Telephone Answering Service - Manchester Warrington Liverpool

Email and chat are becoming popular means of communication in businesses today. However, the use of telephone still remains one of the most effective medium when dealing with new and existing customers.

Each day, thousands of calls go through each telephone line – new customers calling in to inquire a product promotion, clients placing orders, or existing customers filing complaints.

Companies were likely to hire more office receptionists to handle such volumes then as phone calls pour in heavier. Nowadays, with the help of modern technology, hiring additional office staff to handle business phone calls is a thing of the past. Businesses are now inclined to hire a professional
Telephone Answering Service in Manchester Warrington or Liverpool to perform these tasks for them.

A telephone answering service is a group or company that handles phone calls of businesses or professionals who not only do not have enough time to take their incoming calls, but also want to save on cost.

It helps home-based business owners, sole entrepreneurs, and small and medium sized businesses manage their incoming calls, filter important messages, and helps create a better corporate image for their companies at affordable price.

Interesting Facts

In earlier times when telephone companies began hiring operators, teenage male operators were preferred over teenage girls. Boys did great in telegraph offices, aside from the fact that they received low wages. However, the boys were impatient – they brawled and wrestled in the telegraph office. They flirted with female callers. This lead to hiring teenage women telephone operators.

To be a telephone operator, a woman had to be single and between the age of seventeen and twenty six. She is required to be formal and should have longs arms that are able to reach the top of the telephone switchboard.

In 1923, Margaret Redmond Smith, a bedridden woman, realised that she can still earn money taking telephone calls for busy doctors.

She used an old French-style telephone mounted on a scissors-type extension near her bed. She maintained her company called Mrs. Smith’s Doctors Exchange until her death in 1925. Her children continued the business and opened their service to other commercial market as well as doctors.

Telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell suggested “Ahoy” as the original telephone greeting, but was later replaced with “Hello” as suggested by Thomas Edison.

A disgruntled customer hacked NTL’s customer service voicemail after she was placed on hold for over an hour. Instead of the usual automated greeting in incoming calls, customers heard something else – foul words included.

Modern Telephone Answering Service

The advancement in technology has permitted Telephone Answering Service to offer versatile packages to you as their clients. In most virtual offices located in Manchester Warrington or Liverpool, phone calls can be diverted at a particular time of day, day of week, or season. Your virtual telephone receptionists take your messages and forward them to you by SMS or email. Important phone calls may also be forwarded to you if requested.

A quality telephone answering service ensures that the following standards are followed:

• Your clients are greeted professionally, using defined scripts or spiels from you.
• The virtual receptionist always presents a consistent business image: friendly, professional, A1 customer service.
• A level of discretion is maintained. Your clients would never know that they are speaking to a third party service when calling you.

Telephone Answering Service and your Business

Yes, you have finally decided to engage in the help of a Telephone Answering Service.

The next step is to decide if they will be in Manchester, Warrington or Liverpool and what you actually need for your company,what your telephone answering service can and cannot do, and what your expectations are. Here are some questions to consider that may help you select the right one for your business:

• How many calls are you expected to receive in a month? Most telephone answering service will give you package per number of calls they would handle.
• Do you require a toll free number? A non-geographic number (telephone numbers that are not assigned to a particular area code or telephone line or circuit)?
• Do you need your calls diverted at a particular time of day only? Would it be more practical to get 24 hours, 7 days a week package?
• Can you turn off the telephone service when business is slow? How flexible can the service be?
• What kind of third party interaction do you want to maintain with your customers? Do you simply need message taking service or would you benefit more from order taking, sales support, etc?

Do you want important calls forwarded to you as soon as they come in? What training do you need to give to help the virtual receptionist identify such types of calls?

How to get started

The first step is to contact Portal Virtual Office as we offer a trial period.

Trial periods are best to determine if you are going to get the right services for your business. It will expose challenge areas for resolution before writing up a contract.

The next step is to check the available packages from your selected Answering Service.

By now, you would already have a ball park figure on the number of calls your business is expected to receive every day, every week or every month. Typical costing is on a per-call basis. Select the best package, usually ranging between 50 and 500 calls per month.

Third step is to check for other fees. Are there set up fees involved? Call forwarding cost? SMS cost? Finally, check if there is a minimum contract period required by your telephone answering service.

So if you're looking for a telephone answering service in Manchester, Warrington or Liverpool then your choice should be Portal Virtual Office.