Aaron Boatin

The best telephone answering services charge by the minute. It's the most fair and accurate way to account for the work they do for you. In the answering service industry, this is known as work time. Think of them as your staff on demand where you are only paying someone when they are actually working.

Using a virtual phone receptionist is a great way to impress your callers. On top of that it helps you take control of your calendar and focus on the things that matter. Here are 12 reasons why using a virtual answering service will help your business.

Leading answering service companies share several key characteristics. Business owners considering hiring an answering service should deliberate over these seven qualities that the best answering service companies have in common.

An answering service is a professional services provider that can make a difference in how your organization communicates with your stakeholders. If you view an answering service as a commodity solution, you misunderstand their true value, and you’ll likely end up selecting the wrong provider for the wrong reasons.

An answering service is an off-site telecommunication service which many businesses invest in to manage their internal and external business communications when they are unable to answer the calls.

Have you ever had conversations with prospects and realized they didn’t have a true understanding of what your business can do for them and how you’d do it? Some prospects may not know the best ways to shop for services in your industry. Answering services aren’t rocket science, but they too are more complex than they first appear.

Companies have varying levels of answering service needs, often extending beyond the sheer need to have a professional answer customer calls. Add in the competition in today’s marketplace for answering services, virtual receptionists, and call centers, it’s no surprise that the range of partners that provide such services is quite large – from big, corporate juggernauts to small startups.

Of any season throughout the year, winter is almost always the most unpredictable. And the chaos that these months can affect more than your life – they can also affect your business.

Though they have their own, unique terms, answering services and virtual receptionists aren’t wildly different on a fundamental level. They may have been entirely separate in the past, but growing companies have started to provide a wide range of services that blur the line between them.

A virtual receptionist is a real person who answers your phone but who isn’t stationed in your facility. They are, in essence, virtually present. But even though you can’t see them sitting there at your front desk, they’re always available to take your calls whenever you need them to.

Business owners put their sweat and tears into their companies. You invest so much of your time and energy to help your business grow – hopefully to the point when it makes sense to outsource part of your operations. Though it may be gratifying to know you can afford to outsource, it can still be terrifying to put part of your business in the hands of someone else.

Rarely are we ever prepared for natural disasters. Their devastation is product of their unpredictability. Should we have more advanced notice before a disaster strikes, perhaps we’d all be better equipped to face its impending realities. But mother nature offers no such luck, and many businesses suffer pains that could have been prevented. Hurricanes Irma, Harvey, and Jose left $150 billion in damages, and many small business owners are still wondering how to rebuild.

While few people are happy with the current state of healthcare in the United States, one ray of sunshine comes from the growing role medical answering services and healthcare call centers play in providing professional, personal care and attention to patients and their caregivers. Most everyone knows a medical answering service takes messages for patients who call after-hours. What they may not know is that an answering service can do so much more.

As much as we take note of the dwindling number of mom and pop shops across America, modern-day small businesses can and do compete with national and international chains. Cost isn’t the only means of competition either. Larger companies are often able to bargain for less expensive variable costs with their suppliers – and thus, are more readily able to lower prices.

We're all trying to produce better results with less resources these days. Whether the resources are time, energy or money we are always on the lookout for ways to improve. The same holds true for telephone answering services. Leveraging new technologies and techniques can pay dividends for you with increased efficiencies and reduced costs.

If you aren't standing by to assist when a potential buyer needs your help, you could lose the deal. Yet for many real estate agents, spending more time on the phone simply is not possible.

"Which answering service plan should I choose?" It’s a question that we’re often asked. The short answer is it depends on how you will use the telephone answering service. Here are some tips on how to make an informed decision on what plan is right for you when signing up for using an answering service.

Are you confident your medical answering service provider is equipped with the right technology to handle your patient calls? If not, it’s probably time to take a closer look at the call center you’re doing business with.

If you’re a covered entity under HIPAA, you already know that protecting patient health information (PHI) is mission critical. This means that sending PHI to a regular pager is off limits.

We've all had it happen to us, a customer or patient who is a no-show. Chances are that this unfortunate occurrence is a result of your customer's hectic schedule or quite possible it just slipped their mind. Either way, it's not good and you just lost money as a result. An easy way to help prevent this from happening again is to start using an appointment reminder service.