In today’s digital world, phone answering services still have a major role to play. Despite the benefits of chat and social media services, you cannot get up close and personal like on a phone call. When it really comes down to it, picking up a phone and dialing a designated toll-free number really helps. Resolving queries via phone and accessing support through a real-life contact has no replacement, at least not in the current decade. Two of the most popular phone-based services used in present-times are: customer care and call answering services.
Understanding the Difference Between Customer Care and Call Answering Services
For those who are uninitiated in the world of call center outsourcing, customer care and answering services call centers might seem like the same thing. But in reality, there is a huge distinction in terms of call center metrics, perspective and support pattern.
While customer care/tech support services are aimed at resolving customer queries and issues, call answering services are aimed at basic support. For example, a customer care executive needs to be well-drilled in the different types of products a company sells and is expected to answer all the relevant questions posed by customers. In contrast, call answering services are more superficial. The answering services agents are trained on a handful of queries. The training period is very short. At the same time, they are expected to finish the calls within 2-3 minutes, which is considerably less than a customer care process where an average call duration may range from 5-15 minutes.
The Importance of Call Answering Services
The primary function of call answering services is that they act as a backbone of a media or promotional campaign. In case, you have launched an advertisement for your new product, interested parties are likely to make contact. During such times, you in-house office staff would not be able to respond to every potential customer.
In such a situation, you can recruit a dedicated phone answering services vendor that has expertise in managing sudden call spikes. Most of the agents in experienced call answering services are very street-smart. They can easily grasp the basics of your business and master the handful of queries that the potential callers are likely to ask. If the call becomes more complex due to unforeseen reasons, they can even transfer it to a designated person in your company.
The main advantage of call answering service is that you do not have to hire new agents on your payroll. Everything is very organized and the call spikes are handled effectively and as per your expectations.