5 Criteria to Find the Right Answering Service for Your Staffing or Recruiting Business

In the business of staffing and recruiting, finding the right people for the job is exactly what you’re expected to do. Of course, finding the right candidate for a client’s open position is a lot different than trying to find the right services and solutions for your business. The good news is that there is no shortage of companies out there today offering professional services like phone answering and other solutions. 

Of course, the caveat is that you’ll have that many more services to sift through and explore to narrow down your options and choose what’s going to be best. While you’re busy recruiting candidates and helping clients find the best talent, you need to make sure that you also have the best talent on the job for your needs. That includes a professional answering service. 

Those who are new to this may not be sure what to consider when hiring an answering service. Fortunately, while the specifics are a little different for everyone, there are also some criteria that will be useful for any recruiting or staffing firm. 

Before we talk about the criteria that should be on your list, let’s go over some of the benefits of hiring an answering service for your staffing or recruiting business. 

The benefits of answering services and virtual receptionists 

Answering services and their more dynamic counterparts, virtual receptionists, offer several different benefits for your business:

Cost-effective: Answering services give you access to a team of people who can handle phones and other communications without breaking the bank. Instead of spending thousands to hire one receptionist, you’re getting a lot more help for a fraction of the cost. 

Total solutions: Answering services aren’t just for answering calls. Look for services that have total solutions for your communication and admin needs. The more that they can handle, the less you have to do. 

Professionalism: Your firm is a professional business. Therefore, you want professional people answering the phones on your behalf. When you work with the best virtual receptionists and answering services, you’ll trust that a professional demeanor comes standard. You won’t have to question whether people are delivering a professional encounter because it’s standard protocol. 

24/7 availability: Having 24-hour access to your business might not be something that you think is necessary. However, you may also have candidates (or clients) who operate outside of traditional business hours. Therefore, it’s important to have someone available to answer the phones all the time. When you outsource to a service, you’re not that “someone.” 

Customization: Answering services also offer a lot of custom options for their packages and services, including a host of features that you can add to your plan to ensure that you get all the solutions that you need. The best companies will be those that cater to your needs. 

Although these are just a handful of the benefits that you can find, you’ll see that they’re definitely good reasons to consider an answering service. And not surprisingly, many of the perks are also factors that should go into helping you choose an answering service. 

1. 24/7 availability 

Remember how we mentioned that having someone available is a good thing? An answering service that’s worth working with will offer 24/7/365 availability so that a single call never goes unanswered. Unless you intend on never sleeping, you can’t provide this kind of availability to your audience. Take advantage of the services that can and use them for your communications needs. You don’t necessarily have to use the full 24 hours, but this gives you the chance to have availability earlier in the morning or later in the evening, outside of normal business hours. 

2. Professional experience

As mentioned in the perks, professional experience can go a long way in helping you create a better answering solution for your callers. You don’t necessarily need to find an answering service that’s been around for 50 years and has the best call center agents in the country. You can, of course, but you really just need to make sure that you find someone that is able to deliver that higher caliber of professional experience that is deserving of your business. 

3. Industry knowledge

You aren’t necessarily going to find answering services that fit your industry specifically. There are some companies that bill themselves as solutions for staffing and employment agencies, but some of that might just be the use of keywords to boost SEO rankings. Take the time to look at the options that you have and see which one offers the best industry knowledge so there’s less of a learning curve and the people answering the phone don’t sound like they have no idea what’s going on. 

4. Available services and features 

What kind of services do you want besides standard phone answering and call forwarding? Answering services today can handle everything from fielding calls to supporting lead intake, appointment scheduling, and more. They might even offer integrated live website chat solutions or assist with your marketing and outreach. Explore the features and services and make sure that you get the ones that you want. 

5. Easy setup/integration

Nothing is worse than having to spend hours, or even days, trying to integrate a new platform or service. Partnerships are great but they are only as good as they work. If you choose a third-party answering service, you should pick one that has simple processes in place for setup and integration so that you don’t have to stress about whether it will get done or how many obstacles there will be along the way. 

Speaking of easy, consider a partnership with Smith.ai to make admin and communications a breeze

While you’re hunting down the hottest talent, we’re here to field the calls. When you partner with the virtual receptionists at Smith.ai, you can trust that you’ll get all the support that you need for 24/7 answering solutions, outreach campaigns, and so much more. Schedule a consultation to learn more or reach out to hello@smith.ai. 

‍