Why You Need to Ditch Voicemail Answering for a Live Answering Service
A voicemail answering service just isn’t good enough for your company.
You might think it’s working just fine for your business, but that’s because you don’t see how many people hang up after reaching your voicemail.
Most people don’t want to talk to a machine, so sending them to a voicemail is making you lose business and gives your competitor an advantage.
Keep reading to learn why live answering services are a much better choice than a voicemail answering service (and a must-have for every business).
Is Live Answering the Better Choice?
Well, if you’re basing this just off cost alone, no. Voicemail answering is definitely the cheaper option. You don’t have to pay anyone to operate an answering machine. But saving money doesn’t make it the better choice if you are losing customers, and therefore money by having it.
For example, take a look at this.
What Happens When a Customer Reaches Your Voicemail
To be honest, usually nothing.
Some people actually leave messages, but at least 70% of the time the customer will just hang up if their phone call isn’t answered by a real person.
And what do those people do if they can’t get in touch with your business? Most likely they’ll call your competitors instead.
That means your business is losing seven out of every 10 customers, which is a lot of business that could be kept if you just had a real person answering the phone.
So Can’t I Just Get a Receptionist?
Even though a receptionist is a real person, this might not fix your problem.
Think of it this way. A receptionist can’t answer the phone all the time. They can only answer the phone when they’re working, which is usually normal business hours. So this might take care of your problem during the day, but what about after hours?
You’ll get a lot of calls after business hours because that’s when a lot of your customers are off work too.
And what about the weekends?
That’s two whole days you won’t be able to answer the phone. This downtime doesn’t even include sick days, annual leave, and other times the receptionist will take off work.
But a Receptionist Will Be Cheaper, Right?
Actually, no.
Not only do you have to pay a receptionist appropriate wages, you also have to pay for training. And training either means you take time out of your busy workday to train them or you pull someone else away from their job to train them instead.
When you aren’t doing your own job, your business can’t keep moving forward.
So in most cases, a receptionist won’t solve your problem either.
How Will a Live Answering Service Help My Business?
A live answering service isn’t actually part of your company. Instead, your calls get outsourced to a professional live answering service, which means someone is available to answer the phone for you at all hours of the day, every day of the week.
(Some large companies have a live answering service in-house, but for most business, outsourcing is a better option.)
This professional service is able to help your customers with minor questions and problems on their own. In fact, most customers won’t even realise they’re not talking to someone in the business.
For more complex issues, the professional service can transfer those calls over to you or someone else on your team.
If you’re away from the office (in a meeting, on holiday, or spending time with your loved ones), the service can take a detailed message. When you get back, you’ll be able to read this message and call the customer back and resolve the issue.
Instead of asking them to explain what’s going on again, you’ll already know. This means you can just get straight to the problem.
But How Will I Make Up for the Extra Cost?
Because you’ll answer the phone every time, you’ll keep more customers. That means you’ll make more money, so the answering service will very quickly pay for itself.
With all the extra business a live answering service can give you, the cost will become a non-issue.
Benefits of a Live Answering Service
A live answering service makes sure your calls get answered, but they do a lot more than just that. Because the responsibility suddenly isn’t only in your hands, you can get a lot more done without actually doing it yourself.
Let’s take a look at what we mean by that.
Better Customer Service
People actually prefer to talk to other people on the phone, not just machines. So hiring a live answering service will actually get you a higher customer service satisfaction.
Someone is always available to talk to your customers, which allows your customers to have a nice phone conversation with a professional instead of struggling with a machine.
Better Appointment Setting
When a customer wants to book an appointment, they just have to call in and the answering service will handle the rest.
When the book an appointment, the date and time will be sent straight to you. If someone cancels or changes an appointment, you get a notification about that too.
This makes it easy for you and your employees to manage and stay on top of your appointments.
Better Language Options
Many answering services offer multilingual options. This is something most companies can’t provide on their own, which makes it hard to cater to customers who don’t speak the same language.
With an answering service, you know every customer will be taken care of, no matter what language they speak.
You Don’t Have to Use a Voicemail Answering Service Anymore
Though you may think it’s doing you good, a voicemail answering service is only hurting your business. The best benefit of a live answering service is getting rid of that answering machine altogether.
It may seem like your voicemail is saving you money, but with the added business a live answering service can bring you, your voicemail is actually making you lose money instead.
So, stop using that voicemail today.
Interested in making the switch to a live answering service? Take a look at how we can help you.