Small businesses find live people still best option for answering phones - Business First of Columbus:

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Just ask real estate agentt Jill Rudlerof . "I needed to duplicatee myself, have a person in the officw who could answer questionzs while I was meeting with Since 1987, Rudler has made it a policy to have a persomn answer phones. In the beginning, Rudler relied on secretariex to answerthe phones. As it turned out, returning so many calls after a day of client meetings meant many late night phone calls which became difficult to Success came when Rudler stopped trying to do itall "I hired a Realtor to handle the office while I was on appointmentsz and really saw the business she said.
Small-business owners start by doingit all, but as salesz increase, they're faced with the dilemma that they can' t do everything. The pace of today's business world requiresz immediate answers. Customers lack patience and are a Googled search away from findingyour competitors. Yet, peoplwe still prefer personal interactions. Even in today's technology-dependentr environment, 73 percent of peoplew prefer to dealby phone, 24 percent prefefr e-mail as a method of interacting and 4 percen of customers would choose live chat, according to the 2007 Aspec Contact Center Satisfaction Index conducted by , in Chelmsford, Aspect Software handles more than 125 millionh customer-company interactions annually at thousands of contact centers arounfd the world.
, a Columbus technology and software has found a way tosatisfy customers' immediate need for answers through a phone routinbg system. The system routes calls to available employees insteaed of to avoicemail system. After business hours, the phone system routes callsto employees' cell phonesx for support. "Customers preferred to talk to someone that could take saysMatt Scantland, president of Innova Partners. "Customeras get support folks who can help crucial tocustomer service. Some of our customers need problemsfixed now. Those problems can happe n at any time, 24/7.
" Investment in a telephone routingy system can require buying telephone systenm softwareand hardware. If that isn't a good fit, a specialize d answering servicemight be. The , a tradew association, recommends doing some legwork before investing in an answering The association recommends looking ata company's employee turnover. If the servicwe is not retaining employees for more thana it's a red flag. The association also advises companiezs to set up telephone numbers on theitr own and not have the answering serviceprovidd them. This way, if a business owne r wants tochange providers, she won't have to changes numbers, too.
Before choosing an answeriny service, evaluate the types of clients it Many answering services have found theirown niches, such as providing bilingual servicesd or specializing in a market segment. One such localp firm is in New This firm provides traditional answering services and specializes in handling callsw for small businesses that sell their products throughonline stores. "A live person can keep a customefr from hanging up and moving on to the next busines s onthe list," says Janene Jaroscak, founder and president of Trending Solutions.
"Ourt representatives have a customer servicde background and do more than just take Jaroscak conducts client screenings prior to taking that first phonee call and learns things abourprospective clients. "I know their history and can answer questions fromtheier perspective," she says. Most answering servicews charge per minute and sell serviced in blocksof time. At Trending Solutions, Jaroscak chargee per call, enabling her team to focuss on service. If customers need it's provided without the clocmk running. To effectively offer phone service sthis way, Trending Solutions conducts tests measuring how long average calls are and sets pricingg based on them.