Many small business owners face problems while answering phone calls. You do not want to miss a call when your business is in a growing stage and this responsibility increase with time. Everyone wants to answer all incoming calls as quickly as possible to secure their sales and provide the best service to their customers.
However, you need to pay attention to other essential day-to-day tasks, here you need an efficient and cost-effective automated phone answering system or business phone system.
What is a phone answering system?
A business phone answering system provides excellent call management that helps you to focus on other core business tasks. It is perfect for small and medium business owners; it projects a big business image and offers a highly professional phone management system.
The phone answering system is a virtual receptionist that efficiently receives all your inbound and outbound calls. It connects your remote employees with the caller in working hours or even after business hours.
Why do small businesses need a phone answering system?
Growing small businesses face several unique challenges every day, including capitalizing on opportunities while remaining streamlined and navigating budgetary concerns. A phone answering system will give you a lot of different features at a reasonable cost.
How does a phone answering system work?
The IVR (integrated voice response) feature greets the caller. This is an auto-attendant system that professionally routes the call to the desired extension. The find me follow me features is a call forwarding feature that directs the call to an alternate number, including the pre-assigned number and home phone. If you are not available, the auto attendant system will transfer the call to your customizable automated voicemail box, and you will get all recordings via an email so you can respond to them later.
Benefits Of Phone Answering System
- An automated phone answering system will never have a bad day. By using a virtual phone answering service, you do not have to worry about a non-professional encounter, or the receptionist is away from the phone desk. Your business phone answering system will always have a professional greeting even after your business hours.
- You will have more control over your business calls. You will have an opportunity to choose what kind of tone and message you want to use as a greeting when customers contact you. More you can determine what departments and phone options you want to show and how they will be presented to the callers.
- The phone answering system will decrease the ratio of dropped calls. It will promptly answer all calls, even if everyone is busy or you have a high call volume. Customer will spend less time being placed for hold and quickly reach to the concerned department.
- More efficiency and productivity. Your employees will use their time at the right place and will only have to answer the exact questions about the business as all of your calls will be sorted before transferring so the staff will get department-related calls. By using an automated phone answering system, you can set up info boxes that will cover the necessary details.
- A virtual phone answering system will save you money. You do not need to hire someone to respond to all your calls. It will save you money on salary, training, recruitment, and other essential expenses.
How can I update the phone answering system as my business grows?
The phone answering system is only a perfect match if it meets your requirements even if your business grows. You can update it any time but make sure the service provider allow up-gradation and modification, you may need to change your service plan if you need so many changes and you will pay a little more amount for the new plan.
Every service provider has its own terms and conditions; some may allow significant changes too. If you have a new lead, staff member, product, or department, then you can request a change, and it will be updated without any further charge. Increasing the number of operators may cost you higher. You can update the greeting message whenever you want or change the forwarding phone number as well.
Phone answering system features:
- You will get a free, customized, voicemail box feature. It will help you when you are busy and missed a call so that you can answer the recorded calls later.
- Your customer will enjoy music during the time of call transfer so that they will have no tedious wait. It will keep the customer on the phone until someone from the concerned department responds.
- It also offers a custom message that can be played during the call transfer. By using this feature, you can easily promote your products, record news, or information that you want to share with your callers, and let them know more about your company and products. It will enhance your business productivity.
- Automated answering service will let you focus on other essential tasks. If you are busy, it will direct the callers to your voicemail, the recorded voice messages will be emailed you, and you can call your customers on their requested time and topic. More it will help you to answer maximum calls in a very professional way.
- You do not need to set up a costly and big hardware system for call forwarding and transfer. An automated phone answering system will make it done perfectly and professionally for you. It will transfer the calls to your remote employees as well, or if you want to respond requests even after your business hours, then it will also forward all incoming calls to that specific home number after working hours.
Conclusion:
The phone answering system is the best solution for small business owners to stay in touch with all of their customers. You will save a lot of money by not using other big systems, as their set up will cost you higher. The automated phone answering system offers you several features that your business needs in this growing stage.