It’s hard to believe, but it’s been almost half a century since A Better Answer started serving its customers. A lot has changed over the years, to say the least. In honor of this — and to celebrate our 45^th anniversary this year — we thought we’d take a look back at what’s changed since 1971:

Every company has to find its own culture. Sometimes you know what you want; other times you fall into it because of circumstances and experiences. Either way, it’s a big part of entrepreneurial success. You need an identity and a way to make employees feel invested in your business if you’re going to last.

At A Better Answer, we reward staff members who go above and beyond to provide great customer care and exhibit a commitment to community through giving of their time and talent. We call them Call Handling Heroes® and recognize them monthly for helping make us the best in the business.

This January, we had an unusual but happy situation--leaving us with not just a single Call Handling Hero^®, but a tie for Call Handling Heroes^® and a runner-up!

Even with the proliferation of social media, the telephone remains one of the most important communication devices between businesses and customers. Social media doesn’t allow for inflection or any well trusted way to sense mood and rapport like hearing someone’s voice over a phone line. Because a phone conversation is limited, in comparison to meeting face-to-face, there are rules of business etiquette that should be followed.

Running a business means that you must stay focused and productive to get the most out of every work day. If you’re an entrepreneur or small business owner, you may be performing most, if not all, of the daily duties of running your company and then some all while trying to increase revenue. The good news is that you know all of the intricate details of your business. The challenge is that there is only one (or very few) of you all wearing different hats and hoping that you stay ahead of the game.

When you consider high stress occupations, you might think about police officers, firefighters, emergency room doctors or other first responders. Call handlers also face high stress situations which could directly impact a caller’s state of mind for better or worse. Depending on the client, a telephone representative could be speaking to a frustrated customer or dealing with a life or death situation as well. The success or failure of these stressful situations are heavily determined by the person’s reaction to it.

Fierce competition in today’s economy means a small business owner must be a few steps ahead at all times. While your business may be offering the same products or services as another, you can still differentiate yourself.

As A Better Answer offers many types of services, we like to provide information on these services so that each client’s needs are being met effectively. We have tackled the difference between a call center and an answering service. We even offered clarity on our inbound, outbound and executive level telemessaging services. Now we’ll look deeper into the inbound call center and help explain more details.

Our December hero, Ariana, went above and beyond to help a caller who was almost left out in the winter cold.