Don’t Just Scrape By
Live answering services are not a luxury – they’re a necessity! By cutting cost in customer service and opting for an automated answering system, you may actually be setting your business or medical practice up for the long-term failure.
More and more people are realizing that saving a few dollars with an automated answering system is actually costing them far more in the long run.
Live answering services offer much more than most people realize. While it may seem highly intuitive that “live” and “service” ought to go together like toast and jam, unfortunately in the new world of automated attendants, canned responses and “service as a cost center,” too many companies opt for canned systems that severely damage customer relationships.
Bad Customer Service Costs You Customers
A recently released Harris Interactive study reported that 80 percent of 2,049 U.S. adults surveyed never go back to a business or organization after a bad customer service experience. Most people want to “talk to a real person” and are far more likely to stay with a vendor who has a live answering service over a machine.
When deciding how to handle calls when you are away from your office or when your business is closed, it’s easy to focus on cost, features and benefits. The real differentiation, however, should be how quickly and efficiently your phone is answered and how your customers feel about the call!
Invest in the Success of Your Business or Practice
While investing in a live answering service may seem like an extra expense for your business or practice, it is actually a wise business decision that pays dividends far beyond the cost of the service.
The many advantages of live answering services include:
- Personal Attention – People who call your business want to feel like they matter to you.
- Responsiveness – Trained attendants know how important it is to answer a phone quickly and get directly to the point.
- Automatic Escalation Process –Most live answering services have a built in escalation process so that if your call needs immediate attention they “make it happen now.”
- Two Way Feedback – It’s hard to get an answer from a machine! Callers want to have a dialogue with you and your business, not talk to a machine.
- Interactive Problem Solving – When a customer calls with a problem, they want to “talk it through” with a “real live person.”
- Time Savings – a live attendant can handle a call much more quickly and efficiently than a machine.
- Reduced Frustration – If you are in a service business, the last thing you want is frustrated customers telling their friends how difficult it is to reach you or your business.
Save Money in the End with Satisfied Clients, Patients and Customers
In the end, people who call you are looking for service and if they hang up the phone angry and frustrated, you may never hear from them again. You’ll find yourself asking why your business is declining when the answer is as simple as finding and hiring the right service in the first place. Invest now to save money later, and see how live answering services from AnswerNow can help you attract and keep clients, patients and customers.
