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Why You Don’t Want an Automated Answering Service for Your Business

You don’t need to answer your phone yourself. These days, you have some options to direct your calls, even if you don’t want to hire a dedicated receptionist. You can hire a digital receptionist, or you can use an automated answering service. However, automated answering services are not a great solution for many businesses. Before you try it, it’s important to know why it might not work for you. Here are the major downfalls of automated call answering.

why you don’t want an automated answering service for your business

1. Customer Frustration

We’ve all been there. You really need to speak to someone at your bank, phone company, internet service provider, or even your kid’s school. But when you call, you get a prerecorded message (which details things that are irrelevant to you) and then a prerecorded voice telling you to “Press one for billing. Press two for account errors.” It can be a very frustrating experience.

Largely, people only call automated answering services when they don’t have any other choice. Companies usually only opt to use them when there is no better way to properly direct calls because they know these systems are frustrating. For you, customer frustration can:

  • Encourage customers to hang up and call your competitors.
  • Frustrate customers who are already angry about a problem.
  • Waste the time of customers who don’t want to listen to prerecorded messages.
  • Make customers who are calling with emergencies feel like you don’t care.

Ultimately, the annoyances of an automated answering service will make it harder for you to provide customers with an experience they can enjoy.

DID YOU KNOW:

72% of callers who reach an automated answer will hang up (and potentially call a competitor) without leaving a message.

Source

2. Unseen Errors

You won’t call your automated answering service yourself and will eventually forget about it. When the system develops an error, you may not even notice. Maybe one of the choices doesn’t forward the caller to the right place. Maybe your greeting message contains outdated information. Not only will this waste time, but you are unlikely to see the issue to correct it.

3. You Still Have to Answer

For many businesses, the problem is not getting the caller to the right person but finding the time to answer the call at all. If you wish you could afford hiring a receptionist or wish you had someone to screen your calls while you’re working on other things, an automated answering service does not solve your problems. In fact, if people have to go through an automated service and end up just leaving a voicemail, they are very frustrated because their time was wasted. If you choose an automated answering service, you need to have someone answer the line.

Try a Virtual Receptionist Instead

For many businesses, virtual receptionists are a better option than automated answering services. You still don’t need to pay to hire a receptionist, but your customer will speak with a real person who has real information about your business, can schedule their work, and can ultimately send them on to speak with you when needed. If you’ll be busy, they can schedule a call. This is a great option for small business owners that want to avoid burnout.

Learn more about our virtual receptionist services or sign up now for your FREE 7 day-trial.

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