Whether you’re a start-up or a growing business, you can never fully stop the ringing of the phone. And if you aren’t available to pick up every call, you may miss potential new business opportunities or even important customer support calls.

A dependable call answering service lets you reduce the distraction of those ringing phones and frees up your time to concentrate on more important tasks. A quality service provider will provide a team of trained professionals ready to handle calls, enquiries or complaints 24/7/365. They can also transfer calls to your in-house teams, book appointments, pre-qualify warm leads or provide product support.

The types of services on offer range from the basic virtual receptionist to 24/7 live call centers and beyond. The best options are those that are scalable for businesses of all sizes, with packages to cover peak trading times (Christmas, for example) and allow you to pay only for minutes processed each month.

The right answering service will work closely with you to understand your company’s unique inbound call flow and tone. They can then use scripts that are personalised with your business name and a greeting of your choice, meaning your customers and clients will think they’re speaking to someone directly in your office. Many of the more advanced answering services also come with features that stretch outside of voice calls and include web chat, social media or email to provide a complete inbound client communication solution. call answering service