When you’re a business owner, you know how strapped for time things can feel. There’s so much that goes into running a business on the daily, you’re likely to realize sooner or later that extra help—even for the tasks that you might consider to be smaller—is necessary to ensure everything flows smoothly through the workday.
Introduction: Virtual Assistants for Businesses
One major area some companies tend to overlook as more “minor” is their call center. For smaller businesses, your “current call” center may be you, yourself, or a few regular employees answering the phones—when you all would really rather be spending the time getting on top of your other responsibilities. The thing is though, your customer support is actually crucial to your company’s well-being.
Related: 5 Awesome Ways You Can Improve Your Business
If you want your business to grow and experience as few challenges down the road as possible, a great place to start is by improving the customer service you can offer. Customers and clients, after all, are really who propel the business forward. If they become too frustrated by long wait times or unpleasantries over the phone with a representative when they called looking for assistance (not headaches), they may decide to take their business elsewhere.
Don’t want people leaving and going to your competitors? Then consider looking into getting a professional, outsourced virtual assistant through an answering service. Here’s how they can help.
Take Calls 24/7—365 Days Per Year
Imagine how much more business you could get and how much more convenience you would provide to callers if your phone lines never closed for the night (nor weekends or for holidays). No, we’re not suggesting you and your staff never get any shuteye. Rather, you and all your valued employees can head home for the night or for a vacation knowing the business will still be in good hands.
With a virtual assistant that is always available, customers won’t get a busy signal or be sent to a robotic voicemail message if they call during times you and your people can’t physically be in the office. Answering services accomplish this by making sure they are well-staffed so that they either have people awake at times that are normal for them—but not for you, due to timezone differences—or by rotating shifts so there is constant coverage.
Make Call Overflow Problems a Thing of the Past
This is where having more manpower provides a solution to previous struggles you may have faced getting calls answered in a timely manner. A virtual assistant—or a whole team of them—will see to it that no call goes unanswered, that no calls are rushed, and that no customer experiences a burnt-out, attitude-ridden employee.
You and your staff members never need to feel swamped again because you can refocus your time and energy on other tasks and leave waiting by the phones for your outsourced partner. Each and every customer deserves to be met with a short hold time and a representative with a pleasant demeanor. If they’re not, they might not want to remain customers of your company. In a similar vein, overloaded employees could leave if they feel they are having to do too many things at once.
Save yourself the stress and potential costs of upsetting any and all involved parties when you ensure there are no bottlenecks and that service doesn’t fall through the cracks.
Other Reasons to Enlist the Help of a Virtual Assistant
Not only will bringing on a team of virtual assistants help you save time, resources, and frustration for the reasons outlined above—there are other beneficial factors to consider, too. An answering service may be able to offer assistance to customers in multiple languages to fit their needs and comfort levels, handle order entry and appointment scheduling as applicable, and even manage disaster planning and recovery.
Conclusion: Do you see the Benefits of VAs?
Now that you know the many advantages of partnering with a trustworthy virtual assistant or answering service, it’s time to begin your research on the best ones out there. This could be the start of a beautiful business relationship!