15 Signs Your Business is Ready to Hire a Live Answering Service

Our live answering service has the pleasure of handling the business lines for just about every profession and industry out there. We answer calls on behalf of doctors, electricians, realtors, restaurants and niche businesses (like hot air balloon rides). 

For over 30 years we’ve offered highly skilled virtual receptionists to help business owners run their companies more efficiently. We’d like to share 15 signs that your business is ready to start offering your callers assistance 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.   

15 Examples of a Business That is Ready for a Live Answering Service 

 
1.) You receive incoming calls from potential customers wanting to know more about you and your business. A virtual receptionist can answer your callers’ frequently asked questions for as little as $0.45 per call. All of our packages include after-hour and weekend customer service completely free. That’s right, we don’t charge extra fees to provide your business with 24-hour phone coverage.  
 

2.) You have an in-house receptionist that forwards your business calls to an answering machine every day at 5:00 pm. Your callers don’t want to leave a message, “67% of customers hang up on a phone connection out of frustration they could not talk to a real person.”
 

3.) Being a respectful professional, you turn your cellphone off when in a meeting. However, when you place that phone on silent, you’re essentially silencing new business opportunities as well. Instead of pressing a few buttons to turn your ringer off, press a few buttons to forward your business calls to a live assistant.  
 

4.) You’re doing very well when it comes to placing high on Google search for your product or service. With the increase in your Google search ranking comes an increase in your business’s call volumes, “70% of mobile searchers have used click to call to connect with a business directly from the search engine results page.”
 

5.) As your business becomes more and more in demand, you’re spending more and more time in your car going to see existing and potential customers. Cellphone use causes 26% of the nation’s car accidents. Don’t be distracted on the road by a text message or ringing cellphone you feel you have to answer.  
 

6.) You have to turn away customers that speak Spanish or another foreign language. Break down any language barriers by having a multilingual telephone support team that can assist your new customers that may prefer to do business in their native language.
 

7.) You answer your own lines and in doing so, you spend a lot of time handling administrative work. As a business owner, your time is better spent attending to the more strategic and complicated aspects of your business. Leave administrative tasks to a team of expert phone handlers and get the most out of your day.
 

8.) Hiring a virtual receptionist also gives you access to a highly trained gatekeeper. Let us know who you’re expecting an important call from or what you consider an emergency. By providing this information, you can be sure that when your phone rings, it’s an important call you need to take. All other calls will be emailed or texted to you in real-time.
 

9.) If you offer professional services, we understand that not every caller is your ideal client. Don’t waste time speaking with people who you’re not going to be able to assist. A virtual receptionist can be trained to ask your custom qualifying questions and ascertain if the caller is your ideal client.
 

10.) You understand the importance of marketing your business and you diversify your marketing campaigns amongst many platforms. In order to really track your ROI for each of your marketing initiatives, a live answering service can designate a custom number for each platform. We can then forward you a monthly summary of the ads that pulled in the most phone calls and attention.
 

11.) You find yourself having to be out of the office on business trips and you’re tired of coming back to a heavy call back list.  Whether you have to travel to another state or another country, having a virtual receptionist attend to your callers and keep communication open while you’re away will save you time and headaches upon your return.
 

12.) You’re entering a new market and find that the new geographical location you’re reaching is in an entirely different time zone than your main office. When you hire a business answering service you’re providing 24-hour assistance to your callers. This will help you tremendously when you have to assist customers in another time zone.
 

13.) Your customer’s satisfaction is important to you and it’s vital that you get current feedback to make sure everything is running smoothly. We can make outbound calls on your behalf to your past and current customer lists and find out what they think about your customer service. After walking them through a customer satisfaction questionnaire, we can then email you the responses for your review and consideration.  
 

14.) Business is going well and you find that you’re having to schedule more and more appointments on your calendar. As a business owner, you should be more worried about attending appointments than scheduling them. Our virtual schedulers can sync up to your calendar, after qualifying the caller of course, and schedule an appointment in pre-designated time blocks. All appointments are scheduled in real time so you always know what your daily agenda looks like.
 

15.) As a savvy business owner, you’ve already learned the importance of being available when your customers need you the most. You make it a priority to answer all incoming calls the moment they’re received. So if you’re tired of picking up your business cell phone at 8 pm on a Wednesday or 8 am on a Sunday, it’s time you hired some help. We can handle your after-hour and weekend calls so you’re free to spend quality down time at home with your family without missing out on new business.    

Give Our Live Answering Service a Call

We offer custom answering services and the only way to really learn if we’re a good fit for your company is to give us a call at 1-800-785-6161. All businesses are different so after you speak with our account specialist, we can give you expert advice on whether or not your business is ready to hire a live answering service.