The Crucial Moment - First Contact

A company’s call answering skills tells you a lot about the level of customer service they offer. When you think about it, that isn’t surprising as a telephone call is often the first point of contact with a business and that first contact sets the tone for the whole business relationship.

The way you answer the telephone tells someone how much you value their business, and what sort of company you are. If you or your receptionists answer the telephone grumpily and are generally unhelpful or uncommunicative, that reflects negatively on the company as a whole. While you may get away with it on subsequent calls, that first call is a crucial factor in determining whether or not you close the deal with that caller.

Using a telephone answering service like Zoom UK ensures that every call is answered politely and with a friendly voice. No caller needs to hear an engaged tone or go to voicemail, so you need never miss out on a potential deal or upset a current client.

Behind the Scenes of a Telephone Answering Service

At Zoom we take a great deal of pride in delivering an outstanding telephone answering service, and it's all thanks to our staff (the Zoomettes) that we have achieved that. We feel very strongly that a crucial component of delivering great customer service is having happy staff, and we work hard to keep them that way!

Our Zoomettes have all been recruited from customer service backgrounds, and are used to delivering the highest quality service before they even start working for us. Once they start, we invest heavily in their personal development and training, putting them through customer service NVQs levels 1, 2 and 3. After all that training we don't want them to go anywhere else - and we must be doing something right as we have one of the highest rates of staff retention in the industry.

One of our selling points is that we always answer the phone with a smile, but a smile that can be heard in your voice is about more than just exercising the right muscles. We work hard to foster a happy, friendly atmosphere within the team and firmly believe that it makes a difference to how we sound on the telephone. And it benefits us too! When work is a fun environment everyone is keen to start work every day, and is always motivated deliver the best customer service.

It's not all about work though...building team spirit is also about having fun together! The Zoomettes have played practical jokes on each other, celebrated births and weddings together, dressed up in fancy dress at work, and even sky-dived together for charity. It all helps ensure we sound happy and friendly on the telephone - because that's how we are!

Save Time. Save Money. Use A Telephone Answering Service

How can a telephone answering service save you money? In business, time is money. The more time you and your employees can spend focussing on the tasks that earn you money, the better it is for business. In an ideal world you would be able to spend 100 per cent of your time working to increase your revenue, but as we all know, there are a variety of administrative tasks that cannot be ignored. Answering the telephone is one thing that can eat up a lot of your time, if you let it. Whether you are dealing with the general public or are solely business to business, talking to people, filtering out unsolicited sales calls and directing with genuine calls is a drain on most companies' time.

A telephone answering service like Zoom will take over the handling of calls, leaving your staff free to concentrate on the high value work so that they can be more productive. We can even go further than just answering and directing the calls - we can be your sales and enquiry line or your first level technical support, gathering information about the enquiry or problem and sending it to you instantly.

Not only will outsourcing to us save time on normal working days, but we will continue answering your calls even when members of staff are off sick or on holiday. As we work as a team, there is always someone available to answer the telephone so you never have to worry about missing important calls. Your clients need never even hear an engaged tone!

Need The Skills Not The Telephone Answering Service?

You may have decided that a telephone answering service isn’t the right thing for your business at the moment, but here at Zoom we still have something to offer you. We can train you and your staff in the art of call handling, as well as determining your customers’ needs and teaching your staff how to behave so they are meeting the customers’ expectations.

The way your customers perceive you and your staff on the telephone directly affects how they view your company. Improving your telephone operators skills in three key areas – Competency, Attitude & Impression not only makes their lives easier, but also enhances the image of your business.

More generally, if you can adapt your behaviour so that you are in tune with each of your customers’ differing needs, you are more likely to win their business. Zoom can teach you the skills you need to manage your customers' expectations and deliver excellent customer service. And happy customers are more likely to tell everyone else about you!

Not Sure You Need A Telephone Answering Service?

If you aren't sure whether or not a telephone answering service is really suitable for your business, try our 7-day free trial. Give Zoom 7 days and we will show you that we can improve you customer satisfaction, increase your profits, improve your efficiency and reduce the number of hours you need to work.

It's a free opportunity to try out our telephone answering service with no obligation to continue using it after the 7 days are up. The trial is for our Business Hours Service from Monday to Friday during one of your normal working weeks (no running off on holiday leaving us in charge!).

Of course, you should do a bit of your own detective work during the trial to find out how good we really are - ask your friends to do a few mystery shops so they can tell you what our telephone manner is really like! Then at the end of the trial we will give you a comprehensive report including a projection of the potential monthly costs if you decide to keep using Zoom.

Professional Call Answering Services

"Answering the phone badly is like saying 'I don't want your business' to callers," says Zoom founder Chella Heyes.

Zoom Answer Call, set up in 1998 was her solution to this, providing professional call answering services to businesses of all sizes. From virtual receptions, call centre services, sales lines, support services and customer helplines, Zoom ensures you never miss a call again, and all calls are handled in the right way.

The 'Zoomettes' are fully trained in telephone techniques and given client-specific training so that they are perfectly prepared to respond to customer enquiries, without callers even realising they are talking to an answering service.

Zoom Answer Call reduces customer frustration, increases leads and sales and above all, puts a professional face (or should that be voice?) to your company at all times.

Who answers your calls when you can't?

What do you do when your business has grown beyond your staff's means? When it's time to increase your operations you don't necessarily need to take on new staff, or a call centre - Zoom Answer Call can provide these for you so that you never miss a sale again.

Our Zoom Sales Agents can help you to manage campaigns, orders and customer support, increasing leads and sales for your business.

We can can process orders, take billing details and work with your website's ordering facility. We can provide technical support for customers and manage enquiries so that they are matched with relevant and available engineers. We can provide 0800, 0845 and 0870 numbers to set up advertising campaigns with, as well as help to promote your products and services on each call.

And of course we can provide you with a customised report of the response and activities for each service with our professional Call Centre services.