Signs Your Business Needs A Telephone Answering Service
Starting your own business is an incredibly exciting venture. You become your own boss, you have the freedom you never thought was possible. You can set your own hours, and you have no one else to answer to! This newfound freedom unfortunately does come with some added responsibility. You will soon realise how many different hats you will have to wear. And how many different tasks you will need to perform every day. However, we doubt you will have even thought about the possibility you might need a telephone answering service.
Burnout is becoming increasingly common with start-up business owners. The passion for making their business a success, combined with the fact they don’t want to invest in help, are the key contributing factors. At some point, you will need to start delegating tasks and outsourcing work as your business starts to grow. One of the easiest things to let a bit of control go with is telephone calls. Let’s have a look at some signs that your business needs a telephone answering service.
1. Your business is expanding rapidly
When you only have a few customers to look after it is easy to strike the balance between carrying out the work for them and providing an excellent level of customer service. As your business starts to grow, the first thing that falls through the cracks is communication. You still continue to provide a high level of service, but often the emails and telephone calls get pushed to the bottom of the list. By hiring the services of a telephone answering service provider, you can free up some of your time to focus on the other aspects of your business.
2. You are handing out your private number
If you become too reliant on using your personal mobile phone number for work calls, your privacy could be compromised. It also doesn’t look very professional handing out your mobile number all the time. You may come across as a smaller business to potential clients if you don’t have a landline number. By using a professional phone answering service you will also benefit from having an established landline number. This will help to improve your reputation as well as protecting your personal information.
3. Your free time is spent answering calls
As a business owner, you might start feeling overwhelmed by the number of phone calls you are answering. Not only from current customers but potential new ones too. If you are finding that your personal time is being taken up with answering calls – for example using your dog walks to catch up on your voicemails, it is time to stop. Remember to succeed in the long run, you need to set aside some time for yourself to refocus and rest. Let someone else take the pressure off and handle your calls for you.
4. Your calls are fairly straightforward
It may be that you can only delegate some of your business calls to a telephone answering service provider to begin with. Those routine phone calls can actually be the most draining on a business anyway as they are repetitive and often involve the same questions. Telephone answering services are a great way to deal with these. A fully trained receptionist will be able to easily answer these common questions and can follow up on any hot leads for you too.
5. You don’t have much of a budget
We have spoken a lot about the importance of keeping overheads low when starting up a business. However, something like a telephone answering service could be the best investment you make. It really isn’t as expensive as you might think either. Whilst hiring a full-time receptionist might be a good idea in your head, is that something that you can really afford early on in growing your business? Maybe it makes more sense to invest in a virtual office package that includes telephone call answering.
If you would like to know more about the telephone call answering service included within our Gold virtual office package, please get in touch today – 01205 80922, info@ventureoffices.co.uk.
