Small business answering service – A Home based business option
Almost all the communication today is done via the phone and the best way to reach any professional today is the phone. With that growing dependence on the phone there is a need of the small business owners to always attend to call even when they are out in the field. Any dropped can cost a fortune in potential business.
Their next bet is to hire an answering service and it is this opportunity which you can grab and work form home to set up a small business. This business relies on the human interface provide by you for somebody else’s business and also make sure that the business represented in professional manner.
If you need to do a basic answering service then get around ten phone lines and ten different phones and mark them with each client and whoa you are in business. However should you want to take on more clients then you need to get a switch board so that you can handle the calls effectively.
Make sure that you have the office space marked in your home as the switchboard once installed cannot be move very easily and also the cost is huge in terms of extra service. Getting a switch board or only using phones it all depends on your ability to expand or rather your ambition to expand the business.
Now there are several services that the businesses want and that can determine the kind of service you will offer and also the kind of business you would want to venture into from low end to high end. These services can be only incoming answering service or 800 answering service. You can do an order taking service where you need to take down clients credit card numbers too.
Some require telemarketing also within a bundle of incoming messaging service and they pay you a commission on every sale made.
So try now and small business answering service may be is for you as a home based business.
Answering Service Select The Best
Having worked on the other side of the fence with a small business answering service I can give you the perspective on what to look for in a small, business answering service.
No when do you decide to go for a small business, this is the question uppermost on everybody’s mind. Do that early on in the business and not when you start losing client and business due to lost calls and messages.
If you are very serious about getting some professional answering service then make sure that you are going after a small size business answering service company. Go for a medium sized and adequately staffed agency. You would argue that the answering service company will not tell you that and you are correct on that one but the fact is that you can do some due diligence before hiring the services.
The short staffed companies will drop important calls for example like a patient’s call to a doctor in emergency or even catering companies where clients are calling for food and you do not answer the call.
Then there is the issue of cost associated with hiring a big company, but these costs will pay for themselves if your business is expanding as it will if you have good customer relationship and the answering service is really like customer service agent who would need to project a goof image of you and your company.
Due diligence as always pays and the best bet for you is to have a free trial for a month or so with the small business answering company before you decide on one agency. And believe me most companies will agree to your request of free trial.
Answering service vs. Virtual Assistant
As a small business owner you will usually get advice form several quarters that go in for hiring a virtual assistant as that helps in many ways. She or he is sitting at home and doing work for you so no extra space for her and also they will handle usually all paper work and other miscellaneous work for you.
But the arguments against that are many especially when you begin to get business calls at any time during the day and if you have business spread across time zones then that means that you will always have to have a virtual assistant which in turn mans that the person cannot leave the desk at any time during the day or night. It will be a burnout case eventually and you will have to find alternative solution.
The best solution is to hire a fulfillment services or answering services. Make sure to ask questions like where are the companies employees located unless of course you do not care if the employees are located overseas. The other thing to know is if the employees are bonded in case you need to take orders and then they will have to take down the credit card numbers etc.
A lot of small business answering services companies have the best of the both worlds that is the customized voice prompted menus and followed by live support. They also offer live support after office hours and in various time zones. Also voice mail services are important and a lot of companies offer that too.
Think now in comparison to a virtual assistant you will never be able to get these plethoras of services plus the need for a professional tone is a must and these companies provide that with extensive training to their employees. And do not worry if these employees are located overseas as these overseas employees are also trained well in handling the calls.