A Better Answer Blog

Are you looking for ways to reduce overhead while increasing the efficiency of your business? 

Hiring an answering service may be a better answer than hiring someone to help in-house or handling the issues yourself. Many businesses think hiring an answering service is only useful to larger companies or offices that place a heavy emphasis on customer service but that’s not the case. Industries across the board — from law offices to real estate agents, hospitals and unlimited others — can benefit from an answering service.

Let’s dive into a few types of businesses that are leveraging answering services and how they benefit from the solution.

Small Businesses and Start-Ups

Small business owners struggle with balancing day-to-day administrative tasks, delivering quality client services and focusing on business growth and development. That’s why small businesses of all types can leverage an answering service to deal with incoming client calls and online inquiries. A stellar customer service experience will help young businesses create a helpful and friendly reputation from the very beginning.

Many answering services also offer virtual assistants who can handle tasks like data entry, CRM updates and full-funnel customer service help. Adding these services onto your answering service will unload the more mundane tasks from your plate so you can focus on activities that grow your business. 

An answering service is also less expensive than hiring a full-time receptionist or part-time help, so you can cut costs and set yourself up for business growth at the same time.

Healthcare Facilities

Healthcare offices and facilities receive an influx of customer calls — all of which need to get answered or addressed. Most incoming calls to healthcare facilities or hospitals are for scheduling, billing, medical emergencies and general questions. In the healthcare industry, customer support needs to be available 24/7 and needs to deliver a welcoming and delicate service.

Hiring an answering service specialized in keeping things cool during chaos and providing a calm customer experience can help boost your reputation. They will also help you achieve an around-the-clock solution for high-quality customer service for your patients.

Law Offices

Law is another industry that receives a high volume of calls; many of these calls are from clients concerned about their legal cases and who need immediate help. If lawyers are handling mundane tasks like answering calls, scheduling appointments and typing up legal documents, they can easily become overwhelmed and neglect their more important tasks.

An answering service will be able to provide law offices with the help they need to update clients on developing cases with care and clarity. Answering services can also help manage your calendar and schedule appointments without error.

By outsourcing administrative tasks that require a specialized role, you’ll be able to get back to what you do best, which is practicing law and helping clients.

Retailers

Retail stores receive many inquiries a day concerning returns, shipping errors, product information, and other general questions. It’s important to have a dedicated team available to answer calls as soon as an issue arises or if a potential customer has a question.

You could be losing out on a huge chunk of potential sales if you don’t have a designated person to answer your phone calls and answering customer questions as 74% of people are likely to switch brands if they find the purchasing process too difficult. If a prospect has a problem purchasing online and no one is there to help them, it’s highly likely they will go to one of your competitors and buy from them instead.

Answering phone calls in a timely manner is also important to help defuse customer frustrations quickly. Staying available to your current customers helps show you care and you’re there for them whenever they need you. A Better Answer is an answering service which will provide constant customer support to make sure your company is maximizing customer satisfaction rates and revenue.

Financial Institutions

Financial services tend to come with a lot of customer hand-holding. If you own a financial institution, your customer service representatives should be knowledgeable, friendly and helpful.

Financial discussions are also highly sensitive and confidential; you should take this into consideration when you’re searching for an answering service.

An answering service well-versed in finances can provide the level of insight your clients are looking for. Clients will need to be treated delicately as financial topics can be highly stressful for some people. 

Customers typically call financial institutions to ask about billing errors, loans, insurance, credit card qualifications, balance inquiries, deposits, and investments.

Real Estate Offices

Real estate agents are constantly on-the-go showing properties and scoping out new potential showings. At the same time, they have to balance these tasks with constant client calls concerning walk-throughs, market updates, new sellers, clients looking to buy and tenant emergencies. If an office line is their main source of client communication, they could be missing out on many potential sales a day and leaving many clients hanging without an answer to their question or concern.

An answering service can easily help provide updated information to clients who are in the process of selling their house as well as clients looking to buy. They can also provide detailed updates on the state of the housing market as well as scheduling meetings and walk-throughs.

As long as this information is documented somewhere, an answering service can pass along the message.

When real estate agents are out of the office, an answering service will provide the care your clients deserve. This will help you build a positive relationship with your clients and free you from unnecessary tasks at the office.

Many Industries Can Use an Answering Service

The industries mentioned in this article are just a few that can benefit from hiring an answering service. In reality, every type of industry that deals directly with prospects or clients can benefit.

In addition, most answering services can help with many other tasks such as data entry, bookkeeping, scheduling, and marketing efforts. Here are some of the ways an answering service can grow your business other than simply answering phones.