It doesn’t matter what industry you work in, at the end of the day, there’s nothing your customers love more than fast and efficient customer service as well as prompt call answering.
However, in a lot of cases, many businesses simply don’t have the staff and budget to provide a good call-answering service, which in turn may impact their customer service reputation.
Fortunately, there is a solution to this problem – outsourcing your call answering to a virtual receptionist or live answering service – which will enable you to catch every customer call that comes your way without having to make a heavy financial investment.
But if you’ve never worked with a live answering service before, you’re probably wondering if doing so is actually worth it. After all, why not just hire a dedicated in-house receptionist for this job instead?
Well, keep reading to learn more about the benefits of a live answering service over a permanent receptionist position, as well as the key live answering service features that shouldn’t be missed.
What is live answering?
In short, live answering is exactly as it sounds – it’s employing someone to answer a phone call directly and in person, ensuring that customers get a prompt response and have their issues resolved quickly and with understanding.
Of course, there is more to the process than this. For example, most live answering teams are independent businesses that operate on a remote basis, and many also offer additional and useful features besides phone answering as part of their service, as you’ll soon see below.
Live answering vs outbound agents
If you’ve been looking into using a live answering service then you’ve probably also heard the term outbound calling agents being thrown around as well, which may be adding to the confusion of what an answering service actually does.
However, both are distinctly different roles. While answering services take your calls, outbound agents call your existing customers directly as a form of proactive customer support or feedback collection, informing them of new products and services and focusing on customer retention as a whole.
Live answering is also very different to using software such as an auto-attendant, which you can learn more about in our article examining the difference between live answering and auto-attendant services.
What are the key live answering service features and benefits?
With a quick definition of what a live answering service is out of the way, let’s now turn to the main topic of this piece – the core benefits of a live answering service over a traditional receptionist role:
1. 24/7 answering
First and foremost, one of the key benefits of a live answering service is that, unlike a typical in-house receptionist, your business can be available all day, every day, no matter the time of the year.
Simply put, there’s nothing quite like giving your customers 24/7 call access to your services whenever they need it, and doing so will go a long way to boosting both your reputation and the quality of your customer service overall.
2. US-based operators
With so many big businesses outsourcing their calls, customers are becoming increasingly frustrated that their questions and complaints aren’t being handled with care and personalization, not to mention sometimes encountering language barriers.
That’s why many dedicated live answering services are now exclusively based in the US, ensuring that your customers will be put in contact with someone who not only understands them clearly but can probably relate to whatever problem they’re experiencing.
3. Instant message delivery
In the same way that a live answering service can operate on a 24/7 basis, many can also send messages directly to you after receiving them, helping to keep you in the loop even when you’re busy.
In turn, these regular updates allow you to prioritize who to call back and in what order, while also adjusting how your messages will be sent to you, either through email or directly by text.
4. Simple pricing
In order to keep payments clear and concise, the best live answering services in the business offer simple pricing plans that cost you far less than the costs that come with taking on a brand-new employee.
In other words, outsourcing your call services makes it that much easier for you to reduce business costs by minimizing overheads and clearly tracking how much you spend on your answering service each month.
5. Bilingual operators
Now more than ever, employing bilingual operators is an absolute must for any business, especially if you operate in a multi-national market. However, we also know how tricky this can be if budgets are tight.
However, you can be sure that your odds of having a bilingual team taking your calls are that much higher with a virtual receptionist team (it’s certainly the case with VoiceNation), enabling your operators to communicate seamlessly with non-English speaking customers in their native language, which enhances their customer experience overall.
6. Blocking unwanted callers
Last, but not least, we know just how hard it can be for you to answer all of your calls without interruptions, especially when many of them are solicitations, spam, or robocalls clogging up your phone lines.
Roughly 25% of incoming calls to businesses are spam calls, but with an answering service that will block these calls for you, you don’t have to worry about picking up the phone from another AI-generate bot anytime soon.
Choose VoiceNation as your live answering service
These are just the core benefits that come with using a live answering service and there are many smaller ones out there that you’ll no doubt discover as you start working with your chosen provider.
And speaking of providers, why not start working with the VoiceNation team today?
Our team of professionally trained virtual receptionists have years of experience in the live answering industry, so you know that all your customer calls will be answered with the empathy and understanding expected by your customers.
Get in touch today to learn more about our answering services and don’t forget to ask about our free trial period!