Can Your Receptionist Multitask as an Answering Service Operator?
Hiring managers are stressing that candidates need to be self-starting multitaskers to get the job, and proclaiming the need for that skill in bold print across the web, and in your local newspaper classifieds. Companies and medical / legal practices alike want to get the most of their hired help. Unfortunately, most of the time their receptionists don’t live up to their promises of multi-tasking capabilities. This isn’t entirely your receptionist’s fault. Being the office gatekeeper can be demanding, and keep the receptionist so busy that he or she doesn’t have time to help with database updates, the report, or the spreadsheets. They often get burnout from handling all those calls, and have little time or energy to do anything else.
There are many advantages to partnering with a receptionist answering service, which is obviously more cost-efficient than hiring receptionists; not to mention that you won’t be burdened with the need to pay payroll taxes and employee benefits. Additional advantages of using an answering service include having multiple shifts of live operators who handle your calls, who come to work fresh, and are ready to work hard on behalf of your business. They’re not doing the exact same function Monday through Friday, eight hours a day, week after week, like most receptionists.
An industry leading national receptionist answering service provider, like 1-800 We Answer should make it a point to hire only articulate receptionist answering service operators who have diverse skills, and who can also provide quality customer service support. An answering service operator can provide quality customer service support, update a database, and document all calls from sales calls, to simple inquiries, including creating inquiry logs. Some of the best answering service operators work actively in the United States. US-based operators have excellent phone voices, are more easily understood by callers, and generally are more familiar with American business culture than operators who work for overseas call center operations. Equally important, industry leaders select operators who have diverse skills, including bilingual business skills in English and Spanish. The ability to conduct telephone business in Spanish is increasingly important for US and global business.
When you go the make-sense route of hiring a receptionist answering service, you automatically get a staff of skilled multitaskers at your disposal. Unlike your receptionist, a receptionist answering service provides their skills whenever you need it. Whether that need is on a part-time, overflow, after-hours or full-time basis, your answering service can come online with a couple of button punches on your office phone. And a reliable industry leader like 1-800 We Answer, should offer your business or practice fair and flexible pricing, without pressuring you into a long-term contract. An answering service should practice earning your loyalty over time, and not tying you to a long-term contract.
Another receptionist answering service advantage is that when you partner with one, you’re essentially getting three jobs covered. Your company gets a personal assistant, a receptionist and a quality customer service and sales support representative. While you’re out doing business or schmoozing prospects, the answering service professional can cover your calls and register event attendees. They can schedule appointments so that your medical or dental practice can continue to grow and flourish. The point is, you need to see patients, spend face-to-face time with important clients and prospects, and can’t afford to be interrupted by answering incoming phone calls.
When you’re busy, a quality and reliable answering service will manage all of your calls, even document and record them. Your messages will be accurately taken, and can be relayed to you via phone, mobile, email, fax or PDA.
If you’re in the medical field, a staff supervisor should verify each and ever call flagged as an emergency or urgent call before they elect to contact you. A great answering service never skimps on support staff and realizes the importance of your privacy and time away from the office.
We hope that this article will help you make the decision of hiring a full-time receptionist or office assistant, or hiring an answering service. The advantages of hiring an answering service should be clear: you essentially get more than one person helping you to manage and answer your important calls. Live operators have solid communication skills and can multi-task by acting as a customer service representative in addition to being your virtual receptionist. The answering service that you choose should emphasize hiring only professional and pleasant-to-the-ear speaking operators. The best answering services will make this quality a hiring emphasis, realizing the importance of the human voice, and how it sets the tone for each call.
So, the choice comes down to hiring a receptionist who you hope can multi-task as well as they’ve said they could. Or, you can go with a reliable and professional answering service that will deliver on the promises that they make. By choosing an answering service, you essentially get more than a one-person hire: you get a small staff of dedicated professionals who will seamlessly answer all of your calls, and do more in whatever capacity at any time including weekends and holidays, at a cost-savings.
