6 Ways a Live Answering Service Will Improve Your Business & Life

When small businesses are determining how they should reinvest into their businesses, they typically look at what would help them most. Some opt to go all-in on marketing, while others upgrade equipment or move to a new office.

Live answering services may not be the first thing you think of when deciding how to best invest in your business, but they should be.

Quality answering services offer numerous benefits that will improve the flow of your workday (and your entire team’s workday!) while keeping your customers happier than ever before. These are big claims, but we can back them up. Let’s take a look at 6 ways that live answering services can improve your business and your personal life all at once. 

1. Your Productivity Improves 

Phone calls are distracting. You’ll be sitting at your desk, pouring over financial records or trying to analyze customer sales patterns, and just when you’re in the middle of deep thought, the phone rings. You answer, and it’s someone saying they need to reschedule an appointment, and they’ll call back later. 

It takes you a few minutes to get back to that deep-thought space, refocus and collect your thoughts. And then, just as you start to gain momentum, the phone rings again. Someone wants to verify the amount they paid you four weeks ago.

Phone calls pull you away from what you’re working on. Not only is this frustrating, but it’s also expensive. Studies have shown that even small distractions in the office can derail productivity and cost companies exorbitant amounts of money. When workplace distractions are eliminated, productivity goes up by 75%, which significantly improves revenue for your business. 

Leveraging an answering service as your first line of defense will eliminate a major source of constant micro-distractions, improving productivity throughout your whole office. 

2. You Gain Work-Life Balance 

Plenty of business owners and their top-ranking employees may struggle with an adequate work-life balance. They work long hours, trying to make sure that the business is profitable and successful, and then go home only to receive work-related phone calls.

The last thing you want after a long day is to have your phone ring at 11 o’clock at night when a customer or vendor decides to call and ask a simple question about return policies or delivery deadlines.

Breaks are crucial for productivity and for your mental and physical health, and answering services can give you just that. When you go home for the night, weekend, or even a vacation, you won’t be interrupted by easy-to-handle calls; our virtual receptionists take care of that for you! 

And don’t stress about missing important phone calls that are critical to your business, we can still patch any urgent calls to your phone right away. 

3. You’ll Never Miss a Call, so You’ll Never Miss a Sale 

Did you know that 80% of customers who end up in your voicemail won’t actually leave a message? Many believe that you’ll never even hear their message, so why bother leaving one?

What’s just as concerning is that most of those customers may not ever call back a second time. If they’re new customers or leads and they can’t get ahold of you, they’ll try calling someone they can reach.

As crazy as it sounds, you literally can’t afford to be missing phone calls, because if you do, you can count on your competition snagging them out from under you.

No missed calls means no missed sales, because quality answering services like PATLive can do everything from setting appointments to answering questions to even processing orders over the phone. This will support your bottom line, earning you back what you invest into the service. 

4. You Won’t Go Broke Paying Overtime or Graveyard Shift Fees 

Let’s say that you’ve got a big sales event happening, like Small Business Saturday or a big promotion, and you know that calls will be coming in at all hours.

Do you really want to pay your own staff overtime, or pay extra for those working graveyard shifts to handle the influx of calls? Not only will your staff be less than pleased about the hours, but it’ll also eat into your bottom line.

Answering services are the key here. We don’t charge more when we answer calls in the middle of the night or on a holiday; you’re paying based on your usage. Let your staff go home and get a good night’s rest so that they can tackle the chaos in the morning. 

5. You Don’t Have to Worry About Holidays 

Speaking of time off, let’s talk holidays.

Do you want to be pulled away from your Thanksgiving dinner or have your New Year’s countdown thwarted by a phone call you didn’t really need to answer? Of course not! And your staff doesn’t want to miss these special moments either.

Our answering service will take your calls 24/7, 365 days a year. That means holidays, too. Enjoy your time off and make meaningful memories with the people that mean most to you; we’ll hold down the fort in the meantime, and have clear, detailed records for you to review when you return. 

6. You can Focus on the Tasks That Actually Need Your Attention 

This is perhaps the biggest one. As a business owner, you have a lot on your plate. You don’t really need to worry about booking appointments or rescheduling them four times, or answering easy questions.

With an answering service, you’re minimizing distractions and giving yourself hours back every day. This means that you can focus on business-critical tasks that actually need your attention, giving you more room to find new paths to success and look for new potential when it comes to scaling and growing your business, all while your clients are receiving top-tier customer service. And when it comes to business investments, that’s about as good as it gets. 

Live answering services may not be the first thing that pops into your mind when you’re thinking about how to grow your business and improve your personal life, but they deserve careful consideration. Offering major perks like increased productivity, decreased staff costs, and have a healthy work-life balance isn’t something to ignore, especially when these are all pretty major pain points for plenty of business owners.