If you own a growing roofing company or small business you will come to the point where in order to grow you need to stop doing everything yourself and start outsourcing. One of the ways you can do this is by hiring an answering service to answer all your phone calls. Here are the pros and cons of hiring an answering service.
Also if you are interested in hiring an answering service, I recommend checking out Jill’s Office, they are a 24/7 answering service specifically for service businesses. I have gotten to know the folks there at Jill’s Office and I can tell you that they are an honest, reliable, company that cares about providing good customer service.
I reached out to them and was able to get you guys a promo code. If you use the promo code ROOFHIPPIE when you sign up for Jill’s Office you will get $300 off the sign-up fee. Using this link or promo code will also help to support this website, RoofHippie, Mrs. RoofHippie, and Mini RoofHippies which I greatly appreciate. This is an affiliate link, but I would not recommend them if I was not convinced that it is one of the best answering services out there.
PROS OF ANSWERING SERVICE:
1) 24/7 Availability options
Roofs leak, trees fall, hail destroys, weather is unpredictable, and all possible roofing emergencies do not wait around for business hours. Answering services often provide 24/7 answering so your customers can reach someone and be reassured that they will be taken care of, even in the middle of the night.
2) Back-Up Employee
If you already have an excellent in-house receptionist that you really like but just need some extra help, answering services can cover your phones when your receptionist needs some extra help covering phones, when he or she takes breaks or time off, and during your after-hours too.
3) Personal Scheduler
A huge perk that lots of answering services have started offering is scheduling services. When the receptionist takes a call, they can gather necessary customer information and schedule them right then. You will not have to lift a finger and your calendar will fill right up. This means the next time a hail storm blows through your area, you will be one of the first companies to book out your entire year with roof replacement appointments.
4) Real People, Better Customer Service
No one likes hitting voicemail, navigating automated systems, scavenging through frequently asked question forums, or talking to less-than-friendly people on the phone. And let’s be real, most business owners do not know the first thing about good customer service. With a virtual receptionist, you can guarantee your customers are going to have a positive experience with a live person on the phone every single time.
5) Fewer Employees To Manage
Finding and hiring good people can be a real pain. An answering service can help you by making it so you do not have to hire as many people. Less hired people means fewer people that you need to manage and worry about.
6) Makes Scaling Your Business Simple
One person in-house can only answer so many calls. Being able to have a whole team of people available and waiting means you can ensure that every single call is answered, and every customer is taken care of. As your business grows, you will not have to worry about hiring extra help because the answering service will handle it for you!
7) Multiple Languages
It can be difficult to find someone who speaks multiple languages. Answering services like Jill’s Office offer the flexibility of bilingual receptionists which can really take your business to the next level and allow you to serve a greater demographic of customers with ease.
8) Grows Your Business
Answering phones takes up a ton of time. Customers are long-winded, they have complex issues to solve, and their calls are demanding. Delegating to an answering service really helps to free up your time so you can focus on the tasks that will grow your own business exponentially. Most successful business owners I have met have delegated this part of their business. Why? Because answering the phone was not a good use of their time and it is not a good use of yours. But it is something that absolutely has to be done. Hiring an answering service can be one of the best ways to quickly take this task off your plate without interrupting your business flow.
9) Reduce employment costs
When you hire a virtual receptionist, you get to shrug off the responsibility of employee taxes, benefits, and more. Not to mention, but you literally are only paying the service for when the virtual receptionists are actually doing work, rather than having to pay a receptionist who could spend a lot of time during the day sitting around waiting for calls.
10) Increased Revenue
Because your employment cost just dropped, your revenue increased! Not only that, but now that you have someone covering your phones all the time, they are booking appointments that you used to be missing and building a friendly first impression for your business that will keep customers calling back and referring their friends! All of this adds up to some serious growth and revenue.
CONS OF ANSWERING SERVICE:
1) Price:
Price is always the catch, right? The question of price comes down to whether or not it is worth it for your company. While you can definitely find low-cost answering services, they often come with a huge lack of quality. Usually, the more premium companies have added services that the cheaper companies do not offer. This may include things like website chat services, specific software integrations, etc.
Keep in mind that virtual receptionists often pay for themselves by the additional appointments they book that you used to miss out on. Jill’s Office is not the cheapest brand, but it is also not the most expensive brand out there. I feel like they are a good balance because they offer reasonable prices but include some extra services you may not normally see. They also accommodate for various businesses by offering different pricing options for different needs. This means it makes it more worth it, for small businesses to use their service. You can check out the pricing for Jill’s Office by visiting their website.
2) Lack of Knowledge of Your Business
While I have come across virtual receptionist platforms that do a fantastic job sounding like your company, the majority of answering services seem pretty generic and only do basic message taking. There is no way an answering service can know all of the ins and outs of your roofing business. One thing that I like that Jill’s Office does to counter this is they have someone work with you to develop scripts so that when someone calls in, the receptionist sounds like they are a seamless part of your team.
Far too often answering service companies are not scripted and the receptionist sounds foreign like they are not a member of your team. A good answering service may not have all the details of your company but they should at least sound like they are a member of your excellent team.
3) Can’t Handle All Tasks
Virtual receptionists often just handle your phone calls and basic needs, leaving lots of additional tasks left undone. If you are looking for a solution that can get more in-depth, you will want to find an answering service like Jill’s Office that not only takes phone calls but also offers admin services for things like:
- Scheduling appointments
- Collect invoices and payments
- Outbound lead Follow Up
- Respond to social media messages
- Respond to google reviews
- Contract Management
- Data Entry Tasks
4) Lack of Compatibility
While answering services often boast scheduling as an option when they take your calls, they often have selective systems they work with or are only able to use simple software programs. This may not be the biggest issue but could be a dealbreaker if you really need someone to get into your books. As you investigate answering services, ask them what software or calendars they are compatible with.
5) Outsourcing Overseas is Common
Unfortunately, it is not the simplest task to find an answering service that is fully based in the United States. This can seriously hinder the quality of the answering service because the receptionist does not sound like a local member of your team (if you are from the US of course). Jill’s Office is based in the U.S. so if your company is also based in the U.S. they will sound like a local because they are a local. If you are outside the U.S. I recommend looking into local answering service companies because they will sound like they are a local member of your team.
6) Several People
When you have got an answering service taking your calls, a customer could call and talk to Jane and then call right back and talk to Joe. Passing customers around like this could interrupt trust-building with your company and possibly lead to mistakes being made, or poor communication. You will want to ensure that the answering service you go with has well-trained receptionists that have a system in place to distribute information.
This way, even if your customer does talk to multiple people, the experience is consistent and all the receptionists speaking to them are on the same page.
I know Jill’s Office has a system where they take notes on each call. After the call finishes, they save the information and send you a copy of the notes. This way when the same person calls back, the next receptionist can pick up where they left off. If mistakes are made, which I have seen happen occasionally from my experience. It allows me to see what the receptionist said to figure out the miscommunication and correct the issue.
7) Margin of Error
Regardless of who you are having to handle your phones, mistakes will be made. With answering services, this margin can be anywhere from small errors to significant errors due to the lack of a detailed understanding of your business systems and practices. A great question to ask in your research is if a company knows what its margin of error is, and if so, what it is. A lot of answering service companies do not even keep track of this.
When I asked a representative of Jill’s Office what their margin of error is they told me that they strive to keep it under 2%. I do not know about you, but I can work with 2%.
Again, if you are considering an answering service for your company. I recommend checking out Jill’s Office, they are an honest reliable company that can help relieve you of the burden of answering calls. I reached out to them and was able to get you guys a promo code. If you use the code ROOFHIPPIE and let them know I referred you, you will get $300 off the sign-up fee and by doing this you will help support this website, which I greatly appreciate.
Related Questions:
What does an answering service do? Answering services handle inbound and outbound phone calls for other companies. Some answering services will go beyond taking phone calls by performing other administrative work such as scheduling appointments, following up on leads, collecting payments, and handling contracts. They may even operate beyond regular business hours.
Is an answering service worth it? Yes, many times an answering service is worth it. They have many benefits that extend beyond just taking phone calls. Additionally, you do not have to worry about the hassle of hiring and managing people to take your calls as your company grows.
Who uses an answering service? There are many different companies across all industries that turn to an answering service to fulfill their administrative needs. Any company that regularly performs tasks such as taking phone calls and booking appointments could benefit from using an answering service.
