Many businesses across the UK, and indeed the world, take advantage of the services provided by telephone answering service providers and not without good reason. There are many benefits to good call handling services provided by locally based companies, including:
- Reducing reliance on fulltime receptionist staff
- Fewer interruptions which translates to greater workplace productivity
- Reassuring customers by giving them an impression of the size of the business
These benefits and many more have made outsourced call handling an excellent way to do better business for businesses and companies of all sizes, from start-ups employing just a few workers to major companies with a global presence. If you’re yet to give outsourced call handling a try, you’re missing out on some fantastic opportunities, however, it’s never too late to find out just how beneficial outsourcing your call handling needs can be.
Outsourcing – Locally or Overseas?
Business process outsourcing often gets a bad rap because many people believe that outsourcing only benefits foreign businesses and workers, which is far from the truth. While a great deal of business process outsourcing does go to overseas destinations, especially the Philippines and India, a lot of it stays locally and supports local businesses and the individuals they employ, not to mention the local communities in which they live and work.
What’s more, outsourcing overseas can offer UK businesses a number of advantages, depending on what’s outsourced, such as reduced expenditure and the opportunity to have work tasks completed out of regular business hours, which is a great benefit to outsourcing to a different time zone as it effectively extends the working day. Having said that, the benefits businesses enjoy due to overseas outsourcing really comes down to what they outsource, with certain tasks being more easily outsourced than others.
For example, data processing tasks are a commonly outsourced business process because anyone who’s computer fluent and has the benefit of a university education can easily perform these tasks, moreover, in many cases they needn’t be fluent in English to perform these tasks to high standards. However, when the task requires English fluency, like call handling or message taking, for example, that’s when the task is best kept in-house or outsourced to a local company, one specialising in those tasks.
These aren’t the only business processes that require English fluency and should, therefore, be outsourced to a local service provider, but they’re good examples for a number of reasons, such as:
- Customers want to speak to someone who’s fluent in English
- Important information conveyed by phone can’t be left to chance
- Local service providers have local knowledge and can better relate to callers
Additionally, as outsourcing overseas is not always very well received because of the way that it’s often perceived, i.e., as the export of local jobs to foreign destinations, it’s often the case that a customer, either current or future, may develop a negative impression of the business solely because of this. It doesn’t happen all that often, and really it shouldn’t due to the nature of our globalised economies, but it can still happen.
What Outsourcing Call Handling to a Local Service Provider Can Do for Your Business
Outsourcing your call handling needs to a local service provider offers a world of benefits that are just too good to pass by, so if your business receives a high volume of calls, or even just a few important calls after hours, you would definitely benefit by outsourcing your call handling needs to a locally based UK call centre. Message Direct are a UK based telephone answering service provider and a great example of a specialist call handling business that many UK businesses of all sizes are reliant on for their call handling requirements. Here are a few of the many call handling services a telephone answering service provider like this can provide your business with:
- Message taking
- Overflow call handling
- Holiday and temporary cover
While those are examples of inbound telephone answering services, most telephone answering service providers also offer outbound telephone services, such as follow up calls, outbound marketing, telesales and many more. As a result, many businesses use the services offered by these locally based service providers and enjoy a wealth of benefits that enable them to operate more efficiently, including:
- A locally based receptionist with local knowledge
- Excellent customer service that enhances business reputation
- A professional, reliable service local businesses can rely on at all times
Those really are excellent benefits, so let’s look at them in greater detail. So, what benefits does having access to a locally based receptionist with local knowledge provide? Because local receptionists have local knowledge, they know local places and local surnames, and they’ll also have a good understanding of local area codes, postcodes, etc. This means that when your incoming phone calls are handled by a local receptionist, your customers will feel at ease and develop a good impression of your business right from the first phone call, which is very important as all first impressions are.
That’s also the case with the provision of excellent customer service. Local receptionists benefit from not only the experience they gain at work, but also the training that local telephone answering service providers make available for their employees. These businesses constantly invest in training that empowers their virtual receptionists to deliver excellent customer service which benefits their clients in a myriad of ways, including making a great impression and instilling confidence in the business’s capabilities.
Professionalism and reliability are central to developing good relationships with their clients and locally based telephone answering service providers are well aware of this, as all businesses should be with regard to their customer relationships. When your business outsources its telephone answering needs to a specialist service provider based locally, you’ve got your incoming telephone calls covered, enabling you and your employees to concentrate on your core work tasks, which also has the effect of enhancing workplace productivity.
Whatever it is your business specialises in, whether that’s IT, HR or auto repairs, your organisation will benefit in many ways from outsourcing your telephone answering needs to a local service provider.
