Benefits of an answering service for employers and employees

Outsourcing your phone handling can have a positive impact on multiple parts of your business.

From customer service, to your business’ finances, to your own employees, having an outsourced provider dealing with customer calls can improve it all.

5 customer service benefits of an answering service

1. Be available for longer

Unless you or your team are planning on working 12+ hour days consistently, you’ll struggle to deal with phone calls out of hours. And this is a problem because you’ll miss out on opportunities from those customers who can’t call during the normal 9-5 (usually because they’re working too).

Outsourcing your call handling can extend the amount of time you can deal with customer calls, without you and your team having to be available after you’ve finished for the day – or before you’ve started.

This is important because even considering out-of-hours, 90% of customers expect an immediate response when they have a question about a service, so having your calls covered for longer increases the chance of you delivering this.

2. A more professional experience

Outsourced call answering gives you immediate access to a professional team of PAs who are available to answer your calls, and manage call transfers and messages as required.

Having this resource can professionalise your call answering function, because every call will be answered professionally and efficiently, with all enquiries dealt with in the same way.

3. Scalable customer service

One of the issues that can arise with customer service is when you’re going through a period of growth or experiencing a short-time increase in demand.

These times can put strain on your existing customer service and result in drops in service.

By outsourcing your customer service, you can easily, and cost-effectively, scale your resources to match your requirements (so you always deliver a consistently high service) without the investments needed that come with hiring staff.

4. Reduced wait times

Long wait times are annoying for customers when they’re on the phone (especially when they’re left listening to screeching hold music).

Outsourcing call answering can reduce customer wait times by always answering calls quickly and either directing the caller to the right person, taking a message to be dealt with later or even dealing with basic enquiries directly.

This greatly reduces the amount of time customers have to wait to have a call resolved and gives you a more reliable and efficient customer service function.

5. Create consistent call management

If you’re working in an office, you’ll know that employees don’t always answer calls or take messages in the same way. Often, they’ll not even get all the relevant information you need, because they’re just trying to get the caller off the phone and get back to work.

By outsourcing, you can create a more consistent call handling function that ensures all calls are answered and dealt with in the same way to create a better experience for the customer.

It can also help with returning calls because our PAs will take all the necessary details you need to properly return the call and save the customer needing to repeat themselves.

9 financial benefits of an answering service

1. Save on costs

The most obvious financial benefit of outsourcing your call handling is the cost savings you can make compared to hiring a full-time or part-time receptionist.

Hiring staff can be expensive (the average receptionist wage is close to £25k a year) and comes with additional costs in tax, insurance, holiday and sick pay, plus training and development costs.

Outsourcing your phone handling greatly reduces this cost, and allows you to predictably price in the investment.

Our call answering packages start from £49 a month, and we proactively optimise the tariff you’re on based on usage, so you only ever pay for what you need.

2. Increased productivity

Answering calls might only be a small job, but the time can quickly add up when you’re dealing with dozens of calls a day – plus the time you lose trying to get back into the work you were doing before.

Outsourcing your call handling frees you and your team up to focus on key projects and value-adding tasks, without worrying that you’re missing calls or losing new business opportunities.

By giving employees, and yourself, more undisturbed time to dedicate towards important tasks, you can create more revenue-generating opportunities.

3. Capture more opportunities out of hours

Not every caller is going to be able to call you during the regular 9-5 office days. They’re working too, so can’t call during the day, or they might need help outside your normal hours.

Their problems and questions don’t clock off at 5pm, and neither should your customer service.

By outsourcing call handling to us, you can extend your answering resource into the early morning and late evening, and have calls answered on the weekend to capture even more opportunities.

4. Scale your costs based on need

One of the other downsides of hiring staff is that regardless of how busy you are, you still pay their full wages. If you hire a receptionist to cover a busy period, but then things quieten down later, you’ll still be paying even though you don’t need the same level of service.

With an outsourced answering provider, you can reduce your costs during quiet periods by changing the plan you’re on. Then, when things get busy again and you need more help, you can increase the level of resources you need.

This flexibility in service means you’ll always have the resources you need to deal with your calls, with the option to reduce your service (and costs) when you don’t need as much help.

5. Reduced recruitment and training costs

As we’ve mentioned, in-house call answering can be an expensive proposition, and this also includes the costs associated with recruiting and training call answering staff.

Outsourcing call handling not only reduces your monthly costs for the service, but also means you don’t have to spend time and money both recruiting and training new members of staff. Instead, you’ll instantly have access to a team of trained PAs who can answer all your calls professionally from day one.

6. Improve your customer service reputation

More customers today are more likely to choose a company that has a reputation for delivering great customer service across all channels, including online and over the phone.

Rather than trying to wing it by asking staff to handle calls on top of their core jobs, you can put a professional face (or voice) behind your customer service. This will ensure every caller gets an exceptional level of service and feels valued after speaking with your business.

7. Reduce sales and marketing costs

Winning new customers with new sales and marketing campaigns is far more expensive than the cost of retaining and upselling your existing customers.

And a big part of this is delivering great customer service that makes customers want to stay with you.

Outsourced call answering can make your customer service more professional and reliable by ensuring every call is answered quickly and professionally.

8. Taking payments directly from customers

Some customer enquiries are going to be relatively simple to deal with, but when there are lots of them and they mount up during the day, they can take up as much time as a difficult enquiry.

One such enquiry is when customers are phoning to pay for a service. These are calls you don’t want to miss (you never want to miss a call when money is involved) but is it really the best use of your employees’ time?

With answering services (at least the right one), your receptionists can take payments directly from customers, so your staff can continue focusing on new business and generating more revenue.

9. Qualifying leads

More than a fifth (22%) of sales people say that qualifying leads is the most difficult and time consuming part of their job.

And for every minute they spend qualifying leads who don’t become customers, they’re spending less time on more active leads who could be customers, but who you’re potentially missing out on.

Not many businesses realise it, but using a call handling service can improve your sales qualification process, by using the service to qualify leads for you before they get to your sales team.

5 benefits of an answering service for employees

As important as call answering is to your customer service, if it’s not a main part of your team’s job to answer the phone, then it can often feel like an afterthought. Your team has enough to do, and when they’re under pressure to complete projects and meet deadlines, the idea of answering the phone in a professional way is likely far out of their mind.

1. Reduce the pressure of phone calls

According to our own research, over 40% of employees say they have anxiety about answering the phone at work. 

It doesn’t help that answering the phone is usually secondary to their core job and yet they constantly find themselves being pulled away to answer calls and deal with enquiries.

By outsourcing your call handling, you can relieve this pressure on your team and give them more time to focus on what they’re doing.

2. Give teams time to focus on valuable work

One of the biggest employee benefits of an answering service is that your team can have more time to focus on completing projects, hitting deadlines and working on tasks that will add value to your business and customers.

By putting the responsibility of phone management on your team, you’re going to reduce the amount of time they spend dealing with your business and on completing their main job, negatively impacting the success of your company.

3. Create a more flexible environment

Workplace flexibility is the order of the day now and employees are expecting that they’ll have a better work-life balance and be able to spend at least some of their working week out of the office.

Removing your in-house phone management can help with flexibility by allowing employees to work wherever they want, without worrying that no-one is available to answer the office phone number.

Outsourcing your call answering actually fits perfectly into a more remote working environment, because it allows you to retain a centrally managed phone system and number for customers to call, while allowing employees to be more flexible around where they work.

It can also help with work-life balance by providing an out-of-hours call answering function, allowing your team to switch off at the end of the day and not worry about who’s dealing with the phones – especially if employees are using mobile phones for work calls.

4. More investment in employee benefits

By reducing the costs of your call handling by outsourcing it to another provider, you can free up investment to put elsewhere in your business, which could include better employee benefits and incentives to improve wellbeing.

5. Increase efficiency and productivity

It’s not just relieving stress that can happen as a result of outsourcing your call handling. With employees no longer being dragged away to answer the phone, they can have more focused time to work on their own projects and add value to the business.

This increased potential for productivity is a huge benefit to your company and can create a more efficient workplace.

Experience the benefits of an answering service

Outsourcing your call handling isn’t just a boost to the bottom line or about improving the customer experience, it can have a tangible impact on the wellbeing and productivity of your team.

By removing the stress and burden of constantly dealing with phone calls and interruptions while they’re trying to complete tasks, employees will have more time to be productive and focus on the work that will show real value to your business and customers.

If you want to talk about how our outsourced call handling could benefit your business, then give us a call on 0333 323 1007, or fill out a contact form and one of the team will reach out to you.

We can talk about the challenges you’re trying to solve by outsourcing part of your customer service, give you a no-obligation free quote, and also get you started on a 7-day free trial, so you can experience the benefits of a telephone answering service up close.