When Have You Last Thanked Your Answering Service?

Answering Service Staff Are Real People Who Deserve Appreciation

This isn’t a post to fish for compliments, but it is an encouragement for you to not overlook all the great work your telephone answering service does for you. If you appreciate their work, take time to let them know. When appropriate, be sure to thank your answering service. A simple thank you goes a long way.

Here are some areas to consider.

Operators

A telephone answering service employee—sometimes called an operator or customer service representative—works tirelessly on your behalf. On each phone call, they strive to do their best, representing your company in the best possible way and serving your customers and callers with excellence.

Between the work they do for you and their other clients, they can take over one hundred calls in one shift. That’s a lot of work and a lot of interactions. They derive satisfaction from knowing that they do their job well and provide value to you and your callers on each call.

Customer Service

When you need to make changes to your account with your answering service or check on a call, you contact the customer service department. They configure your account to meet your expectations, track down the details of a call, and provide you with additional information when you need it.

These are time-consuming activities that form the backbone of the service you receive. Again, the staff in the customer service department takes pride in the work they do. On each one of your calls or emails, they strive to meet your request to the best of their ability. Their work provides the foundation for the frontline staff to deliver great customer experiences to your callers.

Billing

A third element of your answering service is the billing department. They generate invoices, receive payments, and contact clients who are past due. They don’t like making collection calls and wish there was no need to do so. If you contact them, it’s usually because you don’t understand an invoice or think there might be an error. Keep in mind that 99.9 percent of the time, the invoices are correct, with the billing department striving to hit 100 percent.

Management

In addition to operators, the customer service team, and the billing department, an answering service has various managerial positions. There are shift supervisors, training managers, scheduling coordinators, and an operations manager. In addition, there are upper management positions to coordinate this and make sure things work together as seamlessly as possible.

Summary

A successful answering service has many people working together to provide you with excellent service for you and your customers. Most of the time, everything goes as expected, and only occasionally is there a hick up that causes momentary disappointment. Don’t let one small oops overshadow hundreds of positive, outstanding interactions.

And that’s something to be thankful for.

 

With a decades-long record of offering telephone answering service to the northwest region and across the United States, Redding Answering Service is committed to providing advanced, first-rate telephone answering service to your company. Let us help you maximize your communication effectiveness—at a cost-effective price—to drive bottom-line results. Peter Lyle DeHaan is a freelance writer who covers the answering service industry.