You know how stressful running a business is and as a business owner you are likely to worry about what will happen to your company should you take time off to go on holiday. A professional Telephone Answering Service for Holiday Cover is not a luxury.
Such a service will allow you to take time away from the everyday stress and recharge. You will return refreshed to discover all your calls answered, happy customers and a list of leads to pursue after everyone is back from their summer or Christmas break.
In this article:
How to choose a telephone answering service
What to expect on your return
What is the difference between a voicemail and a service?
Will AI or an app provide holiday cover?
You may be looking for temporary holiday cover but it is worthwhile to understand that such a service will help your business grow for a reasonable fee (contact us for a trial), in the long term. In the first instance, you’ll look for recommendations.
You’ll be looking for:
Trained professionals
Data capture accuracy
Understanding of your business service or products
Working hours
Appointment making
Lead generation
Testimonials/Reviews
A safe place to start is on the website of the service followed by a local search. Does the business have a Google Business Profile? If they do, how many reviews? What is the rating, ideally over 4 out of 5? Look for the less obvious details, for instance how they deal with cold callers. Does their service save businesses time and reduce stress? You may also check on online review platforms, although some of these have a poor reputation (mentioning no names) and it is the local reviews that carry the most weight, like Google and social profiles.
Trained Professionals
You are looking for guaranteed human operators. Staff that are dedicated to telephone answering and trained to sift the calls for ones with a positive for your business and politely decline the sales calls we are all fed up with. Professionals who can absorb the details of your business and deal with customer enquiries and complaints in an empathetic manner. So good in fact they can turn a complaint into a loyal customer who espouses the professional manner they were dealt with to their family and friends, priceless word-of-mouth marketing.
Data Capture Accuracy
You may need details of customers that call in so you may market to them in a more personalised manner, a key to business success. How does the service deal with the data they are capturing for business?
Understanding of Your Business Service or Products
How does the service deal with a briefing of their operators? Professional services will expect you to supply briefing material including your business Frequently Asked Questions. They may also expect scripts on how to answer a call and deal with particular enquiries.
Professional operators quickly become experts for every business they support.
Working Hours
You will expect office hours for the service but this can mean different hours for different businesses, plus having an out-of-hours service is going to impress your customers and your prospects. Look for a service that can offer out-of-hours answering.
Appointment Making
Your sale may be quite involved, perhaps requiring a site visit. Appointment-making is likely to be the bedrock of your business. A team is familiar with your back-office software and has the ability to contact others in your business is vital.
Lead Generation:
Wouldn’t it be a perfect world if you went on holiday and returned to a list of prospects? Lead generation by your own marketing is one thing but with a professional team, other leads can be created from the casual enquiry and turned into a sale, a cross-sell or even an upsell.
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What to Expect on Your Return
What a feeling you’ll have on returning to the business because you know you are in safe hands. A call report will show you how many calls were dealt with in your absence. A list of appointments (the team will manage the prospect’s expectations and will not make any empty promises of dates) for you to attend and convert. Ones you weren’t expecting as well as those from existing (and well-cared for) customers.
What you should also expect is a list of potential customers for sales or upsells. That extra lead generation will pay for your investment in a telephone answering service holiday cover and more!
What is the Difference Between a Voicemail and a Service?
This is a surprising question but asked more often than you think. A voicemail is a faceless way of responding to a phone call. A customer or prospect is going to expect more than a recorded message. If you know your competitors respond to calls in this way you will be at a huge advantage by using a telephone answering service.
What is even worse is the fact that voicemails can be overlooked, they may take days to be responded to and your business cannot afford to let customers forget about you. You want to convert that lead and a quick (or instant response with a service) is going to impress your customer or prospect. If you are on holiday then the service can manage the expectations.
On your return you’ll have an eager customer or prospect who will be delighted you followed up, showing them your professional service.
Will AI or an App Provide Holiday Cover?
No. That’s the simple answer. AI is a buzzword. Everyone and their dog have some form of AI solution. Some of them are relevant, for example, generating ideas for articles for your website using ChatGPT is one thing (just don’t expect anything worthwhile if you ask for it to write the article) but AI misses the most important aspect of customer retention and creation. That’s right. The human response, valuable, empathetic and capable of improvisation is going to make your business money. AI or even the best-developed app in the world is not going to do that.
Conclusion
Going on holiday is a must. Now imagine returning to a more qualified business on your return. Do your research, look at the service options and take in the fact that your business is going to benefit while you take a well-deserved break.
