10 Tips for choosing the Best Telephone Answering Service.

March 12, 2009 - PRLog -- years, I have had plenty of experience when offering some recommendations to a prospective client. If I was seeking to employ the services of a telephone answering service, this would be my check list:
·   Ask for referrals. Any reputable telephone answering service should be able to give at least three or four referrals. It is possible these referrals could be in the same or similar industry as yours.
·   Ask about their service features. Technically advanced telephone answering services and call centers are computerised and offer a fully featured service, including email delivery, text messaging and web access for retrieving messages. Believe it or not, there are still some telephone answering services with first generation computer systems or even old style “cord boards.” The features these companies offer will be limited. Look elsewhere.
·   Visit their facility. If the telephone answering service or call center you are considering is nearby; take the time to visit their operation. Pay attention while there, are you politely greeted when you arrive? Is the office clean? How do the operators sound while on the phone? Is their computer server area neat and organised?
·   Is the owner of the telephone answering service involved in the daily operations. Like any business, the owners will be more interested in running a good, efficient and customer service oriented telephone answering service or call centre. A director who has active participation is a big plus.
·   Don’t make a decision based solely on price. Sstaying within budget is always a good idea, selecting your telephone answering service based on price is always a bad idea. It really is a classic case of….”you get what you pay for”. Many telephone answering services offer inexpensive “minute plans”, but fail to tell you what extras they do charge for. I.e. while callers are on hold, call your line, even when sending you a fax. When you compare rate sheets of two different telephone answering services it can be almost impossible to do a fair comparison. It is like comparing apples to oranges. Ensure you ask exactly what is billed and what is not.
·   Ask for a free trial. Most telephone answering services will offer you at least a week to try them out. If they don’t offer it, ask for a week free. Use the free trial period to see if they are a good fit for your business. If there are some issues that concern you, ask them to extend the trial period so you can give them the opportunity address the problems.
·   Ask about emergency planning. Do they have a backup power? Is there onsite spare parts and computer equipment in case of a systems failure? How often do they backup their data? Is the data stored off site?
·   Quality Control. Is there a call recording option for your calls? Is there monitoring of the agents for accuracy, politeness and professionalism? More importantly... most of today’s telephone answering services can record their calls so they can monitor their operation. This option can come at an additional cost, but should be considered for the short term. Additionally, the telephone answering agents know they are being recorded. This forces them to be on their best behavior.
·   Do they understand really your business? A good question to ask is if they already have clients in the same industry as you. They will likely be familiar with the type of callers you get, the callers typical questions and will be familiar with terminology relevant to your business.
The quality of Telephone Answering Services can vary greatly. If you consider these points I listed. You have a great chance of finding the right telephone answering service that will professionally handle your telephone calls. Let me just finish by saying, you may not need to look past Symmetry. Our website is http://www.symmetryplc.com