Checking Out Answering Service Hold Times

One of the main things that you need to think about when you use an answering service is how long your customers will be on hold.This is important for several reasons,and you should talk to your potential service about how long your customers will be on hold.Here are just a few reasons that hold times are particularly a important for you and your customers.

The most important thing that hold times can do for you is get you or lose you customers. In this world of immediate gratification, customers don't like to stay on hold for more than thirty seconds, which can seem like an eternity when you're listening to terrible elevator music and waiting to have a problem solved.

How Live Answering Service

Helps in Business Expansion

If your answering service actually answers calls from potential customers, you could either gain them or lose them depending on hold times. If customers are calling around to several different businesses to check out pricing or services, they may end up choosing the place that puts them on hold for the least amount of time, since this will affect their views of the business's customer service.

Some people thinking about trying a new business or service won't even stay on the phone long enough to talk to a representative if they are on hold for too long. Time spent on hold is vital because that will affect your customer's view of your customer service department. If the answering service you're using is functioning as your customer service department, it can build your customer relations or completely ruin them.

Home Based Business and Answering Services

This doesn't even have to have anything to do with how the representatives actually answer the phone, since customers who talk to the most helpful of representatives can end up feeling completely dissatisfied if they are on hold for several minutes.Obviously these are two very good reasons to check out hold times when you're looking at different services for answering your business phones. Different services will tell you their average hold times, but some of them might be messing with the numbers a little.

The best way to see who will have decent hold times is to look at how many phone calls representatives are expected to handle.The fewer phone calls per representative, the less time your customers are going to have to spend on hold. The average hold time is one or two minutes, which is way too long, so you should shoot for an answering service with average hold times of thirty seconds or less.

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Why You Need to Outsource Your Business Answering Services

There's been much talk about how outsourcing your back office operations can hurt the local economy-i.e. loss of local employment. But a closer look shows you a "rosy" picture after all. In spite of bad publicity, outsourcing is still making a killing and it's going at a faster rate than it started. It's because the positive returns far outnumber the risks (which are mainly speculative).

The big picture
Medium-sized and big companies go into outsourcing their order processing and answering services because they consider it as the next best step to optimizing workflow. These companies help the local economy while allotting certain sections of the workflow overseas. This means that the organization's business resources are put to best use while closing in on satisfying their customers.

Advantages of outsourcing your answering services
The benefits of outsourcing your firm's answering and order processing services do not begin and end with a satisfied clientele. The benefits cover these:

• Cost efficient customer service. With a more focused hotel answering and booking service, you can save on time and investment. Plus the fact that you're hiring a leased staff from a relatively cheaper location, you end up spending less on equipment, operation and infrastructure.

• Focused skills and service. Your outsourced staffs are well-trained up to par in taking in and handling answering and order processing services. They have been carefully selected to meet your company's needs. They were chosen for their above average technical and practical know-how, not to mention their language skills to be able to handle inbound and outbound calls. Because these important factors are met right from the start, your organization stands to benefit in the long run.

• Assured work efficiency. Since your outsourced staff is a third party that specializes in a specific service area of call answering and processing services, your company can therefore get a firm grip on core functions. You can well imagine a well-oiled machine that's running in perfect condition, with a support team manning the deck while you drive behind the wheel. With this in place, your company achieves its optimum competence.

• 24/7 service. Lags in your company' services don't have any place in an outsourced set up. Your outsourced team handles calls all days of the week, 24 hours a day. Any time your customer places an order or sends a package over the phone, there's no escape. What's more, your customer's requests, complaints, questions and whatnots are taken in real time by real associates who feel and understand their words.

• Streamline workflow. Your company's call specialist greatly contributes to a streamlined operation and environment. This process turns your business functions into a well adopted organism even with massive call volume coming in. This is so because your outsource team works side by side with your in-house staff so that no call bounces off and your customer spends less time on hold and busy tone.

• Satisfied customers. This leads to brisk business because you serve happy customers. After all this is what answering and ordering services are all about. Whether it's sending flowers, gifts, parcel, hotel booking and reservation, a well-handled call by a specialist spells the difference. This happens when your outsourced call service specialist doesn't make your customer wait nor waste his time by transferring the call to some other person. As they say there's no irate caller to a smooth and courteous call handler.

As it is, the first step to having these advantages working for your company is to choose an answering and order processing service provider that walks the talk. There are too many to choose from, in fact. But the one that suits your company's needs is the best.

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