Three Important Qualities of An Answering Service Agent

By Azalea M. Lynn

Hiring an answering service company is a smart decision for your funeral home business. But, are you ready to start the selection process? Choosing one company to work with will be tough. These companies will try to get your business by making irresistible promises. You should know better than to believe them immediately.

Choosing An Answering Service Company

In an answering service company, their most important assets are their customer service agents. Clients expect that service providers will only provide qualified and highly trained agents to answer phone calls. Choosing an answering service company is a smart decision because this will save you money and effort. However, you should realize that you will be taking a risk here. You will let agents answer your customer's queries and these people do not work directly under you. Thus, to minimize the risk, you should do some digging to know which answering service company you should hire.

When choosing the answering service company, find out how long the business has been running. This will let you know about their experience in the industry. How many employees do they have? What companies are they working for? Read reviews and feedback about the company to make sure they are doing good business.

Top Qualities of A Customer Service Agent

Have you come up with a selection of companies to choose from? If so, you should move on and find out the skill level and competency of their agents. Here are the three qualities every good answering service agent should possess:

1. Good Listening Skills- Let's face it, not every caller will be patient enough when asked to repeat their answers. In fact, many callers can get annoyed by this. You need an agent with good listening skills to get accurate information without asking the caller to repeat themselves. Bear in mind that your callers want to talk to someone who is listening to them and not just someone who wants to get off the line as soon as they can.

2. Is Confident- A good answering service agent acts as a representative for the client. Even though they are outsourced, they should be knowledgeable about the clients they are working for. If an agent is knowledgeable, confidence will follow. Employees should speak confidently to customers. No customer wants to listen to an agent who doesn't really know what he or she is talking about. A confident agent can give customers peace of mind and assurance that their concerns will be handled well.

3. Always Professional- A good answering service agent handles calls professionally even if they are talking to irate callers. In the funeral home business, callers can get pretty emotional. The agent should be prepared to take these calls and gather information even if the caller is crying or angry. Agents should always be composed yet, can empathize with the callers too.

How will you know if the agents have these qualities? Listen to a call demo or better yet, give the agents a call. Be a frustrated caller and see how composed the agent will be. See how accurately they document the information that you provide.

About the Author:

Azalea M. Lynn works in the funeral industry as a consultant. She recommends a funeral home answering service for funeral directors looking to improve their bottom line. A funeral home answering service can help to reduce cost while improving customer experience.

Read Full Article, Click Here Now ....

Are there Benefits of Hiring Telephone Answering Services for Funeral Home?

By Azalea M. Lynn

Your business is doing very well and you are ecstatic about it. However, you are having a hard time keeping up with the customer calls. You're not complaining but, you want to find a more efficient way to answer phone calls without distracting you from your work. A telephone answering service might just be the solution for you. Why should you consider hiring an answering service company? Here are five benefits of telephone answering services:

1. Offer High Level of Customer Service- With your business doing so well, you and your staff are constantly busy with other things. When your phone is ringing off the hook, you might feel the need to hurry the person off of the phone to get back to your other tasks. Obviously, this is bad for business. One of the benefits of telephone answering services is that you can offer a high level of customer service to all your customers. Customers should be able to talk to someone who is not in a hurry to get them off of the phone, just to get the details for making funeral arrangements.

2. 24/7 Service- You cannot push yourself and your employees to work the entire day and night. You cannot sacrifice your rest time just to answer phone calls as well. Get your much needed rest and let the telephone answering service provider do their job. These customer service agents work night shifts so they can answer phone calls late at night or early morning. They will offer round-the-clock services and you can expect all the information to be handed to you the next day.

3. No Missed Money- Is the thought of missing an opportunity to earn money keeps you awake at night? There is no particular time when customers will call so you should always be prepared. Having a telephone answering service company to take care of your calls 24/7 is a huge benefit for your business. Not only will you be able to grab every sale opportunity, you can also respond to your customer queries promptly.

4. No Angry Customers- If the business is doing well, you will need to increase your phone lines to make sure customers can easily get through. But with telephone answering services, there is no need to spend money on phone lines anymore. The best part of this is that you won't have angry customers who spend several minutes on the line just to contact you. They will support your business more if you show them that you can answer their calls right away.

5. Professional Agents- When you hire a professional telephone answering service, you can feel confident that they have professional agents to handle phone calls from your customers. Since you are in the funeral business, the agents should be trained in handling calls from people who just lost a loved one. Do not worry about this as agents will know how to get the needed information efficiently even through the hard times.

Utilizing a telephone answering service is a great benefit to any successful business. More and more businesses understand the need of hiring a telephone answering service. It's about time that you make this decision to help your business continue to thrive.

About the Author:

Azalea M. Lynn works in the funeral industry as a consultant. She recommends a customer service for funeral homes for funeral directors looking to improve their bottom line. A funeral home answering service can help to reduce cost while improving customer experience.

Read Full Article, Click Here Now ....