A Better Answer Blog

Starting any new business can be hectic and pressurized. As a new business owner, there are many roles you are currently filling, and it’s important to prioritize what grows the company. Maintaining excellent customer service and focus through those early days in business is one of the most important reasons to consider hiring an answering service.

Considering an Answering Service

You may know your trade inside out, but there are many considerations to take into account. Very often, small business owners focus on the work at hand and administration tends to get left in limbo leading to customer service and training problems. As a startup more time needs to be spent growing the business, building your culture and expanding and fleshing out your services or products.

With a professional answering service, new business owners can rest assured that all their calls will be answered expertly and professionally. An answering service offers:

• Detailed notes for all messages – No more lost calls or notes written down on scrappy pieces of paper. Messages can be documented through whatever form suites your needs, including email, web, text, voicemail and more.  
• Custom scripts – You'll work with your call handling provider to produce a script detailing the information you want your caller to receive.  
• Expert call handing – Your contacts are greeted with professionalism and call operators have the information they need about your business to handle all calls with confidence.

If your new business is in an industry that requires a lot of unique knowledge or adheres to compliance standards like healthcare or legal, you'll find the professional and businesslike approach adopted by experienced call handlers is a great tool to offload pressure from your team of experts with a job to do. If your industry requires specialized knowledge, make sure that anyone you are considering can meet the demands of your industry.

How it Works

There are a wide array of call handling providers that offer a variety of services. Some of them can provide support for your sales team, operations team and free up internal resources. Here are a number of ways you can use your answering service to support your startup:

• Give your unique telephone number to customers and clients, so all calls are directed straight to the service. 
• Forward calls from your existing telephone number. 
• Use the service as an overflow, when existing numbers are busy or even when at lunch. 
• Expand the times people can reach you to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  
• Support your staff with a call center that offers lead qualification, appointment scheduling, emergency or maintenance dispatch or even help desk support.  

Outsourcing your telephone answering and messaging to professional providers is one of the best decisions you can make for your startup. The dedication and expertise of trained and experienced call handling staff conveys a professional image, allows you to allocate your staff to growing your company and provides support you might not otherwise have.

A Better Answer Call Centers are based in Texas and have been providing telephone answering and messaging services for more than 45 years. Our team of call handlers provide a variety of services, including bilingual expertise, legal knowledge and HIPAA-compliant medical answering expertise. We're experts in providing startups with the right telephone answering services to meet the needs of their new business now and in the future.

Editor’s Note: This blog was originally published on December 30th, 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and relevancy.