Here’s Why Your Business Needs to Use a Live Receptionist
Live Receptionists: All of your hard work is paying off. You’ve taken your company from a small, one-woman show operating out of your basement and turned it into a flourishing, medium-sized business. With revenue, and sales, and…dare we say it? Customers.
This is amazing, brilliant, everything you ever wanted – except for one problem. You don’t have the time to deal with all those customer calls on top of your other responsibilities as a business owner.
No need to panic; this is why the universe invented live receptionists. The right answering service can make a bigger difference in yours – and your customers’ – day-to-day life than you might think.
Let’s take a look at the three major reasons you should be considering working with a live receptionist service such as PATLive.
Get All the Benefits of In-House Staff Without the Fuss (and Stress)
Creating your own customer service department is a big undertaking. You need to develop best practices, create employee guidelines, and determine your call volume so you know how many representatives you should hire. Then, after all that, you need to hire the right candidates, which can feel like you’re slogging through a sea of sub-par and mostly-made-up resumes to find the few that could be a right fit for you. After that, you can look forward to interviews and training. Then the fun still isn’t over (is it ever?). Once they start answering calls, you have to manage quality control, and figure out how to cover for them on holidays and sick days – a pretty tough task when you’ve only got a dozen or so employees.
When you hire a live answer service, it includes all of those processes, not to mention the people. There’s already a highly trained and, experienced staff, people managing quality control, and no fear of calls going to voicemail if someone calls in sick. All you have to do is help their staff develop a call script for their agents that provides any information or services your customers might be calling about. Then you can turn your focus to other things. Sounds pretty nice, huh?
24/7, Top Notch Customer Service
When you’re a small or medium business, there just isn’t a graceful or long-term way to provide 24/7 customer service, especially over the phone – at least not one that’s cost effective. You and your employees have to sleep sometimes. Forwarding your calls to your phone simply means you’re trying to help someone out while you prepare dinner, with your dogs barking in the background. A professional image this does not make.Live answer services like PATLive, however, are large enough to have professional, friendly agents available 24/7/365. Missed calls usually equal missed business opportunities, so having someone to answer the phone in the evenings, on weekends, and on holidays is a big plus for any company.
Save Money
Hiring staff is one of the biggest expenses for most small and medium businesses. Salaries, benefits, workman’s comp, equipment, and other miscellaneous expenses that accrue when you hire adds up to a big yearly spend. Depending on your call volume, you can hire a call center for as little as only a few dollars per day. When you compare that to the stress and expense of staffing in-house customer service, outsourcing to a live receptionist is a good alternative for the right company.
Live answer is a major blessing for the right company. They save owners time and money, and provide customers with friendly, professional service no matter the time of day.
If you’re interested in exploring live answer services for your business, visit the PATLive website. Our agents are all USA-based, highly trained and love their jobs! Forbes recognized us in 2023 as the Best Virtual Receptionist Services, and Business.com honored us as the Best for Small Business. You don’t have to take our word for it – sign up for a 14-day free trial and find out first hand how amazing our live receptionists are!
