Your business might not experience the phone ringing off the hook 24/7, or even 9 to 5, but you probably face a rush at certain peak times of the day or on certain days of the week.
During such periods it’s all hands on deck, and at these times your receptionists or staff answering calls face the impossible decision – do they neglect calls or deliver poor customer service to the ones they do answer?
It’s probably also the case that busy periods of incoming calls negatively impact on the ability of your business to deal with face to face customers.
In such circumstances, there is an increased risk of losing potential new business and of not being able to handle requests for bookings and appointments. Again, the impossible decision – do you neglect the people you’re dealing with to answer the telephone or do you neglect the incoming calls?
In truth, this isn’t a choice that your organisation should be making, and it certainly shouldn’t be one that your staff have to make on a regular basis. For some businesses, staff having to stop what they’re doing to answer the phone can be really damaging if they’re busy handling critical tasks.
You could begin monitoring and analysing your peak call periods – and you may be doing this already – but even if you can identify a pattern, it can be uneconomical to hire additional staff for an hour or two each day, perhaps for just a few days a week.
It’s likely to be a better option to use a telephone answering service and place those calls that your team can’t manage into the hands of a third party you can trust. That way all enquiries are handled in a professional and timely manner and every call that your team are unable to take is answered in an efficient way.
Urgent calls can still be diverted to you for immediate attention, and messages can be taken for routine matters to be sent on to your team for handling during normal business periods. Your callers get through to a polite, calm human being rather than speaking to a frazzled member of your team or a robotic answer phone, and your staff don’t have to make the dreaded impossible decision.