Achieve Winning Business Communications: Play Three

PLAY #3: Determine the best LEARNING process for your company’s needs.

Your company has its starting lineup with employees in your office or in the field that will handle your customer’s call when they are available. You need to be certain that your answering service can provide you with the best reserves when your starters need a rest.

To achieve the best possible outcome for your callers, you want the calls answered promptly and in a handled in friendly and professional manner. It is important for you to determine when you need your answering service partner to be available for you. 

Do you only need help with calls after hours? 

How about 24/7 on weekends? 

Do you need overflow to help during your business hours?

Or do you only have needs during the holidays?

Whatever your needs are, your answering service or call center partner must have the proper staffing and learning processes to provide an exceptional phone experience when representing your company.

Once you have determined your specific needs, you must now ask the answering service how it will meet your needs. Some of the best questions to ask include:

• Are all your agents U.S. based?

• Is your service available 24/7/365?

• Do you have an onboarding checklist that I can review?

• How long does it typically take to instruct all your agents on how to handle our phone calls?

• How quickly do you get new or updated information to your agents?

• How does your service handle busy times?

• How do you send our calls to agents that are educated on our company info?

• Do you have more than one facility in different times zones to help with busy periods? If so, are all agents educated on our information or in the same call groups?

• Do you have remote workers? If so, how do maintain security of information? How are they made aware of account updates?

• Do you have online reporting for me to see real-time statistics?

The answers to these questions are different for many companies and the various industry types. For example

Some companies may be best served with local agents who have familiarity with the area’s roadways, dialect, businesses, and pronunciation. 

Versus

Other companies that may not need local familiarity and can use agents in different areas that have greater knowledge to answer industry related questions.

It is always a good idea to discuss what you think is best with your answering service partner because they have the experience of working with a wide range of companies. Your answering service partner may offer some perspective of which you did not realize. You do not need a “yes” man who just says whatever you want to hear. 

An answering business communications consultant will offer advice from years of experience and help succeed by providing solutions for the best possible phone experience.

Now that you have your reserves in place, it is time think about the types of plays you need to call to achieve success. 

In our next installment (Play #4), we will learn about the best FEATURES for your business to use.