Friday, 30 December 2011

Expanding Your Business In 2012?

Firstly, everyone at Zoom hopes you had a fantastic Christmas, and are ready to bring in the New Year tomorrow night. As a business owner, you will have already been making plans for 2012. We think you should consider using our call answering services to help your business expand in the new year.

Your time is best spent on the work your business does for its clients, and on growing your business, whether that's through networking or meetings with clients. Answering the phone, on the other hand, is not something that needs to be done by you personally, and by outsourcing to a telephone answering service like Zoom, you are freed up to do all the things that do need you. With our personal service, and highly trained team, your clients will never notice the difference. And you won't have to deal with any more annoying sales calls!

Zoom's Virtual Reception service is another option which enhances the image of your business and allows your calls to be put through to the right person, just as an in-house receptionist would. Even when you're out of the office, your clients' calls can be put through to you, as if you were still in the office, truly allowing you to get on with expanding your business without your current clients suffering.

Thursday, 15 December 2011

Winter - The Perfect Time To Use A Call Answering Service

We all know that as well as a feeling of winding things down and taking things easy, Winter brings with it a host of illnesses. Not many offices escape cold season without one or two staff absences due to illness. And with the Christmas festivities and the bank holidays, many of the working days that are left will be cut short with Christmas celebrations. While the party atmosphere means a happy workforce, it can also lead to staff being slightly more relaxed than usual. A call answering service can help fill the gaps in this busy time period.

As far as the staff are concerned, business may be winding down for the end of the year, but actually, most businesses will still have the same workload. Unfortunately the bank holidays, Christmas parties and staff illnesses mean there are less people available to do that work in less time! By outsourcing your telephone reception or your call centre services, you can make the most of the time you do have available.

Zoom offers an ad hoc service so that you can use our telephone answering service whenever you need it to cover staff illnesses, holidays or bank holidays. We can even cover your phones over the Christmas period if your business closes down. No matter how unexpected, the Zoomettes will be there to help!

Friday, 11 November 2011

The benefits of a telephone answering service company

Businesses of all sizes appreciate flexibility when it comes to their call handling. A company’s telephone answering service speaks volumes about them. It is one of the first opportunities a company has to present a professional image to the outside world.

A quality telephone answering service needs to be prompt, answering all calls within a few rings, even when the reception is busy; it needs to be professional, answering with the name of the company; and it needs to be friendly and helpful, with the receptionist asking how they may direct the call and quickly and effectively putting the caller through. Should the requested person at the company not be available, an accurate message taking service should be in place so that the caller receives a call-back.

All this may seem obvious, many of us have been put on hold for too long or have been put through to the wrong person or have never had a call back. Unfortunately this is a basic customer service that many companies still get wrong.

By employing a company such as Zoom to run a virtual reception service and act as your first point of contact, answering promptly with your company name, you will not have these problems ever again. Zoom can also transfer messages via email, SMS or fax instantly to the relevant person.

How to keep customer service on the agenda

Customer service is very important to your business, this may sound obvious, but it is often forgotten.

A company may recruit a telephone answering service or hire a call centre, then expect customer service to run itself. And the fact is, it doesn’t. Without consistent review, interest and attention, the customer service experience will degrade until management action is required.

The key to good customer service is to carry out the following activities consistently, by making them ongoing priorities and habit forming.

Keep talking about customer service so that it becomes central to your company culture. The simplest way is to keep it on your meeting agendas, and then the mindset will spread through the ranks and lead to decisions that will make a difference.

As a company, you need to stay hands-on and monitor customer service activities personally; you may like to hire a manager to oversee customer satisfaction and service. Yet you, as a company leader, should stay hands-on too. A good idea would be to visit call centres to talk with reps, answer the phones yourself for an hour a week, or visit clients personally to discuss their satisfaction.

Distribute customer service surveys and develop measurable benchmarks that you can follow. If 90% of your customers said that they were "extremely satisfied" with your customer service two months ago and that number fell to 75% this month, that tells you that you need to act. If you weren’t measuring, you would never know.

Have processes in place to assure that customer service remains an outgoing process, not just an incoming one. Your company representatives should talk to customers who recently bought from you, not wait to hear from them when something goes wrong. That makes the process proactive, not reactive, and dramatically increases overall customer satisfaction.

All your employees should be aware that they are in the customer service business and they play a critical role in pleasing customers. Talk to them about it often, enthusiastically, and personally.

Monday, 17 October 2011

Body language matters, even when answering the telephone

Telephone call answering services take great note in making sure their staff are aware of their body language at all times.

When talking face to face, statistics indicate that only 7% of the message is conveyed and understood by the words used, 38% is conveyed by the way the words are spoken and 55% by body language. Of course when the conversation is over the telephone the body cannot be seen, making it easier for misunderstandings to occur.

Whether we are angry or happy, it is shown by our facial expression, and the movement of those muscles will affect the sound of the voice. When we smile our voice is lighter & when we feel anger the voice will be deeper, also the pace may be faster than normal.

When speaking on the telephone your body language still reflects your mood and feelings. The position of your body has a fundamental effect on how words sound, and breathing patterns play a major role in how words are spoken. Restriction happens as soon as you sit down due to our normal reaction of lowering our head and shoulders. Unfortunately, when your shoulders and chin are dropped the words are more muffled. Tone, pitch and pace of the voice are all affected by body language, which as a result can cause the words spoken to be interpreted wrongly.

Be aware of your body language, the way you sit or stand when on the telephone, and your breathing patterns. They all affect how you speak. Body language does matter on the telephone if we want to send messages that are correctly understood. This is why our Zoomettes always smile when we answer.

Thursday, 13 October 2011

First impressions

First impressions are important for your company; these can gain or lose a potential client.

Telephone answering services cover some of the following services: inbound call centres; mail forwarding; virtual offices and virtual receptionists. The benefits are many fold, using this type of service, your client gets to speak to a real human being & you avoid the cost of office rental, thereby reducing overheads.

Telephone answering services such as Zoom’s call answering services can take some of the administrative burden off staff & thereby show a professional approach to potential clients. Our services can be tailored to the needs of your business. Some may only need to outsource out of hours and weekend calls or calls covered during meetings, staff holidays or cover for staff sickness. We can help with whatever you need.

After all, no one wants to be put on hold during a phone call.

Tuesday, 20 September 2011

Common Telephone Answering Myths

We all know good customer service when we experience it, but do we really know how to achieve it? Telephone answering can be a particular challenge when it comes to delivering excellent customer service as so many of the signs we use to read people's reactions are gone. We are left with only the tone of voice and the words used to figure out what the customer is feeling.

One common myth about delivering good customer service over the phone is that it has been achieved if everyone understands what has been decided and what will happen next. In actual fact, this is not effective communication. Good communication involves discussion rather than simply informing. Discussion helps build understanding on both sides, as well as comfort and commitment from the customer.

Another frequent mistake is to think that being frank is always the best policy. The difficulty is that what one person feels is frank, another person may find insulting. It is important to consider how you come across to other people.

Little changes to your telephone answering skills can make big changes to how your customers see you. At Zoom UK we are always striving to improve our telephone answering service and customer service skills.

Saturday, 10 September 2011

More Than Just Call Answering

I'm sure you know by now that Zoom is a call answering service with a difference. We care about our customers and are always looking for new ways we can help. Whether it is simple telephone answering or a virtual reception you need, the little extras we offer are there to make your working life that little bit easier.

If you know that many of your calls are requests for information such as brochures, rather than forwarding these requests on to you for you to deal with, we can send out the brochures for you. The brochures will be sent out with your preferred letter and stationery, ready stamped with either first or second class postage.

By taking over this task, we can ensure that potential customers' requests for information are always dealt with promptly, even when you are out on the road all day.

Monday, 22 August 2011

The Benefits of a Call Answering Service

The benefits of a call answering service are huge, and can make a real difference to your business' efficiency, productivity and sales. It can also reduce stress and relieve pressures that are needlessly put on management and staff who have had to answer calls when this is not, strictly speaking, part of their job description.

Outsourcing your phone answering has many advantages, including:

- providing a consistently professional face to your company
- answering each call with a smile!
- allowing staff to get on with other tasks
- ensuring you never miss a call or message
- covering busy periods, holidays, leave or difficult times
- the choice between call centre services, virtual reception, call answering, telemarketing, diary management and brochure sending

Using a call answering service is a simple and valuable decision - but if you are still unsure, then take advantage of our 7 day FREE trial and let us change your mind!
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Wednesday, 3 August 2011

The Importance of Customer Service

What do your customers get when they call your company? An attentive call answering service or a busy, harried, inefficient staff member trying to do several things at once?

Today's business world relies on the positive word of mouth and recommendation of customers - the rise of social media and the internet has made this ever more relevant, since customers can easily broadcast their good (or bad) experiences via Twitter, Facebook, review sites and forums.

When new customers research your company and products, they will ultimately discover these opinions and views, and are far more likely to trust peer reviews and recommendations than the salestalk of your website. And what's the biggest element in keeping your customers happy? Quality, quick, attentive and knowledgeable customer service.

Your job - or should we say, OUR job - is to ensure that your customer service is top notch. Most customers still prefer to speak to a real person when they have a query, complaint, question or problem. Our call answering operators are highly trained to act as the face of your company, providing helpful and efficient advice and service to your valued clients and customers. Having a call answering service means that your customers will not be left waiting for their call to be answered, or get lost in a maze of "please press 1..." automated responses, or never get through to anyone at all!

Our Zoomettes answer each call with a smile, and are capable and professional call handlers, who can take on any aspect of your customer service as required. Improve your customer service, increase the amount of good word of mouth about your company and watch new customers roll in...

Thursday, 21 July 2011

Give Your Customers the Service You Would Like

When thinking about how you can deliver the best service to your customers, you should consider what you feel good customer service really is. Where does it start? If you trace a client’s experiences of your business from first point of contact through closing the deal to delivering your service and the final contact, you need to aim to make every point as pleasant an experience as possible.

A telephone answering service can help with the first three points by making sure that every time a client or a potential client calls they hear a happy, friendly voice. The Zoomettes always smile when we answer a call, and we are always eager to help the caller. We never take a caller for granted just because they are already a client – every caller is treated as we would treat our own customers. You can test us on this just by calling!

Even your last contact with a client should leave them thinking positively of you. It is always a good idea to ask them what they thought of their whole experience with you, whether it was positive or negative. Feedback is useful in improving your service – if you don’t know what’s wrong, you can’t fix it.

Thursday, 7 July 2011

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.

Tuesday, 28 June 2011

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!

Wednesday, 11 May 2011

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.

Wednesday, 30 March 2011

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.



Wednesday, 23 March 2011

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.


Friday, 18 February 2011

Test Your Phone Answering Skills

It takes a special kind of person to professionally handle a call - to make sales and deal with complaints and put across a business' personality with a friendly, pleasant manner.

That's why our Zoomettes are the best in the business - you can hear their smiles when they answer the phone.

Take the Zoom Answer Call quiz to test your own skills. Do you know the best thing to do if you can't answer a customer's question? Or whether silence always means agreement? Or how to assist understanding and clear communication?

Give our quiz a try and see how well you compare to our Zoomettes!

Friday, 11 February 2011

Reduce Costs and Increase Productivity

We're all feeling the pinch in the current economy, and many businesses are looking for ways to save money and cut costs. One easy way to free up time and expenditure is to outsource some of your company's services - for example answering phones - so that your staff can make better use of the time that they have.

At Zoom UK, we specialise in making things easy for our clients - no matter the size of business, and no matter the extent of our responsibility. By investing in outsourcing your phone answering, you can dramatically increase productivity of your staff, who will be free to work on their primary jobs rather than stopping to answer calls and field off telemarketers.

We also provide a virtual receptionist service, to seamlessly manage calls and transfers - once again, freeing up your business time and effort and making sure your work day runs as smoothly as possible.

You'll never miss a call again with Zoom Answer Call.

Try our FREE 7 day trial and see for yourself.