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.

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.

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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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...

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.

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!