A Hybrid Call Center is a call center that handles both incoming and outgoing calls. For upper corporate management that doesn’t understand call centers—and upper management in most corporations lack this requisite background—an inbound call seems little different than an outbound call. As such, th…
The array of services that telephone answering services can provide is limited only by imagination. But lest you think this next example is theoretical, it comes from the real world of answering services. Yes, answering services are an ideal resource to take drug trial applications. Pharmaceutical c…
Growing your telephone answering service via sales and marketing allows for controlled, sustainable business development. In most cases, using a sales and marketing strategy stands as the preferred method to offset client attrition and provide incremental week-after-week growth. The alternative to a…
When working with a prospect about answering service, price always comes up. But even though it often becomes the focus, it need not. In fact, price is not as important as most salespeople think when it comes to selling answering services. Yet the conversation often gravitates to price because buye…
Running a call center is hard work, even more so in the healthcare industry with the constant pressure of cost-containment, expectation of quality service, and physical wellbeing of callers at stake. Between staffing and technology, the stress can mount. Consider these common healthcare call center …
As your telephone answering service grows, there comes a time when you need a sales manager. While one move is to promote from within, as you do in most of the rest of your answering service, the smart move may be to hire a professional sales manager from the outside. When that time comes, here are …
People think of a telephone answering service as a way to get their phone answered and messages taken. An answering service does that, but it does so much more, too. One such area is increased efficiency. Yes, an answering service can boost productivity. Here are some common ways. Better Focus Prod…
In the post “ What You Call Your Answering Service Staff Matters a Great Deal” we ran through a list of possible names to call your answering service staff. These include operator, telephone receptionist, telephone secretary, agent, telephone service rep, TSR, customer service rep, CSR, customer se…
For perhaps has long as it’s been around, the telephone answering service industry has struggled with what to call the people who answer their clients’ calls. Consider the following options: Operator: Likely harkening back to the day when answering services used cordboards to answer calls—just like…
If you’re contemplating whether you should hire a call center consultant, consider these four common reasons. While you may need help in just one area, the more likely outcome is realizing all four results. Even the best call centers can become better, and a call center consultant is the fastest, m…
When owners of outsourcing call centers and managers of corporate call centers consider tapping the expertise of a call center consultancy, one of four responses occurs. Sometimes, as is the case with the first three reactions, their initial thoughts are not their final one. In fact, some decision m…
At the heart of every call center is a heart that beats with the imperative for quality: Quality service provided by quality agents to drive quality interactions and produce quality outcomes. Everyone talks quality. Everyone wants quality. But how can you know if quality actually happens? The soluti…
Although many factors can spur growth in outsource call centers and telephone answering services, the key growth driver remains sales and marketing. While reputation, quality service, and referral programs all help produce sales, the most results come from strategic marketing and professional sales …
Face it. Call centers run on technology. It’s a fact we can’t escape, even if we wish we could. As a result we must master our technology, one way or another. Some call centers address this need for technological expertise by hiring and building out an IT and programing department. Other call center…
Call center systems produce reams of data. If you’re into numbers your call center platform’s and system’s various reports will keep you happy for days. If you’re more of a people person, as is the case with most call center managers and supervisors, all this data makes your eyes glaze over and your…
Bret Haas opened Barista Bravo a decade ago to meet the need for a local, homegrown coffee shop and hangout. He had a great location and developed a regular clientele within his first year. He wanted to add some bakery goods to complement his hot and cold specialty coffees. When he developed a relat…
Allan and Peg Miller purchased their first investment property two years after graduating from college. Today, they own a small property management company that includes twelve units in three buildings. Surprisingly, they credit the success of their small company to their telephone answering service…
Smart answering service managers make strategic rate increases each month, adjusting the rates of their least profitable clients. This is preferable to making annual across-the-board increases, which affect clients unevenly. And it’s certainly superior to not doing any rate increases, which could m…
Unless you operate an outsource call center, your business’s purpose is not to provide effective communication; it’s to do something else. Your organization exists to deliver a product or service, and you built your core competencies around that effort. Telephone communication is a secondary issue, …
Whenever expectations fall short with a vendor, any vendor, the first reaction is to find a new one. Though this may offer short-term gratification, changing vendors may not achieve the results we hope for. We all know of business executives who churn through every possible vendor until they have tr…