If you’re anything like most small business owners one of your biggest struggles is finding enough hours in the day. We get it. Time is money.
So how do you reclaim those precious hours of the day that you need to make your business run as efficiently as possible? A few minutes of meditation to clear your mind, some “life hacking”, maybe the 8th cup of coffee with do the trick... The truth is, the only thing that will give you back those precious hours is removing the tasks that stand in your way of productivity. We need to delegate and assign tasks that chew up time and do not require your personal expertise or skills.
A recent study shows that small business owners and executives waste about 6.6 hours per week on low value emails and low value interruptions that could be outsourced to someone else on your team. It might not sound like much, but that’s almost a full workday every single week. It adds up.
Delegating to professionals
Making the decision to delegate is the first step toward taking your workday back. The second step is making sure you delegate to someone who is up to the task. Your business is too important to let just anyone carry out your administrative duties.
We’ve been helping lighten the load for small business owners for over 55 years. Every time the phone rings, it interrupts your precious time. The calls you take can range from a new customer looking for your help for the first time, or an existing customer needing support– whatever the scenario, it chews up your time.
Answering service to the rescue
An answering service will give you some time back. When you trust a team of highly trained professionals to answer your calls, you get to focus on what you do best – running your company. Your answering service will be able to triage calls for you so new customers can get service, existing customers can get the help they need, and you can focus on growing the business. And you can review all the call history and messages in a neat, tidy monthly report to spot trends or service expansion opportunities.
How does an answering service work?
Let’s run through some of the most common scenarios. First, a customer calls and is looking to make an appointment that requires a technician to be dispatched. The call centre agent will ask questions to determine the urgency of the request and if the situation is urgent. If so a call centre agent will text or call one of your technicians to send them out to the job right away. If the caller is looking for a non-urgent appointment, they will pass a message along to your staff who can service your new customer the following day. You’ve just gained a customer without having to pick up the phone – nice work!
Next, let’s see what happens when a person calls and they’re asking for the boss (that’s you). When someone calls looking for you, the agent will take a message and then relay that message to you whenever and however works best for you. You may want certain types of calls transferred to you right away, and other messages held. That’s ok. You may prefer to have all your messages held ‘til 9 am next morning. That's ok too. Most answering services provide flexible message delivery options.
Use your answering service for insights
At the end of each month, you can look back on your monthly report and see what types of calls you’ve been getting. Maybe there are more calls for repair than you had ever thought, perhaps one of your services is more in demand than originally planned, or maybe you will recognize patterns that allow you to schedule staff better.
If an answering service sounds like something that will make your life easier, check out our featured blog 11 considerations for choosing a call centre where we provide some guidance on what you need to consider when partnering with an answering service.
How far will your business go when you have an extra 6.6 hours per week to move the needle?