Make Sure That Your Answering Service Leads to More Appointments and Not More Missed Opportunities

Make sure that the money you’re paying your answering service is paying off for your business

Many home services companies use answering services that exist outside of their actual office.

There are many reasons that answering services are incredibly helpful to your business.

However, it is essential to be aware of call outcomes happening from your answering service. It does prove to be a bit more difficult to know this when people are answering phone calls outside of where you are working – but with call tracking solutions, it is just as easy to track what’s going on outside of your four walls as it is inside your business.

To get the whole picture of how successfully your business is operating, you have to look at the entire picture. Use your data to get a complete view of your call handlers’ and your answering service’s call outcomes.

Check calls going to the answering service to see how many are answered or missed.

The point of having an answering service is to not miss any customer calls. Statistics show that 72% of callers will hang up instead of leaving a message when reaching a business’ voicemail; an answering service to help with your phone needs makes sense.

If your office closes at 5 PM, and calls are transferred to your answering service from 5-9 PM, review your call tracking data and notice how many calls are answered or missed. Depending on how detailed your call tracking service gets, you can also see how many appointments are set vs. missed opportunities.

It is trickier to know which calls are answered or missed in the office or by your answering service if they function as a rollover service receiving calls during the day.

CallSource simplifies this for you. Analysts listen for call handlers’ names to label each call. Your answering service can also be tagged enabling you to see call outcomes and effectiveness of the service.

If you have missed opportunity alerts, evaluate internal call handlers versus your answering service.

Whether your answering service functions as a roll-over service or an after-hours service, missed opportunity alerts are time-stamped to let you know when and who didn’t set the appointment.

Listen to the call recordings and address why these missed opportunities are happening. Ensure that all staff is adequately trained on how you want phone calls handled.

According to US Answer, “98 percent of callers state that they get a bad impression of the company if a non- qualified and ill-informed operator picks up the phone who does not know exactly what to do or so.” Just like you train your internal call handlers, make sure to give your answering service all of the necessary information they need to set the appointment, too.

Do you let them set appointments? If not, you may miss out on that potential customer by the next day.

If your answering service doesn’t set appointments, pay close attention to these calls as well as to employees designated to make these callbacks to ensure that callers are being followed up within a timely manner. Perhaps you will even want to re-think allowing your answering services to make tentative appointments.

If employees take too long to get back to a caller, there is a good chance that person will hang up and call the next business who can help with their problem. You’ve lost a potential lifelong customer due to lack of appointment-setting ability. Keep this in mind: Over half of callers call into a business to schedule an appointment, according to a recent survey.

Ultimately, it is up to you as the business leader to choose whether or not to use an answering service, and how to utilize them for your appointment-setting needs. Remember, it is important to keep tabs on all aspects of your business – especially when you are paying more money for a service that is meant to aid you in areas that you do not have available in your actual business.

For more insight into your call outcomes for your business, subscribe to our blog and talk to a CallSource representative today to see how we can help.