Benefits of a Call Answering Service

Huge improvements for such a small cost

If you’d like to skip ahead to specific benefits of a call answering service:
Benefits
Pricing/Cost to Value
Case Studies/Examples

One of the most frustrating things as a consumer is when you call a business and nobody answers the phone. So if you don’t answer the phone to your customers, how do you think this will affect both your bottom line and your reputation?

If somebody rings your business and wants your product but needs to ask a few questions and nobody picks up? Statistically speaking they’ll start to look elsewhere to find the product. If a client needs support and pays for a service you offer but then can’t get any because you’re busy doing other things? They’ll begin to wonder if they’re getting the customer service they deserve, a host of other scenarios abound and bad reviews may start to pile up. So take a look at the benefits of our UK based call answering service.

It’s hard to judge the size of a business, so in most situations, your potential customer doesn’t know if you’re a ‘one man band’, Small or Medium Size business. At the end of the day, they don’t actually care, they just want a good product/service with fantastic customer care.

Recent trends show that people are willing to pay more to get the best customer experience even if the product or service is cheaper elsewhere.

There are hundreds if not thousands of scenarios where being able to have your incoming calls answered when you are unable to, would have a hugely positive impact on your business. Such as you are with a customer, you’re out on a job, your existing staff are busy, you’re driving to an important meeting, you have staff off unwell, your team remote works and many more.

One of the biggest trust factors for your customers is to let them know you are a successful, established business which is just one of the benefits of a virtual receptionist service.

Using our virtual pa service, if you are Self-Employed or a SME, will make your business appear larger thus improving how it is seen from your customers perspective, consumers are becoming smarter about who they deal with, based on the quality of customer service they receive.

Enough Jabber, let’s get down to it…

The single biggest benefit is your calls will always be answered in real time by a live person. Your customers won’t get busy tones or voicemail boxes during working hours. They’ll speak to a friendly and professional person that cares about your business and your customer and depending on how much you’d like us to help, often we can even assist your callers with their enquiry.

Your business will appear more established and professional. If there’s always someone to answer their call, in a manner that befits a courteous image, your customers will ‘feel’ like they are dealing with a well sorted and thoughtful enterprise. Trust in you is a big factor of potential customer turning into actual paying customers.

Location, Location, Location. We might be based in Cornwall and you might be based in Scotland, Leeds, Nottingham, Bristol. The location of you and us doesn’t matter but what if you want to be perceived as a national business or based in London? We can provide you with a geographic number of any location in the country. A truly national or international image.

Holiday Cover. Two versions of this story, you need a break but as a Self Employed person, you can’t just drop everything and be on your merry way. With us by your side though, you can get some needed rest and time away from it all and just deal with what is urgent. Leave us with information to help your customers and maybe…you won’t have to deal with anything until your return.

The other scenario would be a small or medium business that relies on every single member of staff to answer phone calls, so when one is off, the workload is shifted to the remaining team but as a successful business, there won’t be the capacity to answer every single call. So take the burden off and we’ll get them for you. We balance out the inconsistencies.

Illness Cover. Something in life that on a personal level and in business, takes it’s toll. Especially hard when you’re bed ridden with flu for a week and can’t talk, or feel under the weather on a day that you really need to take a break. We’re your relief team. We’ll take the calls to keep communication flowing.

Just like holiday cover, if staff are off sick, on maternity/paternity and the rest of your staff are in demand, no need to let your standards slip in these times of need, we’ll cover it, no problem.

Cost of Call Answering Service

Value to cost ratio is amazing. How else could you get someone to sit and wait on your calls, deal with them, improving your business, increasing profits 9 to 5 all week, for as little as £20 per month.

Small business needn’t pay for a full-time receptionist Monday to Friday. If you’re starting up, want to cut costs or run a very streamlined business, our service speaks for itself. From just £20 a month, we are on call 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. Benefits of an answering service are both financial, physical and even emotional!

Example: If your receptionist takes 30 calls a week on a 4 week month.

Cost of a receptionist on 8 hours a day, working 5 days (160 Hours Per 4 week Month), on the current Minimum Wage (As of 1st April 2024) of £11.44:

Cost of Staff Member: £1,830.40 Per Month

Call a Real Person Cost: £160

A whopping saving of: £1,6710.40

As you can see there is a genuine case for saving money against employing a full-time receptionist, a full month can cost as little as £20!

Lots of people use this service, why not join them and others that let us answer their business calls and use Call a Real Person? We aren’t any old volume call centre, we work with self-employed and small business across the uk to provide telephone services that are trustworthy and high quality.

We wouldn’t be here, if businesses around the country and indeed the world, didn’t use this kind of service and understand the benefits of a call answering service.

Simple things that keep our clients with us:

– We’re dedicated, professional and polite. We really care and do what we say.
– We offer one of the most competitive pricing structures around.
– Here at call a real person, we are constantly looking for ways to add value to the service.
– Anything we can do to go the extra mile (Order Taking etc) we’ll do.

Why our customers love the call answering service:

– It’s cost effective.
– Gives them time to be away from the phone and invest in their customers, orders, quotes and jobs.
– They or staff, can go on holiday without fear of losing customers.
– No missed custom.
– Overflow customers love to know that when they are busy, we’re waiting to tackle their busy periods.
– You have the flexibility over when to divert the calls, quiet day in the office, answer them yourself, out on a call, use our service.
– It’s simple and works entirely for the benefit of your business.

Case studies, maybe you are in similar circumstances?

These are based on real customers with their real needs, names and business names have been removed as some like to keep our call handling service under wraps, however they will reveal the benefits and maybe their situation is the same as yours?

Self Employed – Fire Alarm and Suppression Installer and Maintenance

Mr Fire is a Self Employed Man who fits, tests and provides emergency call outs for Fire Alarms. He is your One Man Band and very good at what he does.

He has a successful little business. When he’s out on a Job, it’s difficult for him to answer his phone when he’s up a ladder, running cables or talking to clients. Before using us, calls would go to his voicemail on a mobile phone.

He’d noticed that although calls were coming in, barely anybody left him a voicemail. Only those wanting urgent emergency contact would leave a message. He also found they wouldn’t take long before trying to call him again but the callers who didn’t leave a voicemail would virtually never call again.

After signing up with us, this changed. Emergency callers were happy they got to speak to a real person, knowing that their urgent need was going to be dealt with. Also it’s much easier for Mr Fire to quickly see/read a text message from us, than have to ring into his voicemail box allowing him to see if there was indeed a true emergency or not at a quick glance.

The 2nd change, was new callers, instead of having to leave a voicemail which they nearly almost didn’t, they got to speak to someone, ask a few questions (which we could answer) and be safe in the knowledge that Mr Fire would call them back. This was increased business and increased profits from virtually day 1.

The 3rd change was that existing customers of Mr Fire could ring in and ask direct questions to a real person and not have to leave vague voicemails. On more than a few occasions Mr Fire relayed to us how happy his clients were that he was so successful that he had been able hire someone to work for him and also how polite and helpful they were (Yes that’s us they’re talking about).

The amazing thing about Mr Fires situation….is he would always sit at £20 per month. What a difference it makes.

Small to Medium Business –  Car sales dealership with 4-5 employees.

Mr Car has a thriving car sales business, selling premium and prestige brands mainly from £10,000 upwards. Mr car has sales staff, admin staff and all that goes along  with a well thought out business.

The business is that successful, the cars are great and his after care so excellent that repeat custom is almost guaranteed.

Mr car found that when he and his sales staff were busy, they were unable to take phone calls. It’s not polite to tell a person standing in front of you that you have to take a call, you want to give them all your time and attention.

As a small business, to keep costs streamlined, admin staff are part time and there is a cost to value argument for a full time receptionist. At most points, one isn’t needed but would be handy, however the cost doesn’t make sense. This is also in part that the sales team have a day off each in the week too.

So this is where we come in.

We’re their overflow, when all the team is busy, we answer the calls. Their is a lot of trust as Mr Car likes us helping customers where we can instead of simple message taking, so we can talk about features of the cars for sale, we can take down details on trade ins and ask about condition and suggest test drives, all we can do to get a customer to want to come and see the vehicle, we do!

This helps enormously, we know we have helped secure sales. Both through just being able to take the call in the first place and intensively assist with direct queries from their customers.

Imagine how nice it is for a salesman to have a message with the potential customers name, phone number, their existing car with registration number, mileage, condition and if they require finance or not and know when they would like to take a test drive. Allowing him to get all the figures, appointment availability ready to call the person back.

Now that, is streamlined, effective, positive and profitable results from using our call answering service. This client of ours, usually pays about £80 per month. Yes, really, all those advantages and calls answered for that little.

Medium to Large Business – Commercial Waste Collection Service

Miss Waste operates a commercial refuse and recycling collection service across our entire county. This is no mean feat and requires planning, precision and well executed processes to provide outstanding service to her customers.

Although the service is year round they are much busier with new customer sign ups, existing customer queries and renewals throughout the warmer months. As it’s a commercial service that runs with the holiday seasons.

They have an extensive team already however at peak times, demand is too much, outside of peak times the cost of an extra staff member is unnecessary.

Therefore they use our call telephone service to fill those gaps when in demand. This ensures all of their calls get answered.

As with the previous 2 examples, Miss Waste uses our service more than just simple message taking. We are fully taught to answer virtually every question a new or existing client may ask and we even have email access to send new sign up forms to the end customers. Once again, we really are just like an employee as if we were in their office doing the same tasks as their staff.

All of this comes in on average £180 a month at their busiest months and just £60 during quieter times. The cost is enormously different to a full time staff member.

Our service is diverse and wide ranging. Suiting nearly every single possible business sector, fitting in to an individual business needs. This type of service is every growing more profitable, so why not see how it can work for you, give us a try, for free.

The Free Trial we offer, although covered by a fair use policy, is totally free and we don’t expect any payment details up front. It’s for you to experience for yourself how it works and how beneficial it is. Taking a very short amount of time to set up, we provide you with a unique divert telephone number for you to point your incoming calls at and we do the rest. We have been in business for a long time, we pride ourselves on providing our virtual receptionist/PA/telephone answering and admin services at the best possible quality we ca, with the mindset that we represent you, your image and your business when we speak to your customers therefore we do it with a smile on our faces with utmost respect and as courteous as is humanly possible.

Win you’re winning, we’re winning!

Our business model is entirely centred around taking as many calls as possible. That should come as no great surprise, it is what we ‘do’ after all. Therefore we will be there to make sure that your telephone calls are answered and by providing this great customer experience for your callers, in the eternal words of D:REAM, ‘Things can only get better’.