Is an answering service still even a thing? Isn’t that old school ‘60s Laugh-in? “One ringy-dingy, two ringy-dingy”. Nope. It’s not.
There are over 150 member companies in CAM-X, our Canadian Call Management Association. Using call answering services are still the favoured way to manage calls in the Business to Business (B2B) world.
First impressions are everything so leaving it to chance that the first point of contact many of your clients will have with your business will be responded to promptly and professionally is not likely a gamble you want to make.
You may be missing calls when your lines are busy (call overflow) or when your office is closed (after hour calls). And you will be annoying your customers if they’re sent directly to voicemail. Did you know that people are more likely to hang up when prompted to leave a message? – About 80 % of callers don’t bother leaving voicemail messages.
No one likes to wait and since the beginning of this pandemic, it seems that’s all we do whether it be for groceries or online delivery order. A quick reply with a smile in your voice can be your competitive advantage.
Can you afford a call answering service?
Well, can you afford to lose out on new customers or piss off current ones? It only takes a couple of missed calls from a potential client to change your vacation plans from travelling to your backyard or to a Caribbean island.
It’s an investment – not an expense.
It’s going to cost a lot more to hire someone to always be there to answer your phones, reply to emails and process website forms and inquiries 24/7. Answering services do that at a fraction of the cost using professionals who are trained to respond to your calls in exactly the way that reflects the brand you worked very hard to establish. Don’t take a chance on a tired employee butt-dialling customers or worse, putting the backup cellphone on silent while they’re Netflix & Chillin’.
Answering services do much more than take messages. They provide:
- Emergency response
- Off-site worker monitoring
- Call overflow
- Security monitoring including HVAC systems
- Email contact forms
For industries like:
- Property Management
- Building Services
- Medical Services
- Plumbing/Electrical
- HVAC
- Professional Services
A call answering service like i24 Call Management Solutions acts as a seamless extension of your business. i24 agents never put people on hold to respond to other calls. No more “one moment please,” as we handle your calls from beginning to end.
According to a DialogueTech survey:
– web forms account for only 66% of online lead capture.
– and 23% of inbound calls convert to sales compared to 6% of web forms.
– 66% of won deals came from inbound calls.
– Without call tracking, only 37% of revenue can be attributed to marketing.
So, even if you wanted to forward people to your phone (and potentially miss dozens of calls), or push people to fill out forms, statistics prove that people still prefer talking to someone to handle their needs, and those answered calls lead to more money in your pocket. By using a call answering service your clients will feel listened to and their message heard.
Afraid you won’t know what’s going on with your customer calls?
i24 is the first and one of the very few call management services that provide clients with their own private portal on its website. Every client can, at any time, log into their count and hear recordings of calls made to them and how they are managed.
The days when we could be sloppy about customer service is a distant memory, a relic from the “It’s just business.” days. Business is now personal. B2B is now H2H, human to human. To paraphrase a famous quote from Carl W. Buehner, people won’t remember what you say about your products or services, but they will remember how you made them feel about them.
How do you imagine your callers feel after waiting an eternity on the phone just to be forwarded to an automated voice running off a grocery list of menu options when they finally do get a response?
The mission at i24 Call Management Solutions is to be integral to our client’s success. We have cabinets full of Awards for excellence but the validation we value above all is the loyalty and happiness of our customers. I’ve got a feeling you feel the same.
