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Should you go for a Telephone Call Answering Service or Voicemail?

By: NickyWalker Click author's name for more of his/her articles

A call answering service is an excellent way of organizing telephone communication for sole traders, small and medium sized companies. In the present days highly competitive business world, businesses need to take advantage of every source of business that present themselves, but many could be losing chances or potential sales without even knowing it. It is thought that around 4 out of 5 people put the phone down when he or she hear a voicemail greeting. So if a business is not able to manage their telephone calls and leaves it to an answering machine, for every 10 potential clients, 8 could well be placing their business somewhere else with a rival.

By offering the aid of live operators that are acquainted with the businesses practices, merchandise and large customers, call answering providers (sometimes referred to as "virtual offices") can give fantastic advances in caller satisfaction.

By utilizing a professional call answering service, businesses should be able to keep that one step ahead of their competitors. Customers want to be heard when they call, not at a time suitable to the business when they listen through their recorded messages. Professional virtual PAs (as many operators refer to themselves) are able to give the impression to callers that he or she are part of the organization and a lot of the time be able to do much of what an in-house receptionist does be it scheduling meetings, offering directions, making orders or even just transferring the client to the requested person. The key is that the caller feels they are able to speak to the business whenever they call, most of the time he or she don't even realize they've been chatting to an outsourced personal assistant.

A professional call answering service should never be viewed as a puffed up answering machine and should certainly not be matched against for cost. Voicemails can only give the choice for callers to leave or not to leave a message, there isn't any person to person contact and the vast majority will go somewhere else. If an organization is content to invest a small amount on voicemail then they should expect a small sum of business from it.

Small companies that are weighing up if voicemail is all they require to record potential clients orders need to be asking this question- If you were looking quickly for a service and had your call picked up by voicemail, would you provide a message or would you call the very next entry in the phone book?

Article Source: ABC Article Directory

About The Author: Nicky Walker has over 10 years know-how in call answering services. Having worked within some of the leading companies in Britain and now devotes his time to {helping|assist) new and start up companies.