Nick DAlleva

Answering Service Increases Profits

While on paper utilizing a telephone answering service is more expensive than voicemail, it can actually help increase business profits. Live operators answering your calls will help strengthen your customer relationships.

The cost of using an answering service is a difficult thing to try to decipher. While an answering service comes with a higher price tag than voicemail, it also is a cost savings when compared to a receptionist. A lot of questions need to be answered? How much more will the call center cost versus a voicemail solution? How much money can a company save by using a service instead of a receptionist? Can an answering service increase profits?

Businesses are often forced to make difficult decisions. Running a business is a balancing act. The goals are seemingly simple. Accounts receivable must be increased, and accounts payable must be decreased. But, in business, even the simple things are difficult. Trying to decide where to cut costs is often a very difficult decision. With these difficult decisions, the bottom line of a company is affected. Sometimes when a company cuts costs, their expenditures may lower, but their revenues are affected. A company's decision on answering service is one of these choices that have a direct correlation to the profitability of a company.

Answering Service vs. Voicemail
The argument of whether using an answering service or a voicemail is more efficient is one that is on the minds of many business owners in the United States. The cost savings definitely favors using voicemail. Voicemail is generally a fixed cost option. Usually, most telephone companies offer an unlimited voicemail plan at a very nominal cost. Outside, independent voicemail companies are slightly more costly than the phone company variety, yet it is far less expensive than using a call center.

Using an answering service will increase profits as opposed to using voicemail. Even though there is a substantially greater out of pocket expense. The results, however, of using answering service are far more successful than that of a voicemail. Voicemail as a whole is not an effective method of message capture. The average caller hangs up after reaching a voicemail. In fact seven out of ten people who reach a voicemail do not leave a message. While some of these callers will call back, a thirty percent success rate is nothing to write home about.

Answering Service vs. the Receptionist
An answering service is an enormous cost savings over a receptionist. While the cost of employing a full time employee is several thousand dollars per month. The average cost of using a full time answering service would be only in the two to three hundred dollars a month. With the advent of so many new technologies and the ability to share and access information, an answering service can do a job that might be comparable to a receptionist. In the process a company is saving thousands of dollars a month by outsourcing their reception desk to a call center. By saving money on such a venture is another way that an answering service increases profits. The answering service also works around the clock, never takes a break, works holidays and weekends.

More and more businesses are utilizing an answering service to handle their calls throughout the day. The idea makes sense and adds to a company's bottom line. By helping a business, both in increasing profit and decreasing costs, an answering service becomes a very valuable tool in operating a business.

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