It’s no secret that business picks up during the holidays. According to the National Retail Federation, sales in November and December of 2016 are expected to increase 3.6 percent to $655.8 billion. That’s higher than the 10-year average of 2.5 percent and above the seven-year average of 3.4 percent since the economy started to recover in 2009. Furthermore, NRF forecasts non-store sales to increase between seven and 10 percent to as much as $117 billion.

Every call center is unique in how it handles calls for a business. Some are dedicated call centers that handle the same thing for one company (e.g. cable providers, banks, etc.). These call centers more than likely use the same process start to finish on every call they handle. Then there are shared call centers that handle a wide range of services for multiple clients (e.g. law offices, HVAC, ministries, catalog services, etc.). In this case, the call center team has to be able to understand how to handle a wide variety of call types for different companies.

When you hear the words “call center,” does it immediately bring to mind endless rows of people chattering away on headsets? If so, you have a pretty accurate idea of what a call center is like. One thing associated with many call centers is an extremely high turnover rate. As a matter of fact, the average time a U.S. call center representative remains at one job is about three years. 

Call Handling Heroes® — Michelle Rowe and Irene Molina

Home health is not the easiest job (even in the best of circumstances), but problems can be exacerbated with new patients, unfamiliar surroundings and language barriers.

Answering services and call centers often talk about how they provide excellent customer service, but it doesn’t mean anything unless they can back it up. To show you how A Better Answer does things in the real world, here are 10 examples of fantastic customer service from our Call Handling Heroes®:

Call Handling Hero^® - Eric

Our winner for this month's Call Handling Hero® is Eric! Our client's wife was in a car accident and he wanted us to reach out to the correct police department for him to report the emergency. Eric calmly patched our client through to the appropriate 911 department and even reconnected the call when they were disconnected. 

Geography is an important factor to think about when outsourcing services for your business. For example, if your business is in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex or surrounding area and you’re considering hiring an answering service, the company’s location may help determine if they’re the best fit. High touch is still highly valued, after all.

In the world of customer service and call centers, every single phone call is different. The person answering the phone must be prepared for a variety of personalities, challenges and temperaments when the call begins. An emergency call can be especially challenging if the call agent is not prepared. For medical practices and hospitals with regular emergency calls, having a medical answering service gracefully handling the situation is especially important. 

They say that 10 percent of conflict is due to a difference in opinion; the other 90 percent is due to the wrong tone of voice. When it comes to your customers, this is definitely something to keep in mind, as your voice can determine the outcome of any call. Just as you can give a caller a high level of comfort, you can give a caller a high level of anxiety — all with just your voice.