5 Criteria to Find the Right Answering Service for Your Pet Care Business

When you take care of pets, you must also take care of their parents. That means being available to field phone calls and other inquiries. Of course, when you’re walking dogs, giving baths, or even spending some time with a client’s cat while they’re out of town, you don’t have much time to pick up the phone. Fortunately, you no longer have to do it all. 

Whether your pet care business is burgeoning and just getting its legs or you’ve been in business for a long time, you can take advantage of a partnership with a modern answering service so that you can deliver better service to your clients. There are several types of answering services today, and they’re not all created equally. Choosing the right one means knowing what to look for. 

Before we get into that, however, let’s take a look at a few of the perks of partnering with an answering service:

• It’s cheaper and more cost effective than hiring an employee (with the average cost of onboarding around $4,000 for a single hire). 
• It gives you access to an array of services you might not find elsewhere, including 24/7 answering solutions, lead intake, scheduling, chat support, and even assistance with outreach campaigns, payment collection, and more. 
• You’ll get a team of people that work as an extension of your business to field all the calls and inquiries that come your way. 
• You will improve your reputation and visibility by offering around-the-clock support solutions. 
• You’ll have access to more features than you could get from hiring a single receptionist in-house. 
• You can work with an answering service that can scale and grow with your business over time. Going out of town for a week? Have the answering service field calls, take messages, and schedule clients for when you return. Watching your client base expand rapidly? An answering service can expand with you. 

These are just a few perks that come from investing in a quality answering service. This way, you can give the pets your full attention and ensure that you never miss a thing. 

To do that with the right answering service, here’s what to look for. 

1. 24/7 support and service

Just because you can’t be available around the clock doesn’t mean your business can’t. When you partner with an answering service, you can have them fielding calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and in some cases, even on holidays. You might not realize how valuable this is, but even being available in the evenings and on weekends for busy pet parents can do wonders to drive up your business and increase your reputation. 

2. Customization options

Another important consideration is how much customization they offer in the available plans and services. Whether you’re looking for a custom solution or some a la carte services, make sure you choose a company that offers what you need. It’s best if you can customize an answering service partnership so that it essentially functions as an extension of your business and delivers the level of service your clients deserve. 

In this same regard, you’ll also want an answering service that can scale with your business as you grow. See how they handle matching your growth and make sure that they can work with you for the long term so that you’re not switching services every time you experience a few growing pains. 

3. Features and services 

Most answering services have similar features, but that’s not always the case. It will be up to you to investigate all the features and services offered by the companies you are considering working with. Make sure that they have everything that you want and consider additional services that might actually provide you with more benefits than you anticipated. 

Whether you know exactly what you want or are just getting to know the modern answering service, this is one of the areas where you’ll want to do your homework. You’ll likely be pleased to see that you can get a lot more for your money than you may have anticipated. 

4. Professional experience 

Of course, none of the rest matters if the answering service isn’t professional and capable of delivering the level of service that your human clients deserve. Check out their experience in the industry and what they’ve been doing. This is also an excellent time to read testimonials, reviews from existing customers, and third-party review sources. Just remember to take firsthand customer reviews with a grain of salt and pay attention to how the company responds to negative reviews, too. 

5. Flexible, transparent pricing

The last thing you need is to overspend on additional services. An answering service is only as good as the deal you get when compared to hiring someone in-house. And the companies that aren’t upfront with pricing usually try to hide something. So, make sure that you check for pricing and plan information, even if it doesn’t give you an exact quote, because you will at least have a better idea of what to expect. 

Plus, if you’re creating a custom solution, you probably can’t get exact pricing until you’ve chosen all your services. As long as they are forthcoming with pricing information and not evasive, you should have no troubles. 

For flexibility, customization, and 24/7 support, partner with Smith.ai 

Knowing what your clients need is your specialty—and it’s ours, too. At Smith.ai, we have a team of dedicated virtual receptionists that can serve as your 24/7 answering service. But that’s not all. We can also offer support for appointment scheduling, lead intake, and live website chat (Don’t have it yet? Might be time to add it!). 

Plus, it all comes with a custom-tailored strategy to ensure we don’t miss a thing and can deliver the solutions you need. To learn more, schedule a consultation or reach out to hello@smith.ai. 

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