68% of leads consulted with a business they didn't hire.

An answering service, like Smith.ai, can offer your business lead screening and intake. In doing so, answering services can take over call handling and screen potential prospects to send qualified leads directly to your sales team. This frees your staff from regular call handling duties to focus on their specific job duties without having to worry about interrupting work to pick up the phone. Your calls will be screened so that your team will be able to talk to callers who are real leads or clients and never have to waste their time weeding out uninterested callers or telemarketers. You’ll have context for every call that’s transferred so that your team can have all the information they need to send qualified leads through their sales funnel. With lead screening and intake services, your business can exude professionalism at all times and grow more successful by the hour.

By enabling lead screening and intake through an answering service, your business can:

• Minimize distractions & protect team’s time: With outbound calls being made and leads being screened, your team will be able to focus on more important tasks and avoid constant interruptions.
• Reduce call handling times: Call handling and lead screening services allow for sales calls to be answered and outbound calls to be made immediately so leads won’t hang up, go unanswered, or be stuck waiting on hold.
• Improve productivity: Lead screening and intake services allows your staff to focus on converting pre-qualified leads, allowing for more sales to be made in less time.
• Boost client satisfaction & business reputation: With lead screening and intakes, your lead will get an immediate answer, displaying the illusion of a larger business. With leads feeling valued, your business will exude professionalism and your company’s reputation will be stronger than ever.
• Enhance lead conversions: By transferring only real clients and potential prospects directly to your team, Smith.ai's virtual receptionists can help your team convert leads at a faster rate and save them the trouble of screening leads themselves.
  

A great lead screening and intake service can make all the difference for your business. It's important for businesses to have control over their day to day tasks and not be constantly interrupted by random phone calls. Smith.ai can provide a professional buffer and frontline so that your business can avoid having to answer and screen every call without losing out on leads. We are your lead guardians and can deliver exceptional service so that even if you aren't able to answer a lead or make an outbound call for a client who just filled out a web form, clients can still have a great experience with your business, thanks to Smith.ai’s answering service.

Lead screening and intakes are invaluable to your business’s success. Without having to deal with call interruptions or missed leads, you can improve your team’s responsiveness and productivity and put your business well ahead of your competitors. Whether your business needs lead screening assistance, customer service support, or just help off-setting sales pressure on your team, a lead screening and intake service can transform your business into the best version of itself.

As far as lead screening and intakes are 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 screening, qualifying, and nurturing leads.

Screening and qualifying leads isn’t rocket science, yet still call centers and in-house staff often fail to perform in a manner that prioritizes your teams’ time and your clients’ satisfaction. Call centers, in particular, are unequipped to answer common questions leads have, fail to provide accurate and timely information to interested prospects, and come with excessive background noise and basic call handling, leaving clients understandably annoyed. 

Answering services like Smith.ai offer thoughtful accommodations, like gathering personal and business-related lead information. By paying attention to the details, Smith.ai’s answering service can relieve your busy team of lead screening pressures, provide your potential prospects with outstanding customer service, and help your business thrive. Hiring a call center or an in-house staff rather than outsourcing lead screening and intakes to an answering service may risk your reputation, your productivity, and your customer satisfaction. 

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 lead may have and erode any trust they may have in your business, which is critical to establish in the initial conversation with a client. 

It’s well known that call centers customarily:

• Engage in poor phone etiquette 
• Leave callers on hold for absurd amounts of time
• Fail to nurture leads prior to transferring them
• Have trouble screening and qualifying leads
• Fail to set adequate expectations for leads
  

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
• Fail to catch leads in a timely manner
• Have little to no ability to qualify and nurture leads
  

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. 

All of these common complications with call centers and in-house staff can push to potential prospects to take 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 missing out on leads by having a knowledgeable and friendly representative available at all times to answer clients’ questions, screen potential prospects, and send qualified leads directly to your sales team 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. 

As a matter of fact, Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can:

• Provide reliable, 24/7 availability 
• Demonstrate lead screening expertise
• Answer clients immediately and consistently
• Foster leads with personalized, friendly customer service
• Schedule appointments and consultations
• Build a foundation of trust between you and your clients
• Prepare leads with information about your services
  

Outsourcing lead screening and intakes 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 workplace complications. 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 nurture callers, capture leads, and take the pressure off of your busy staff. 

Don’t just take our word for it. Check out some of our clients’ reviews to see why so many businesses rely on Smith.ai to handle their lead screening and intakes.

Cost is an important factor when deciding whether your business should sign up for an answering service or not. Many answering services often hide their true prices to trick you into signing up. Luckily, Smith.ai’s pricing is always clearly advertised upfront so that determining the cost for lead screening and intakes can be simple and painless.

When signing up for Smith.ai, there are:

No set-up fees

No cancellation fees

Free spam blocking

No hidden fees/pricing

You shouldn’t have to go bankrupt to receive high-quality services that can set your business apart from the others. With Smith.ai, you’ll never be charged with random, unrecognizable fees or stuck paying for something you didn’t sign up for. You can rest easy knowing what you see is always going to be exactly what you get.

Even better – Smith.ai’s lead screening and intakes, among other features, are incredibly affordable. Monthly plans start at as little as $255/month or, if you prefer, you can create a customized plan that fits your business needs. No matter which plan you choose, you’ll never have to spend more than you should, since Smith.ai’s virtual receptionist pricing follows a per-call rather than per-minute pricing model. That way, you don’t have to pay for someone to sit around while your phone isn’t ringing as you would with an in-house staff member. You only ever pay for the plan you sign up for – nothing more. 

To save your business even more money, Smith.ai offers 10% off when you pay upfront annually. You’ll be able to save money and receive the exact same services as you normally would on a monthly payment plan. It’s a win-win. 

If your business might benefit from bundling call handling and lead screening with live website or text message answering, Smith.ai also offers a 5% bundled discount for receptionist and chat services. This’ll put money right back in your pocket and give your business the opportunity to take advantage of unique services other answering services don’t offer, granting your business a leg up in your industry.

Whatever your business can afford, investing in an answering service that offers lead screening and intakes will be well worth it. While other businesses may be stuck spending massive amounts of time and money on front desk support or call centers, you’ll be able to save both by utilizing an inexpensive and flexible service that provides you with lead screening how and when you want it. Customers will run to your business for your reliable customer service, quick answering, and well-prepared staff.

To see if Smith.ai is the right fit for your business, sign up today risk-free with our 14-day money-back guarantee.

Keeping a business up and running is no simple task. That’s why it’s easy to see how quickly businesses can run into problems they struggle to resolve themselves. Common problems that indicate your business may benefit from a lead screening and intake service are:

• My team struggles to keep up with phone calls and remain productive

Business calls don’t just come in when your team is ready and available. For teams that already have enough on their plate, the amount of phone calls that need to be properly answered and screened can be overwhelming to say the least. With over 20% of calls being spam, it can be even more difficult to determine which callers are real clients or leads. Answering calls consistently and correctly is crucial for your business’s success, but team members might have to neglect more important work to do so, leaving your staff with a growing list of tasks they can’t seem to get done. 

• I can’t afford to hire front desk support

Front desk support, whether it’s in-house receptionists or call centers, can cost tens of thousands of dollars and with slimmer budgets set in place, business can often be left desperate for phone answering and lead screening assistance. Paying more than you can afford for services you need can put your business in a dangerous position and trying out free services can be just as detrimental to a business as having nothing at all. Without call handling and lead screening support in some way, shape, or form, your business can lose out on leads and dismantle client relationships.

• My staff has difficulty finding and capturing leads

Staff members may not have the time or expertise to convert leads consistently. When a representative fumbles over your business’s mission, struggles to portray confidence in your company’s services, or forgets to mention their contact information, clients may lose interest quickly and feel less secure about entering into a relationship with your business, costing you not only your revenue, but your reputation as well.

• Clients are frustrated with our slow response times

The only way a business can succeed is when clients are happy so when clients inevitably have questions about their services or concerns about their products, businesses need to be prepared to answer them. Businesses regularly struggle to find the time to answer leads’ questions in a quick and efficient manner. Whether staff members have limited availability and either can’t get to the phone in time or leave clients on hold, clients can get irritated and hang up, going to the next company they find in their search results. 

If your business is facing one or any of these challenges, an answering service that provides lead screening and intakes can help you convert more leads and deliver excellent services to clients who call. An answering service, such as Smith.ai, can take the pressure off of your team and allow your business more flexibility in time and in budget without compromising your client relationships. Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can assist your potential prospects by screening and scheduling them quickly and help your team send leads through your sales funnel. Smith.ai’s answering service offers the fastest, easiest, and most affordable way to resolve your business’s issues and leave your clients with a smile on their face.

Businesses of every size can benefit from outsourcing call handling and enabling lead screening and intakes, whether it helps to take the load off of a small, family owned business or to increase efficiency in a large corporation. For example:

• For small businesses, lead screening and intakes mean a professional “big company” phone presence and not having to pick up every call

Small businesses are often up to the necks in tasks that need to be done. They don’t need to spend more of their restricted time screening and qualifying leads or their narrow budget on hiring front desk support. Lead screening and intakes give small businesses the opportunity to capture, screen, and qualify leads without any extra effort. This allows small businesses to maximize their productivity without sacrificing their much-needed time, money, or outreach towards current and potential clients. No more wasted days trying to nurture each and every potential prospect.

• For medium businesses, lead screening and intakes mean call-backs and more staff availability

With an endless amount of projects that need to be done, calls that come in to medium sized businesses are often left unanswered or mishandled, resulting in missed leads and frustrated clients. Balancing daily tasks with call handling and lead screening is difficult for any company, let alone a company with limited staff, availability, and resources. Outsourcing call handling and permitting lead screening and intakes enables medium sized businesses to place the responsibility of customer service and lead screening into the hands of a trustworthy agent so that their team can get back to running daily operations without worrying about losing out on leads.

• For large businesses, lead screening and intakes mean personalized customer interactions and more sales made

Many larger businesses have staff that are far too busy to answer calls themselves. It can be tedious for sizable staff to focus on the smaller details, like providing personalized one-on-one customer service, when there are such vast operations to run. It’s also very costly to hire in-house staff and, for companies at the enterprise level, scaling at lower cost is a core objective. Lead screening and intakes can make it easier for large businesses to function at a high volume without neglecting the details that can separate a good company from a great one. By allowing answering services like Smith.ai to answer calls and send only important callers and qualified leads directly to available team members, larger businesses no longer have to choose between interrupting work to answer calls or missing leads.

Having a well-informed team of virtual receptionists who are trained in customer service and who can represent your company when you’re busy can transform your business’s efficiency for the better, no matter what size your business is. Whether you want to improve your company’s customer service or increase your business’s lead conversion rate, an answering service that delivers lead screening and intakes can help accomplish your company’s goals and get your team focused on their work again.