Every successful business owner understands that customer satisfaction is the key to profitability. Unluckily, reports show that businesses are struggling to offer sufficient customer service regularly. According to Forbes Magazine, more than 70% of consumers in the United States ended a business relationship since they were turned off by a poor customer service experience. This usually costs American companies dearly; in fact, Forbes estimates the total loss of revenue at $83 billion each year.
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As more and more companies start to understand the significance of proficient, courteous customer service, they are turning to professional answering services. A reliable answering service can make a great impact on business by boosting efficiency, greater customer satisfaction, and even higher profits.
If you have a high volume of incoming phone calls which you cannot quite handle but do not want to employ more personnel, a business answering service could be essential in offering your clients with great customer service, letting your staff handle other, more important duties. Business answering services offer real people to take messages, answer your telephone calls, handle sales, set appointments, and much more. These services are very popular in several industries and can be especially beneficial in healthcare and retail, particularly in small businesses.
Business answering services are geared toward assisting you to offer customer service without overtaxing your current staff or having you employ new personnel. They are able to answer questions and resolve any problems your clients might have, even beyond your normal business hours.
Answering services will answer your telephone calls and the questions customers may have by adhering to a script full of product and service information you have given to the company. You can offer as much or as little information into these essential scripts as you would like. Many of these answering companies have customizable choices so that the agents have as much information about your product or service as you would like them to have. Without further ado, let us look at the top five business answering services:
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1. XACT Telesolutions
If your business does not field numerous phone calls, it can be hard to find a call center service that’ll really be cost-effective. Xact Telesolutions has no call limitations or monthly invoice requirements, so you can only pay for the services you utilize and nothing more.
Agents of Xact Telesolutions are prepared to answer any calls 24/7, 365, and the company will enable you to monitor any telephone call in real time using a supervisory tool. It also provides one of the highly comprehensive language services with agents fluent in Spanish and English along with a third-party translation partner who can support over 100 extra languages.
Pros: This service provides solid choices, especially for medical services.
Cons: The live chat service of the company is less helpful than the company’s other ways of support.
Verdict: Xact Telesolutions provides excellent choices for several different industries, especially small businesses, and medical offices since it provides order processing and appointment setting.
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2. SAS Answer Connect
This business answering service offers order processing, appointment scheduling, and 24/7 service.
This company has detailed training for its agents and a large range of features.
The features include bilingual options, scripts, an online account, and much more.
Pros: This company has comprehensive and speedy customer service.
Cons: It isn’t the most affordable of the answering services compared to other services in this review.
Verdict: AnswerConnect is an excellent answering service with stellar customer service and doesn’t charge extra for processing orders or scheduling appointments. All of this on top of its bilingual options, 24/7 availability, and quick activation time makes it a perfect option when you are looking at answering services.
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3. SAS Specialty Answering Services
Medical practices have distinct needs in communications. Not only do medical facilities need to ensure security, but they also need to do so in line with the federal HIPAA standards.They provide an HIPAA-compliant answering service at affordable rates. There are a number of plans to select from depending on your expected call volume, ranging from the pay-as-you-go economy plan all the way up to an enormous 10,000-minute plan. Specialty Answering Services also provide a very effective appointment scheduler complete with follow-ups that add a layer of redundancy to the scheduler of your practice-management system.
Pros: This service provides order processing and appointment setting at no extra cost.
Cons: Not responsive to emails.
Verdict: Specialty Answering Services has numerous features, including 24/7 availability, and bilingual options, which make it a perfect option in the answering service industry.
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4. MAP Communications
This is an answering service with competitive fees and a complete roster of services. It serves numerous types of businesses, including those in the education, medical, and legal industries. It’s also available for small businesses, contractors, and much more. This company provides medical answering services. It’s been HIPAA compliant since 2001. Therefore, the information of your patients is always secure and safe. The agents at this company are also trained to use numerous online calendars, including Yahoo’s and Google’s; thus, appointment setting is available in your basic plan at no additional charge. In addition, this service can take and process orders for you.
Pros: This business answering service has a quick activation time and can have you set up within 24-48 hours. It’s also one of the live answering services that allow you to watch a live receptionist during all hours of the day.
Cons: It doesn’t offer live chat or email support.
Verdict: MAP Communications has numerous features. Also, it has affordable rates and can serve a broad variety of industries, making it a perfect answering service worth considering.
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5. AnswerAmerica
AnswerAmerica is an answering service designed to handle numerous different needs, including order processing and appointment setting.
It has a variety of features to serve your business.
This business answering service has several different plans for you to select from. Its basic answering service plan has a pay-as-you-go structure. Once you sign up for this plan, you are up and running within a few minutes, and there’s no setup fee.
Pros: This service doesn’t count con calls or wrong numbers against your minutes.
Cons: There are no email or live chat support for you to contact the company.
Verdict: AnswerAmerica is an essential service with numerous features which can be beneficial to you and your business, though, you may have to incur charges to access them. Still, with its 24/7 availability, competitive rates, and the bilingual options, AnswerAmerica is worth considering.
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