Your business is going pretty well, all things considered. Sure, you’re getting stretched kind of thin, but that’s not unusual for a small business owner. After all, it’s not easy to know exactly the right time to hire more helpers or invest more money in inventory or tools. At some point, though, an answering service could be a huge help to you. Not only would it be scalable, meaning it could accommodate your call volume even as your need expands, but it would also be affordable.
A Few Clues That Point to an Answering Service in Your Future
Hiring a live answering service can be as difficult a decision as choosing a new warehouse space or whether or not to buy a new fleet vehicle. Even though many won’t require that you sign a long-term contract, you have to be comfortable letting someone else work with your clients on your behalf.
You don’t know for sure if a remote telephone operator is going to be good or bad for those customers who have gotten you where you are, but the same could be said for anyone you hired to answer the phone. At least an answering service company trains its operators to give the best service possible.
Has the day come for a change? The answer is very likely a yes if any of these things sound familiar:
- You find yourself answering the telephone 24/7 and not giving yourself any downtime. It’s great that you’re dedicated to your customers and your business, but it’s not possible for one person to maintain a 24-hour telephone vigil indefinitely. Burnout will get you sooner rather than later and then you’ll not be able to help anyone. Live telephone operators can help those callers and they won’t burn out.
- You’re working long days but not getting more accomplished because of the stop-and-go with the telephone. It’s so frustrating when you’re starting to really go at a good pace and then the phone rings. You have to stop everything you’re doing, get the phone, help that person, complete the follow-through for the call, then try to remember where you were on the other thing you were doing.
It’s maddening. And it’s inefficient. Your answering service can be configured to take all your calls or just the ones you can’t get to in time. - You’re letting appointments slip through the cracks. Appointments are the source of your income, but you’re letting a lot slip through the cracks as you try to keep up with calls, emails and other distractions. You end up writing those appointments down wherever, then losing them because things are a bit chaotic right now. Let professional appointment setters with the right tools handle those callers who want to schedule with you. It’ll all be kept in the same place, making it really hard to overlook an upcoming appointment.
Your company’s growth has to come with a change in how you think about it. You can’t do everything, you have to start delegating in order to scale. Take a baby step by giving an answering service a try. You’ll be surprised how affordable and accommodating it can be.
