For most small to medium enterprises (SME), the building of long-lasting customer relationships correlates directly with company success. However, creating these connections in small to medium-sized companies can be tough, as providing dedicated customer service means having dedicated customer service agents. Often, in smaller business models, employees cannot be spared to focus solely on phones and reception. That’s why many SMEs have been leveraging an outsourced virtual receptionist to remedy the issue and are seeing tremendous improvement in creating and retaining valuable leads to remedy the issue as a result.
This article will cover how a live answering service can improve gaps in your relationship management and bring customer service to the next level.
1. Prompt Response
Customers don’t enjoy waiting, and when it is so easy to hang up and call the next result on Google, why should they? In today’s fast-paced world, the longer customers wait for their calls to be answered, the more likely they are to hang up or report negative feedback to the business. While hiring an in-house receptionist can help, urgent or priority calls can occur at any time of the day and need to be moved to the correct agent quickly.
By using a professional live answering service, you can answer calls at any hour with no hold times. A virtual receptionist service also ensures customers get helpful and accurate responses to their enquiry, indirectly capturing leads and maximising customer satisfaction.
2. Make a Great Impression
The quality of customer service received remains on our minds long after the service or product and prompts us to leave favourable reviews or recommend friends. Using a virtual call answering service allows you to deliver outstanding customer care and leave callers with an excellent first impression. As mentioned above, new customers are making split-second decisions about your company, and if they can’t reach you quickly, they have already had a negative experience.
Using a 24/7 call answering service for your business, calls are managed such that customers know their questions, issues, or even complaints have been heard.
Often, even disgruntled customers will continue using a service after they’ve felt their concerns have been voiced and heard, which is a core component of successful customer care!
3. Quick Query Resolution
While not always urgent, a phone call means your customer would like a solution sooner than later. However, depending on the question or problem, employees might feel pressured to stay on the phone while they handle the issue rather than end the call and get to work resolving it. This can slow down the process for both the company and the customer. Here is where funnelling calls through a live answering service can improve your support pipeline. Urgent or ongoing issues can be directly sent to the necessary agent. At the same time, problems that need to be investigated or worked on without the customer present can be recorded and passed on, eliminating the need to multitask. In addition, 24/7 virtual call agents invest a great deal of time into understanding your business and use this knowledge to triage your call lines, giving employees more space to work on their day-to-day operations.
4. Consistent, Professional Live Answering Service
An excellent live answering service should directly reflect your internal customer service and support teams. This seamless transition guarantees that your customers’ calls will be answered and handled with the utmost professionalism and care. Every action taken in dealing with a customer directly affects how they experience and perceive your business. Hiring receptionists without verifying skills or hands-on experience can be a risk for your business as it only takes one careless action to damage customer relationships with your company.
Virtual receptionists are rigorously trained customer service professionals who understand how best to represent your business to the standards you set, with their speed, empathy, and problem-solving skills.
Final Words
When it comes to finding the right customer service solution for your business, don’t hesitate to use a virtual receptionist. They can help build long-term customer satisfaction and improve your support and enquiry pipelines at a fraction of the expense of employing staff to fulfil this role.