Seasonal Phone Answering Cover

Easter is coming, quickly followed by summer - one of the busiest times for employee holidays... Do you have adequate cover for weeks on end when your employees may be taking their holidays one after another? Sometimes it may seem more cost-effective to deal with the temporary loss and try to carry on as normal, but this can be a big mistake when you end up leaving your customer services un-manned and are less able to deal with the influx of enquiries and orders. Hiring temporary staff can be costly and requires forethought, planning and training - time and money that you don't want to spend! So what's the answer?

Professional call answering services can bridge the gap for companies requiring seasonal cover without the need to take on new staff. We can divert your calls automatically so that you never miss a client - our professional Zoomettes will field your calls professionally and efficiently and your customers will never know that you are outsourcing.

We offer:

• call answering services
• reception overflow (virtual receptionists)
• sales agents
• temporary cover for employee holidays, bank holidays, seasonal holidays, employee sickness, maternity leave, and emergencies
• extra call handlers and sales staff for busy periods
• customer service agents
• recruitment and marketing response teams
• brochure sending
• call centre services
• diary management

Let our highly-trained call agents keep your business running smoothly no matter how busy or short-staffed you are! Our flexible holiday cover service is totally flexible and bespoke, and we can have you set up within 10 minutes!

We promise the highest level of customer service along with articulate, well-trained personnel and efficient technology to help your company and your customers. Our ad-hoc service allows you to sign up to our services for life, with short term cover available whenever you need it - whether planned or unexpected!

Get in touch to find out more about our holiday and seasonal phone answering services.

Staff off sick, no one to take those calls? - Zoom can help!

We know how important it is to have your businesses telephone calls answered quickly and efficiently. During the winter illnesses and sickness in your staff is likely to increase, from colds and the flu to the recent outbreak of the norovirus. If you have one or several employees off sick and you need some help and assistance with manning your incoming telephone calls then Zoom Answering service can help.

We offer a telephone answering service cover for sickness leaving you and the other members of your team to concentrate on other key areas of the business rather than be constantly bothered by a never ending ringing phone. You'll never need worry about being short staffed again when you sign up to our ad-hoc back up service and become a member for life. This service enables you to use us as and when required for short term cover as you can't foresee the future. Not only does this service cover you should your employees being off sick, you can also use this in the event of an emergency, line faults, on bank holidays and throughout busier periods of the year. Our flexibility means that our call answering services can be tailored around you and your clients, call us today to discover how we can assist you on 0800 583 5020.

Who Needs A Holiday?!

I don't know about you, but this heat is getting to be too much! If you are stuck in the office while the temperatures soar, it can be hard to concentrate. While most larger offices have air conditioning, many smaller businesses can't justify the expense when the weather in this country can be so erratic! The school summer holidays are often a time when the offices are a bit emptier than usual anyway as some people jet off on holiday, so along with a professional call answering service to pick up the slack, you want to make sure your employees are working as well as they can. So how can you keep them cool?

Drinking cold drinks and foods will help. Instead of doing coffee and tea rounds, make up some cold drinks and keep them in the fridge. You don't need to do anything fancy - a jug of water that is kept topped up is good for cooling people down and keeping them hydrated. As for lunch, salads and sandwiches may seem like the healthy, boring option, but who really wants a steaming mug of soup when it's 30 degrees Celsius outside?! If you have a cake or biscuit day each week, why not switch to an ice cream day instead?

Keeping the blinds closed on the windows, but with the windows open will help to keep the office cool, but unless you have big windows, you will probably also need to invest in some desk fans. The quieter the better as the noisy ones can be distracting, but when the sun is blazing, anything will do! If you have a dress code that requires people to wear warmer clothing such as suits, and you are struggling to keep the office cool, you may need to consider relaxing the dress code for a while. Unless your employees are customer facing, they should be able to do their job just as well in casual attire - better in fact if they aren't sweltering hot!

Almost Summer Holiday Time!

The season of summer holidays is almost on us again! Many of us are planning our holidays abroad (although some exceptionally organised people have had theirs booked for months!), and no doubt it is the same in companies up and down the country. Suddenly everyone wants to book time off for the same brief period and managers find themselves trying to work out when everyone can have holiday without affecting the smooth running of the business. This is where a call answering service can help.

Whether you have already got the Zoomettes working for you, or you just want to be able to use Zoom as an ad hoc back up for those times when you need cover and you need it now, we can help! So if you find that all your reception staff want to go away at the same time, their holidays overlap, or someone falls sick while they are the only one covering the telephones, one phone call to Zoom and you can be covered until your employees return.

All you need to do is sign up to our ad hoc service now, and you will be a member forever, so whatever unexpected situation you find yourself dealing with you will be able to turn on your call answering service with just one phone call.

Call Answering & Chocolate

No, they're not really related, but it's Easter and we love chocolate, so this blog will be about both! While many companies will be preparing to close up shop this evening, we don't stop. Our Zoomettes will be there over the bank holiday weekend to provide our call answering services for our clients. Naturally, we will be our happy, friendly selves, always answering the phone with a smile, but we don't want to miss out on the chocolate eggs!

If you are one of our clients, we already know that when it comes to call answering services, you prefer the human touch, along with the exceptional customer service and telephone answering skills that all the members of our team possess. However, we don't know what easter eggs you prefer! If you have time for a bit of fun this weekend, post a comment telling us what your favourite easter chocolate treat is.

A few of the teams' favourites are; creme eggs (always a winner, but there are those who prefer the mini creme eggs to the standard variety), mini eggs, the eternal battle between the milk chocolate, white chocolate and dark chocolate fans, and my personal favourite is the posh Hotel Chocolat variety!

However you celebrate it, with or without chocolate, Happy Easter from all the Zoomettes!

Planning For The Holidays

In some ways, Easter has a lot in common with Christmas. It is the only other time of year that we get two bank holidays in a row (royal weddings aside!), and as it coincides with the school holidays, it is a time that many people want to book off from work. Careful planning as an employer is needed to ensure you have sufficient staff to cover your needs, but why not consider using a call answering service such as Zoom for those services that don't require a high level of technical, industry level knowledge? That's not to say that our Zoomettes won't know anything about your industry - all our operators receive client-specific training to prepare them to answer your calls. You can even come and help train them at our Cambridge office!

Why not plan ahead for staff absences, or even let a few more people have a break than usual, and let our Zoomettes fill the gap. We cover all bank holidays, as well as offering our service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week under our "24 Hour Live" service. Alternatively, if your business shuts at the weekend and bank holidays, you may still have staff taking holidays over Easter, and are welcome to make the most of our "Business Hours" service from Monday to Friday, 8.45am to 6pm. Don't worry, there's still old fashioned voicemail to cover the out of hours times!