You know you need to hire an outside answering service when your own all center, which provides support for your Web site sales, isn't providing the speed or range of services you need.
You have a dandy web site, which lets your customers buy directly online or through a phone call.
Your CSRs know your business, but the organization of your small call center isn't up to the complex response that your Web site requires.
An answering service can perform many tasks, each requiring experience and training you might not be willing or able to provide.
There are many services specializing in telephone retail support for online retail can provide that supplement even a sophisticated E-commerce Web site.
Special event registration, dealer location and referrals, order-taking and tracking, and multiple forms of customer interaction are all typical telephone support tasks that your outside agents can handle for your company.
Special Event Registration The logistics of booking and confirming special events require confirmation calls or letters and registration packets.
Outsourced support agents solve the logistical problems and guest confirmation details involved with event registration.
Dealer Location and Referrals transfer customers looking for a referral to a dealer in your area and line of work.
A superior service can even transfer calls live.
Let the Service Take Your Order! The support agents can do a lot more than just take a caller's order.
Well-trained CSRs can precisely track advertising responses, as well as do literature fulfillment, inventory control, catalog order fulfillment, and credit-card transaction processing.
A good service can also steer callers to different (or more profitable products) through up-selling and cross-selling techniques.
The Full Suite The fully equipped service can also manage customer interactions through chat, email, and telephone web integration.
Taken together, these services are daunting to implement on your own; through an outside answering service, they're a breeze! Your Own Service If your needs are still simple, you may prefer to have your own call center of one or two employees.
Your own call center will have some or all of the features of the outside answering service, but requires some technical skill to set up.
Using an answering service instantaneously analyzes calls from individuals who have seen your Web site and have specific needs that aren't outlined there, such as questions about differences among products and the suitability of a specific product to their needs.
You can then start to supplement the core functions of the answering service with some of the subtleties listed above.
The answering service supplements your Web site with skilled purveyors of information that helps your customers buy.