How to get the most out of your phone answering service

From 24/7 customer support, captured new leads, to increased productivity, a reliable phone answering service is an essential asset for any business to have. While its many advantages cannot be understated, a phone answering service still does require quite an investment. To help answer the question of “Is it really worth it?”, you’ll first need to understand how to fully maximise the benefits that the service provides.

Customisable features, industry relevance, integration with existing tools- we’ll examine some of the ways your business can get the best ROI on its phone answering service.

Tailored to your business needs

On top of 24-hour-a-day availability, the best live phone answering services must provide customised solutions that fit your specific business needs. A variety of services and features should be available, for you to select the ones that would best help your operations. As your business expands and demands change, your phone answering service should also upgrade and adapt to growth objectives. Simply put, the less ‘cookie-cutter’ the features of your phone answering service are, the more you’ll get out of your investment.

One of the best advantages of an Alltel live answering service is that it can be fully customised to include call transfers, send messages to multiple teams or representatives, and have unique scripts. Phone Answering + Transfer plans offer an extension of our basic phone answering service, where calls are directly transferred to you if you're available to take them.

When you set up your phone answering service, you can also select which calls are forwarded to our operators, as well as manage which staff, teams, or departments receive warm transfers or SMS and email notifications. Customers can be welcomed your way with personalised scripts, custom greetings, and sign-off messages. Extra questions can be added to get all the information you need from your callers.

More importantly, an Alltel live answering service provides flexible support and a scalable solution for your growing business, with easily available advanced features as you add more teams, move locations or take on more calls.

Industry-specific relevance

With companies paying live answering service operators and virtual receptionists, to work the front lines and serve as the ‘face’ of their business, having sound industry knowledge and experience is key to a successful partnership. Service providers should understand the basic ins and outs of the industry and operators, particularly virtual receptionists, must readily respond in the unique ‘corporate jargon’ used by the business.

Since no two businesses are alike, companies must first figure out how exactly a live answering service can be leveraged to optimise their operations. For example, a basic phone answering and message-taking service should suffice for a startup needing after-hours communication assistance. On the other hand, a more complex setup such as a law firm might need the expertise of a virtual receptionist, who can address frequently asked questions and arrange consultations.

It goes without saying that for businesses to maximise every dollar spent on a live answering service, it must be equipped with a solid grasp of their industry and be able to address its specific demands. With an Alltel virtual receptionist service, professionally trained, Australian-based operators answer all incoming calls in your business name and readily respond to callers’ concerns with reliable information and expert customer support.

While a live answering operator takes messages and forwards these to you via SMS and email, virtual receptionists do all these, on top of handling basic tasks and queries specific to your business. This specialised service can also schedule appointments and manage bookings- providing a great cost-effective alternative to full-time front desk staff.

Integration with existing setup

Ideally, the best live phone answering services should seamlessly integrate with your existing business tools and software. For example, since many companies utilise customer relationship management (CRM) systems to save and organise client data, a phone answering service that offers full integration will greatly simplify the intake process. Less time spent in data entry leads to improved employee efficiency, thus making a live phone answering service a worthwhile investment.

As for businesses already using inbound numbers, such as 1300 numbers, pairing this with a live answering service can maximise its full potential as a powerful tool. For instance, calls made to a 1300 number can be forwarded to a landline, mobile, or even to a dedicated receptionist, thus ensuring you won’t miss out on any important customer calls. Meanwhile, the overflow function guarantees that all calls are answered and handled efficiently by professional operators, even after hours.

In summary, pairing a 1300 number with a live answering service helps businesses become more responsive to customers while keeping operating costs at a minimum- simple yet telling reasons why this combination offers significant ROI.

Getting the most from an essential business tool

Beyond taking messages and transferring calls, a live phone answering service is one of the best ways to strengthen customer support quality and improve overall productivity amongst staff. Along with proper setup and utilisation, businesses can fully maximise all the benefits that their live answering service offers by customising it according to their needs, understanding its relevance to their industry, and integrating it with current systems in place.

For phone answering and virtual receptionist services that provide flexible solutions, without compromising on performance, speak with our expert consultants today. Call us at 1300 255 835 (1300 ALLTEL) or visit www.alltel.com.au.