What Types of Companies Need a Call Center?
If you ask most small businesses if they feel like they need the help of a call center, they’d probably dismiss it pretty quickly. Most like the sound of having someone reduce the flow of incoming calls, but think that this isn’t something that they either need or can afford.
In most cases, this couldn’t be further from the truth. All types of companies can benefit from a call center, regardless of industry or even the size of your business. If you’ve got a steady stream of calls that are pulling you away from business-critical tasks, then it’s at least worth considering finding a quality agency that can help you answer them.
In this post, we’re going to look at the qualifications your company may have indicating that you could benefit strongly from a call center, as well as discuss the key business sectors that practically require it.
1. Companies Who Experience High Volumes of Calls
High volumes of calls can be exhausting, and they’re also relative.
Ten calls may not seem like much to businesses who have a part-time receptionist, for example, but a plumber who runs and manages their own single-person business, for example, could have their entire day derailed if they’re getting ten calls a day from people who are just trying to get pricing or availability information. Or even worse, missing a few of the calls from potential customers.
Here’s how to define “high volume of calls” for your business: If you’re getting enough phone calls that you’re having trouble mitigating them without having your or your employees’ productivity impacted in some way, you’ve got a high volume.
Phone calls that you yourself don’t need to handle directly can be easily handed off to a qualified, reliable answering service like PATLive. You let us know how you want us to best serve your customers, and we can take over from there.
2. Companies Who Regularly Book Appointments Via Phone
Booking appointments takes up a massive amount of time, as does qualifying leads.
Think about when you call a dentist’s office for the first time, for example. They need to take in a massive amount of information, but they also ask qualifying questions, like whether or not you have a referral and who your health insurance provider is.
Answering services can help you book appointments while ensuring that the appointments will actually benefit the customer and the business, acting as a massive timesaver for all parties. They can even request that the customer bring certain paperwork to the appointment, like health records for a healthcare provider, legal records for an attorney, or business records for a CPA, guaranteeing the appointment goes as smoothly as possible.
3. Companies Who Are Trying to Scale
Are you trying to grow your business from a one-person operation to a full team of ten? If so, this almost always means that you’re aggressively working to increase your client base, which is often tied to even more calls.
As you’re scaling, you likely won’t have the overhead needed to hire new members of a customer support team. Even if you do, those funds may be better allocated to other areas, like increasing your office size or hiring other experts to tackle business-critical tasks.
Hiring an answering service is the most affordable and reliable way to ensure that you’re able to serve all of your new clients (and your existing ones, too!) in the way that they deserve, allowing you to scale more easily. Our pricing plans, for example, increase as your volume of calls increase, keeping our services affordable and allowing the work we do to scale alongside your business.
Don’t forget, too, that answering services are available to take your calls 24/7, 365 days a year. We work graveyard shifts and holidays without charging you anything extra and we’ll never call in sick.
Are There Certain Sectors That Need Call Centers More Than Others?
While companies in all industries could benefit from call centers, there are a few that typically need answering services even more than others. In most cases, these will be service-based businesses that are client-facing.
Plumbers, electricians, and contractors need to work directly with clients to schedule in-home repairs on a daily basis. Healthcare providers are constantly swamped with calls from patients needing to make, cancel, and reschedule appointments, as are lawyers, accountants, and mortgage brokers.
Real estate agents are another great example. They may constantly be receiving offers, updates from clients, and calls about listings, even while they’re trying to show a house to another client or negotiate a tough deal. Letting someone else manage the incoming calls can be a lifesaver.
Law practices receive phone calls all day long from both potential and existing clients. Hair salons, accounting firms, travel agents, advertising companies, insurance agencies, and consultants all have ringing phones and could greatly benefit from capturing every call with an answering service. The important thing is selecting a call center that has experience within your industry and has taken the time to learn about your business.
Despite all the criteria we’ve discussed here, there’s really one solid, all-encompassing answer to the question “what companies need a call center,” which is: Anyone who feels like they could benefit from having an answering service managing even a percentage of their calls.
Answering services don’t have to answer all of your calls. They can take calls after your business closes, for example, or only when you’re unable to answer before the third ring. You can also have a generic business number listed online that’s sent straight to an answering service, but have calls to your personal extension be patched through to you immediately. There are infinite options for how you can use an answering service to ensure that it’s benefiting you as much as possible.
Keep in mind that call services do so much more than take messages. They can book appointments, process payments, complete registrations, qualify leads, transfer calls and more. No matter what your company specializes in, every business can benefit from capturing new opportunities and providing professional service around the clock.
