Tweet

Is Voicemail Ruining Businesses

Guest post by: Nicolas DAlleva

Article Overview: Though voicemail is often a more affordable option to hiring a live person to answer your phones around the clock, voicemail can be a turn off to current and potential customers.

Is Voicemail Ruining Businesses

Around three decades ago, the cost of phone service became much more affordable and, as a result, its usage in business increased dramatically. Naturally, one problem that resulted was not reaching the person you were calling. This could be for a variety of reasons from the person already being on the phone to being out of their office. It was also during this time when receptionists and personal secretaries were becoming less and less common. As a result, companies of all sizes scrambled to fix this pressing issue. After many tried unsuccessfully to have groups of workers take messages for the entire company, technology advanced to the point where voicemail service seemed like a feasible and affordable solution. Many companies during this period reported saving thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in expended time and resources, but along the way something was lost. While voicemail will continue to be an affordable and easy service for both individuals and businesses, live options such as answering services offer features not found in any voicemail system. Voicemail has a lot of limitations, technologically and functionally, that don't apply to call center services. The first drawback of having voicemail is that there is usually just one way of getting a message. An answering service can contact you multiple ways and multiple times until they get in touch with you.

Voicemail isn't just inconvenient, for many people it is incompatible with their business model. Locksmiths, for example, need a live person answering their calls around the clock because many people call in at night after being locked out of their home or car. An answering service operator has the ability to contact certain people who are on-call in order to let them know of someone needing service. This makes a lot more sense than waking up people who aren't technicians or aren't on call that particular night. The operator can also send messages to a supervisor pertaining to the service request and the employee who was dispatched. These messages are to ensure quality and prompt service by all of their technicians.

When it comes to operating a business these days, voicemail isn't going to cut it. Even with offices that aren't open at night, customers want to be able to call in and schedule an appointment. An answering service is not only effective, it is basically saying that an organization cares about the people it serves any time of the day or night. Offering your clients a line of communication like this is sure to be appreciated, unlike voicemail. This is because everyone has, bare minimum, a voicemail for customers to call. A number of better alternatives exist and an answering service is one of the most efficient and inexpensive options available to businesses of all sizes and of all industries.

Because an answering service can be integrated into your current office setup as easily as voicemail, it does not require drastic changes. Just imagine that when any of the phones you setup ring, if you don't answer the call will be forwarded to a call center and an operators will answer for you. It really is that simple and you only need to provide simple information to get started. You would just let the answering service know which numbers you'd be forwarding from, how you want the calls answered what you need in the messages, where you want the messages sent, etc. Also, be sure to let the operators know if you have an on-call list of contacts and provide them with their names and numbers.

Related Articles
  What is Visual Voicemail
  Getting Your Voicemail by Email
  The Benefits Of Using an Answering Service
  Mobile Call Forwarding
  Answering Service Increases Profits
  The Origin of Voicemail
  An Answering Service is More Effective Than Voicemail
  20 Tips For Leaving Effective Efficient Voicemail Messages From Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  Stop Working! Answer Your Office Phones!
  People ARE listening! The question is – Are you saying anything worth hearing?
  Business Call Centers Help Businesses Cut Costs
  How A 24 Hour Call Center Benefits Businesses
  A Powerful First Voicemail and 13 Reasons to Leave It Part A
  The 20 Worst Prospecting Voicemail Mistakes Salespeople Make
  7 Ways to Follow Up Persistence without Being a Pest
  Leave Voicemail Messages That Get Returned!
  How to Make Cold Calling Opportunities Out of Voice Mails
  From Answering Machine To Answering Service
  Hidden Secrets to Crack the Voicemail Gatekeeper
  No Voicemail = A Missed Opportunity

Article Tags: answering service, call center, live answering, voicemail



Related Forum Posts
Re: Unions Ruining America? - Unions Ruining America? Unions ruining the world! As much as I respect bargaining rights and considerations of unions, I'm sick and tired of seeing others held hostage when unions go on strike to forcefully see their demands come to fruition - regardless of their longer term impacts on their business or economy. It erks me when I see government officials on strike too. They have the most cushiony jobs in the entire economy, and still find reason to complain about their situation. What about the poor people working 80 hour weeks just to feed their family? Something has got to give - we cannot continually exceed expectations without inflation or diminished returns affecting us.
Re: New forum - online businesses! - That's great news Evan! Congratulations Jeff on becoming moderator of Online Businesses, I'm sure you'll do a brilliant job! Take care, Carol
Re: New business.. check us out! Love any feedback! - Hello all, I am new to this forum and would like some feedback too. I currently own and operate ConsumerBranch LLC. Please, feel free to type that name along with a ".com" at the end to visit the URL. Anyways, my service that I provide allows businesses to visit a central location to purchase products for their business and/or a service that they provide. I am able to provide this service due to suppliers willingness to join ConsumerBranch and all their products. Each supplier will have their very own profile in which all products will be displayed. Businesses, also known as buyers, will be provided their own profile as well. Businesses purchasing products will be able to track each supplier they deem as 'favorite' by subscribing to the respective supplier. Also, purchasers who repeatedly buy the same product will have the ability to mark a respective product as 'favorite' to track it for future reference. That is snippet of what ConsumerBranch is about. I have much more to explain in the coming days. I am excited to have created such a complex service for businesses. Please provide feedback and comments about your advice. Thank you for your time, Justin Sinsel CEO ConsumerBranch
Startup Challenges - Kevin - it's a great read - you should pick it up! John - what kind of services are you offering? Your signature says "Providing Big Business Resources to Small Businesses" I have always found big companies to be hard to work with and slow to make decisions but smaller companies are more risk-tolerant and understand the online world.
Re: UPDATES: New Campaign! New Layout! New Ideas! - [quote="Ringo So":2696kbgu]Trent - It's actually a sub-forum within the "Making Money in 2010" category. Please let me know if there are any troubles finding it.[/quote:2696kbgu] Nope, still don't see it. I see the Online Businesses forum but that has been there for a long time. Is that what you mean? I don't see any Internet Marketing section.


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Emotional Intelligence in Business

Selling What Sizzles vs. Delivering Real Value

Work at Home Moms and Their Bad Rap?

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.