Partnering with a telephone answering service can guarantee you never miss a phone call in your business, meaning you never need to worry about losing a new sale or disappointing a paying customer.

But a telephone answering service isn’t something you can simply bring in and leave.

To get the most out of it, you’ll need to put some time and effort in to make sure it’s working properly for your business so you get the best ROI.

We’ve worked with thousands of companies over the years and dealt with millions of phone calls, so we know the best way to make our service work for your business.

If you’re thinking of hiring a call answering service, here’s our top tips for getting the most out of it.

1 – Work closely with your telephone answering provider

A call answering service isn’t the same as hiring a call centre service.

Professional telephone answering services work as an extension of your own team, providing a personalised service to your customers.

But to do that, you need to work with your provider to give them all the information they need about your business and the way you want your phone calls to be dealt with.

Whether it’s working on the way you want calls to be answered, helping them understand the types of calls they’ll be dealing with, to understanding how specific calls should be dealt with – for example screening sales calls so they don’t get through.

The only way your call answering service will be able to help you effectively is if you work with them.

2 – Communicate with your call answering provider

Things change in business and many things can impact the way you’ll need your calls to be answered.

Whether it’s people leaving, peaks in demand for your product or service, even changes in your opening hours.

It’s important to remember these changes will impact your call answering and the kind of service you need.

So you should always communicate any changes in your business to your call answering provider.

This way they can update their information and ensure they’re continuing to provide the type of service you need.

3 – Monitor your call answering usage

What you might find with your call answering is you’ll need more or less service than you initially thought.

The only way to ensure you’re getting the best ROI from your call answering is to make sure you’re only paying for the services you need.

Ideally you’ll have a flexible contract with your provider, so you can easily adapt the level of service you get based on what you need.

4 – Monitor how your calls are being answered

Not every call answering service offers this – for the record we do at Face For Business – but you should monitor the recordings of your call answering service.

This is to make sure you’re keeping your call answering service accountable, and are actually getting what you’re paying for.

If you find that calls aren’t being dealt with exactly as you’d expected, you can easily request changes or start looking for another service if nothing is changing.

Using your call answering service as a partner, not a provider

Outsourcing for your business always works best when you treat the service as a partner in your company – rather than a simple service provider,

The best outsourced telephone answering service works well when it operates as a close extension of your business.

And the only way you’ll achieve this is by taking the time to invest in the service yourself.

If you want to know more about using a telephone answering service in your business, get in touch.

At Face For Business we offer a free trial of our service so you can see the benefits to your business without investing money straight-away.

If you want to know more about our free trial or to take advantage of it – get in touch.