As far as spam blocking is concerned, call centers and in-house staff can’t perform as well as an answering service. While they may be able to answer calls more frequently and consistently than employees with other duties, call centers and in-house receptionists tend to deliver sub-par quality on spam blocking, if they offer it at all.
Blocking spam phone calls isn’t rocket science, yet still call centers and in-house staff often fail to offer such services, despite it being incredibly important for businesses. If they do offer spam blocking, they normally can’t perform in a manner that prioritizes your teams’ time and your callers’ satisfaction. Call centers and in-house staff are often not equipped to screen and identify spam and come with excessive background noise as well as basic call handling, leaving real callers understandably annoyed.Â
Answering services like Smith.ai offer thoughtful accommodations, like free call blocking for any list of numbers your business doesn’t want to receive calls from. By paying attention to the details, Smith.ai’s answering service can relieve your busy team of call handling and spam blocking pressures, provide your callers with outstanding customer service, and help your business thrive. Hiring a call center or an in-house staff rather than outsourcing spam blocking to an answering service may risk your reputation, your productivity, and your customer satisfaction.Â
If you’re a small business, this rings especially true for you. Over 80% of consumers prefer to talk to a real person over the phone yet call center agents and in-house staff can sound rehearsed, impersonal, and unsettling. This can destroy any initial impression a caller may have and erode any trust they may have in your business, which is critical to establish in the initial conversation with a caller.Â
It’s well known that call centers customarily:
- Engage in poor phone etiquetteÂ
- Leave callers on hold for extended periods of time
- Fail to check your teams’ availability before transferring calls
- Have trouble identifying and blocking spam calls
- Block legitimate calls, allowing spam to get through
- Fail to set adequate expectations for callers
With over 82% of customers wanting their issues resolved quickly, call centers fall short of providing satisfactory service to callers. Phone calls answered by call center agents take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes, whereas calls answered by an answering service usually only take anywhere from 1 to 2 minutes. And with only 44% of callers reporting call centers to be helpful compared to nearly 76% of callers reporting non-call centers, like answering service, to be helpful, it’s clear to see that hiring a call center will result in longer call times and unsatisfactory customer service.
In-house staff also regularly:
- Come unequipped to address customer service concerns
- Have limited phone coverage availability
- Cost companies more than they bring in
- Staff phone lines instead of manning tasks where they can provide more value
- Have little to no ability to block spam, sales, or telemarketing calls
Even with a full-time in-house receptionist, over 62% of calls go to voicemail or are left unanswered. Despite being their sole purpose, in-house staff still fail to answer phone calls, which can cost your business potential customers, as up to 50% of sales go to businesses that answer first. With many in-house staff having limited customer service knowledge, current clients are lost as well since over 71% of clients will end a business relationship due to poor phone etiquette. Hiring an in-house staff to answer calls is arguably counterintuitive to your business’s success.Â
All of these common issues with call centers and in-house staff can lead to clients hanging up the phone and potential prospects taking their business elsewhere, resulting in your company losing leads, customer loyalty, money, and time. By hiring an answering service, such as Smith.ai, instead, your team can avoid losing out on clients by having a knowledgeable and friendly representative available at all times to answer clients’ questions, provide free spam blocking, and send the most important calls directly to your staff whenever they’re ready for them.
If that isn’t enough, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that on average, answering services cost only about 20% of what an in-house staff or call center costs despite offering more features and better quality services.Â
As a matter of fact, Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can:
- Answer phone calls immediately and consistently
- Foster clients with personalized, friendly customer service
- Build a foundation of trust between you and your clients
- Identify and block any spam, robocall, or telemarketer
- Block phone numbers your business specifics
- Automatically block unwanted sales calls
Outsourcing spam blocking to an answering service like Smith.ai instead of a call center or in-house staff can save your business from overextended budgets, embarrassing client interactions, missed lead-capturing opportunities, and frustrating spam calls. Rather than risk your revenue and client relationships on inexperienced or ineffective call center agents or in-house staff, trust Smith.ai’s reliable service to prioritize callers, block spam, and take the pressure off of your busy staff.Â
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