Answering Service Blog

Astute business managers often wonder if they should select an established, proven answering service or try a neophyte provider. While there is no one universal answer, the following discussion will provide reliable guidance and much to consider.

A service agreement is a legal arrangement between two parties that defines expectations. In the case of an answering service, the agreement details what they will deliver to you. It also defines the terms of the relationship. This agreement serves many important functions.

It's hard to run a business and still be available for customers' calls around the clock. Your phone is the front door to your business and first impressions count. Sending customers to voicemail when they call could be costing your business big time. Having a live person answering your phone makes all the difference in the world to customer perception and satisfaction. What follows are the hidden costs of using voicemail.

When a business decides they need to hire a telephone answering service or virtual receptionist, they are often anxious to start right away. That’s understandable. It’s human nature that once we decide to do something, we want immediate results.

When you hire a telephone answering service they assign you a local or toll free number just for you to use. The key word here is use.

A missed call means missed revenue. If you're in the HVAC industry you already know the demands of a 24/7 service company. Being available for new and current customers is job number one. That's where a HVAC answering service can be a real game changer for you.

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.

Some telephone answering services record all the calls they answer. Other don't. Does it really matter? Why should you care?

Most virtual receptionist services will answer your phone twenty-four hours-a-day, seven days-a-week. They often call this 24/7. Beware, not all 24/7 coverage is the same.

Switching answering services is easy – if you follow a few basic steps. Yet not having a methodical plan can result in unneeded aggravations or avoidable problems. Take these simple steps to ensure a smooth, hassle-free transition to your new telephone answering service...

Do you need to make sure your business phone is always answered? Maybe you’re concerned about covering the lunch hour or when your receptionist is on a break (or sick or on vacation). Perhaps you need help with your phone during staff meetings or training. Some businesses struggle to answer phone calls after hours or on weekends. Then there is the worry about calls coming in faster than your staff can handle them. The answer is not to hire another employee or banish your callers to voicemail jail. The answer is a virtual receptionist.

It seems every telephone answering service bills differently. Let’s look at three common answering service billing plans, with two variations. Everything else is just a variant of one of these:

Every client of a telephone answering service wants to have every call answered by a person on the first ring and never place a caller on hold. I understand that. When we make a phone call we don’t want to hear the phone ring. We don’t want to wait on hold. We don’t want any delays. We seek instant access.

An answering service is in the business of providing valuable service when you are not available. This means they need to be available 24/7/365. It is important that when you are selecting an answering service provider to know what steps they have taken to be redundant, below are some examples.

As businesses started to grow many years ago, the need for a solution to the increased number of calls and increased labor costs was the answering service. It started as a centralized message center and originally was based inside of the company. There were a handful of people who would man everyone's phones.

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.

Most virtual receptionist companies offer a variety of answering services to clients from a wide range of industries including but not limited to health care, veterinary, HVAC and property management.

Ambs Call Center has further enhanced its capabilities to integrate its answering service software with industry leading CRM (customer relationship management) software providers. There has been an increased push for better CRM integration enhanced for Call Center and Answering Service clients to provide real time access to data. CRM software allows companies to effectively manage their interactions with prospective and current customers across a variety of channels such as phone, email, text and social media.

Recently Ambs Call Center implemented a quarterly customer survey that is sent via email which provides us with a service quality ranking known as ‘Net Promoter Score’. We learned of this measurement tool at a recent strategic planning session with Verne Harnish, author of ‘Mastering the Rockefeller Habits’, a book that I highly recommend. There are only two questions on the survey which helps with the response rate.