Can An Answering Service Help Your Small Business Convert Those After-Hour Calls?

As a small business owner, do you set business hours and stick to them, or do you handle calls whenever they come? Some entrepreneurs see the need to work 100 hours or more every week when the business is still new, while others feel the need to balance work and private life. In the latter case, an answering service can help you keep in touch with customers who call after business hours.

If you have to drop everything to answer the phone or you have to stay late into the night to ensure no call is missed, you will achieve little in business’s development and growth. After-hour sales can be lucrative – and you shouldn't miss them due to unanswered calls. Besides, you need to devote more time to better your products. Instead of having the calls go to voice mail, get an answering service.

What Benefits Do You Get with an Answering Service?

An answering service lets you capture leads and offer customers the information they need outside business hours. Most of your customers might be occupied during the workday, with most working 9-to-5 – being able to answer their calls after five will play a significant role in ramping up your small business revenue.

Instead of waiting to answer all calls that come to your business, you can dedicate your time to developing new products or producing better versions of the product you already have. A voicemail box is impersonal and generic and will drive your customers away. An answering service, on the other hand, handles each caller personally.

How to Use an Answering Service

An answering service answers all calls that come in when you are either busy or away after closing hours. For starters, you can set business hours where requests that come in after business hours or before the start of your workday are directed to the answering service. You can also set the call to go to the answering service just to be safe. This way, you do not have to pick up all calls during your workday if you are otherwise engaged in other tasks.

When using an answering service, you need to set different scripts for different hours. For instance, after hours, you need to set troubleshooting issues, service outages, or website availability issues. Note that the answering service should not be part of your marketing strategy – they only capture leads that you would otherwise miss.