Should I Use Voice Mail Or Telephone Answering Services?

Should I Use Voice Mail Or Telephone Answering Services?

It’s easy to rationalize why voice mail is ideal for your business.  Perhaps you are the head of a small business just starting out.  You may only have a few employees or may work alone a majority of the time.  You have your cell phone, you have an office phone and you can buy a digital telephone answering machine for probably less than .  The problem is that when you use telephone call answering systems you run the risk of alienating your customers.  As soon as someone picks up the phone they immediately sense:

A: You are too busy to pick up.

B: You don’t have the need or desire for a more professional live answering service.
C: You really don’t care.

The item C is especially true if your voice mail introduction has no personal touch.  This immediately sets the tone for your future relationship with the customer: one of cold and impersonal service.  This is the exact opposite of the relationship you should cultivate with your potential buyers.

However, you may hesitate at the idea of hiring a fulltime staff for customer service work.  Who can blame you?  It’s hard to pay a fulltime employee’s wage, especially if their service doesn’t directly lead to massive sales.  By outsourcing calls to telephone answering services, you are saving money, because you’re not actually paying employees for their time.  You are paying a telephone answering service company for its work. 

Not only does an answering message service provide the human factor, but it can also go above and beyond just a standard answering service.  Operators can provide scheduling, questions and answer help, troubleshooting and even emergency calls.  One of the most prominent objections to using a call answering service company is that of priority handling.  Some services take on a variety of clients and arbitrarily decide who gets priority.  Medical clients usually demand the most immediate attention, which serves the medical companies well, but leaves smaller services with inferior service. 

Today’s live answering service is promising more personal and professional service.  Some companies are even stating that they do not handle medical clients, which ensures all clients that every caller is treated immediately and professionally.  In addition to these basic features, today’s answering message service companies also provide message delivery, meaning your messages can be delivered via email, text or fax.  For more reasons on why you should choose phone message service over telephone call answering systems, contact TeleMessagingUSA.com.