How to Get the Most from Your Answering Service

Many people who already have an answering service already know firsthand how effective it can be for a variety of applications. However, many want to know what they can do to ensure they are making the most of this service. The first thing you might do is call up the sales or customer support number of your answering service to ask about the available features of your existing service or about additional services they provide that you might want to learn more about. Oftentimes answering service users have access to a number of features they don''t even know about, so it''s a good starting point to find out what is available to you.

You also want to figure out how you can simplify things in your office and make your business more productive using your answering service. Many companies who have had their answering service take their calls for years have decided to use them for additional purposes, such as appointment setting. This can be a great idea for a number of reasons. First of all, you are already familiar and comfortable with your existing service so having them handle another task is not something you would worry about. Secondly, your company information and billing is already existent with your current provider which makes setup very quick and easy. Most providers with this functionality can add this service to your existing account without much processing time.

When trying to get the most out of your answering service, you might consider adjusting your options in terms of how and when you get your messages. Perhaps you set up your account so that messages that are taken by the operator are sent to you by email as they come in. For people who are frequently out of the office, getting their messages delivered by text message can be an entirely better option. Not only do you get an instant alert of somebody''s call, you get additional information about why they called and who they called for. This allows you some background information to prepare your words before you do call them back, not to mention not having to turn your laptop on and check your email messages.

Another way to get as much as you can out of your answering service is assess when and how you are getting calls to them. Many who start out using a service after-hours eventually switch to having their answering service take calls 24 hours a day or as backup during business hours. For example, if a call comes in and nobody in the office is able to answer, the call can be automatically forwarded to the answering service. Of course, this option is a better fit for some companies rather than others. Doctors offices and other healthcare institutions choose to use this in order to have backup during the day when they are able to answer most of the incoming calls themselves aside from a few peak busy periods where they opt for outside help.

Typically answering services are used for incoming calls, but why not look into using them for outgoing calls as well? Many services can call customers to remind them of appointments, confirm reservations, and other capacities to inform the people who use your products or services. This is an especially good idea if your business functions on making and maintaining a lot of appointments on a regular basis. Taking reservations is one thing, but as a courtesy you ought to remind your customers of their appointments so they show up. This is especially the case when the appointments are being made for weeks or months from now and there is a large chance they will forget before then.