<img height="1" width="1" style="display:none" src="https://www.facebook.com/tr?id=602865229879969&amp;ev=PageView&amp;noscript=1">

A Better Answer Blog

What Happens to Customer Calls During a Natural Disaster?

Floods, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, oh my! Did you know that Slate Magazine has already labeled the 21st Century, “The Century of Disasters”? From the half-mile twister that recently tore through Joplin, MO. to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, the flooding of the Mississippi River, and the tsunamis that have ravaged various places around the globe, natural disasters have dominated the headlines of our news for the past few years.

Currently, in Texas, we are in the middle of tornado season, and like it or not, there can be danger even at our answering service premises. Thankfully, at A Better Answer Call Centers, we’ve taken extra precautions, and have formulated emergency call center contingency plans, in order to do everything in our power to protect ourselves and the communication needs of our customers should any natural disaster take place.

[gallery]

At A Better Answer Call Centers, we have three (3) regional offices: Dallas/Plano, Fort Worth, and Houston. A tremendous advantage of using a call center with remote offices is that if a natural disaster occurs in one location, the other two bureaus can take over to handle customer calls with shared lines and staff. A Better Answer also utilizes remote Telephone Service Representatives, or “TSRs”, who operate outside of these areas and can jump on to handle the increase of activity due to an influx of concerned callers checking on their families, friends and customers. Also, we’ve found that most of our clients forward their local phone lines using Telco call forwarding. Should that method fall off during a disaster, ABA can help get this reinstated for you to be sure that you lose no calls.

ABA is local to many of our customers, so we understand what’s really going on – your calls are safe and re-routed to another location in case you can’t answer for a few minutes, for a day or two, or maybe even longer. Our staff is trained to know our geographic areas. Foreign call centers can be at a serious disadvantage in such situations. We’ve observed in the past that it can be difficult for them to understand the impact of a local natural disaster and be flexible enough to make the necessary changes to handle the crisis. Business owners and managers deserve to be able to sleep at night knowing that their business calls are going to be answered and that business communications are safe and secure.

Finally, as part of our call center disaster plan, communication at A Better Answer is backed up with several uninterruptable power supplies, on-site generators, and back-up contracts with local generator suppliers. In addition, we’ve implemented a vendor “guarantee of re-distribution” of all calls if those emergency precautions fail.

With over 40 years of taking calls for our customers, A Better Answer Call Centers is your communication solution in natural disasters. Think of all the money a business could lose if no one was there to handle their calls! We think of ourselves as a “lifeline” for our clients and A Better Answer works very hard to be your “Call Handling Heroes” 24/7.

what to look for in an answering service

Topics: Articles Blog