a plan that helps you manage this growth without major issues. Create a new business model to include any new services you plan to offer to compensate for the growth. Hire more employees if you need extra manpower. You might even want to outsource some areas of your business to ensure that your company can handle the demands that come with the growth. Be careful that you don’t spread you or your business too thin.
Maintaining Success
Always consider your brand.
You started your business for a reason. Your clients and customers remain loyal to you for a reason. Part, or all, of that reason is because of your brand. You are putting something out into the world that people believe in. By remaining focused on that, you can and will maintain your business’ success.
Make yourself different.
If a customer sees six companies that offer the same service(s), it will be difficult to entice them to come to your business. The key to success in the small business world is to make yourself different from your competition. You should constantly research your industry to stay on top of trends that helps you stand out.
Focus on your products and services.
Enticing customers to use your products and services will only get you so far. If you want to enjoy the benefits of repeat customers, you have to offer quality products and services. Make an effort to give your customers quality products and services that will keep them coming back and inspire them to tell their friends and family about your business.
Utilize available technologies.
Implement new technologies and services, like secure messaging and live chat, to enhance your level of customer service. Taking advantage of these technologies will give you a better relationship with your client base. Promoting customer loyalty can help you to increase the lifetime value of each customer.
Continue to make room for growth!
Implement strategies that allow you to scale. Partnering with a call center is a great way to prepare for rapid growth and transition in your company size, and can help your business handle an influx of phone calls and orders when you don’t yet have the manpower to support the additional volume.
As a small business owner, you should always be on the hunt for new ways to succeed in business. This list of newsletters is a great way to stay up-to-date and ahead of the curve. With convenient and easy-to-read articles, you get the information you need about money, marketing, and even how to manage your employees.
Taking customer calls is one of the common struggles of business owners. If this task is also on your list, then maybe it’s time to outsource it to a reputable call center.
How can a call center company help you?
A reputable call center has well-trained agents who can take your customers’ calls promptly and professionally. When it comes to cost, you can actually save more with the services from a call center compared to hiring an in-office receptionist. Plus, we can take calls, provide basic customer service, and more 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (holidays included).
Contact One has been in this industry for decades. Our live answering services have benefit several industries, including:
Law Offices With our virtual receptionist support, we can help your law firm to manage your online calendar. We can also act as your ‘gatekeepers’ so you can focus more on your clients. With our 24/7 availability, you don’t have to worry about your evening and weekend calls as we can also take care of those.
Physicians/Healthcare We have HIPAA-compliant medical answering services to keep your patients’ health information secure and confidential. We have well-trained agents who can manage urgent patient calls outside your usual business hours. Plus, we have HIPAA-compliant messaging services for relaying securely patient information in real-time. We have full-time virtual receptionists who won’t just take your calls but also answer patients’ questions, book and reschedule appointments, relay emergency calls, and handle overflow calls when your in-house staff are unavailable.
Small Business For many small businesses, calls can still get overwhelming even with the most efficient staff. Contact One can definitely help you with that. We can manage your calls, take messages, forward voicemails, send you relevant text information, and even redirect important calls to your cell phone.We offer nights, weekend, and holiday coverage, so you can get a good sleep without having to worry about calls on those times.
Spa and Salon Our 24/7 coverage allows your stylists to focus on their clients 100% without having to worry about missing calls. We can book your clients’ appointments on weekends and other days that your doors are closed. And with our superb live answering and customer service, your clients won’t notice a difference.
Home Maintenance and Contractors If you’re a contractor and running a business, it can be tough to juggle field work and phone customer service. It’s an area we can help you with. We can manage your incoming calls and schedule emergency and routine service appointments for you. While you’re in the field, our receptionists can set appointments for you, notifying you by text or call for the next service location.
Running a business, regardless of its size, can be a challenge. Let us help you get more productive and improve your customer satisfaction. Contact us for a quote.
Medical Answering Services for Better Communication
Medical Answering Services for Better Communication
Lasting patient-doctor relationships rely on continuous communication—one that isn’t confined within business hours. However, if you have a growing number of patients, it can be a challenge to juggle your medical practice and maintaining that communication with your patients. This is where a medical answering service can be of great help.
What’s a medical answering service?
A medical answering service is a specialized answering service that takes care of your incoming calls. This allows you and your staff to be more productive without compromising customer care for your existing and prospective clients.
How does it work?
Your incoming calls are routed to a remote, live receptionists who are well-trained to handle calls in the medical practice. These receptionists can handle basic customer service inquiries, make appointments for incoming patients, and forward emergency calls to the right parties.
Choosing the Right Medical Answering Service
If you want to attract more clients and retain existing ones, it’s important to choose the right medical answering service.
Contact One is a reputable U.S.-based answering service that’s been around for decades. It provides 24/7 answering service to different industries in the United States and Canada.
Why choose Contact One?
Medical practitioners across the country trust us for healthcare-specific patient solutions because of the following:
We are strictly HIPAA-compliant.
We make sure that our clients’ health information remains secure and protected. Our agents use secure HIPAA-compliant messaging platforms to relay information to patients in the most secure way possible.
We offer 24/7 coverage.
We manage urgent patient calls 24/7 including weekends and holidays. We have call processing protocols for emergency calls, on which urgent matters are forwarded to the on-call physician.
We have full-service receptionists.
We offer full-service virtual receptionists who can take calls, answer questions, and book and re-schedule patient appointments.
We offer support during peak hours.
We can help you manage your calls during your busy periods so you and your staff can remain productive without sacrificing customer care.
Are you ready to improve your productivity and improve customer care?Call us and we can talk for solutions that will suit your practice well.
Customer service is undoubtedly an essential part of running a business. No matter how great your product is, if you have poor customer service, no one will buy from you. Unfortunately, not everyone has enough resources to maintain it after the clients’ purchases. Don’t feel dissuaded if you find yourself in this situation. You can still provide customer service to your clients without putting additional burden to your employees.
What’s the solution? Outsourcing your customer service.
Here are some of the benefits of doing it:
You save money and other resources.
Hiring a new employee for customer service isn’t always the most practical option. The expense can add up so quickly. On top of that, you have to set aside time for recruiting, hiring, and training. You don’t have to do all these and spend a lot when you outsource your customer service.
You are ensured of 24/7 customer support.
Unless you’re hiring multiple employees for customer support, your clients’ calls are less likely to be taken care of 24/7.
When you outsource your customer support, your clients’ calls will be answered, no matter what time of the day or day of the week it is. This can ultimately leave a positive image on your company.
You can improve your staff’s productivity.
By outsourcing your customer support, you don’t have to worry about losing the personalized touch especially when you have chosen a reliable call center. This is often a difficult task to keep in-house especially if your staff is already bombarded with multiple tasks.
You gain better control over the calls.
External agencies have better telephone equipment that enable them to queue or re-route calls. This equipment is usually a huge expense for a small company.
When you outsource, you have better control over calls, without having an additional expense for a new telephone equipment.
You provide your customers with better experience.
Immediate response to calls and 24/7 availability can instantly leave a positive impression in your company. But you have to remember that not all call centers are created equal. So, make sure you choose the one that’s highly rated and one thatcan vouch for high quality customer service.
Excellent customer service is everything. It can turn first-time customers into loyal ones.
What is customer service?
Customer service refers to the entire process of making your customers feel valued. Superb customer service begins with that genuine desire to delight your customers.
Customer Service in Phone Conversations
Phone interactions can be tricky as customers can’t see you. This is where you have to go above and beyond to make them feel heard and valued. The following tips can help you do that:
Speak in a friendly voice
Speaking in a friendly tone is one thing that can make your customers feel like you genuinely care about their problem and ready to offer them solutions.
Smile like you mean it
Your customers may not see you but they can tell if you are smiling or have a blank expression.
Use their names
Calling your customer “sir” or “ma’am” may be polite but studies have shown that customers respond better when agents use their name. When you talk to customers using their name, it activates certain parts of their brain, making them more comfortable talking to you. However, don’t overdo it as it may end up in an awkward conversation.
Be positive
Sometimes, you’ll encounter irate customers. The best way to deal with them is by staying positive. It’s also important to stay positive when offering alternative solutions. Instead of saying, ‘we can’t do that’ try ‘I’d be more than happy to offer…’
Use verbal ‘nods’
Verbal nods like “mhm..” and “ah yes, I understand..” make the customers feel that they are heard. It’s very important especially in phone conversations when the person on the other line can’t see you.
Great customer experience doesn’t happen by accident and this definitely doesn’t happen overnight. It is a product of excellent work culture and having the right people.
Hiring managers have the crucial job as they have a direct impact on the bottom line of one’s business.
To achieve excellent customer service experience, hiring managers look for call center agents with the following traits:
Professionalism
An agent who exemplifies this trait would leave his/her personal issues at the door. Even if he/she is having a bad day, he/she doesn’t make it an excuse not to do his/her job well. This is very important in a call center especially that agents deal with clients of all dispositions every single day.
Courteousness
Being polite and friendly can make a whole lot of difference in a phone call, especially when you’re dealing with an irate customer. This is why it’s important to have agents who are committed to being warm all throughout the duration of the call even if the client is not.
Problem solving
Call center agents may be trained and from time to time be directed to stay on-script. However, problems are inevitable, calling for an agent’s independent thinking. This is where a good problem solving skill helps.
This doesn’t mean though of having to resolve the issue alone. In many cases, it’s just knowing when to ask for the manager’s assistance.
Reliability
Reliability is one of the reasons why businesses get the services of a call center. Hence, this is one of the things that hiring managers look for in their applicants. They should be able to show up regularly as scheduled and stay calm under pressure.
Self-determination
While you can train almost every aspect of being a call center agent, self-determination is unfortunately not one of them. This comes from the personality of the potential agent.
A self-determined person is open for feedback and is hungry to learn. He/she will continually push to better himself/herself.
Hiring the right people is the key to running a successful business. Without a team of quality and effective employees, it’s impossible to build a brand and develop an amazing customer service experience.
