24/7 Answering Service
A 24/7 Answering service is pretty self-explanatory. When a business or individual is on-call all hours of the day every day of the year, it is sometimes necessary to outsource this answering service to a provider who has the staff to supply a human response. What is not really obvious about this service is that it can really save a business or government agency a lot of money.
In October of 2009, Juan Gonzalez reported for the NY Daily News about NYC's mismanaged plan to upgrade emergency system 2 years late, $700M over budget and perhaps after cutting through all the red tape, they could have saved money by outsourcing the project to a professional 24/7 answering service and call center, set up to handle emergency dispatching.
As demonstrated in this article, it is very expensive to set your organization up and organize your business procedures to become a 24/7 answering service. Obviously this is extremely important for emergency response teams, but also important for any business that misses a call because someone is not around to receive the call. For this reason there are many business owners who use an answering service, and regard the expense as a cost savings!
Another advantage to a 24/7 answering service is that it operates out of another location than your business. This is great because scheduling, and messages will not distract your receptionist as she handles your patients or visitors. Answering services pick up your phone calls via call forwarding and can answer your calls as if they were one of your employees, take a message, and notifying you immediately if the message is urgent or forward that message on to you if it is not.
Recently there have been many cutbacks in city and state funding effecting emergency services, and municipal services. An example is in an opinion article in the Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel about public cut backs where the author states that "Public safety should not be excused from taking a hard look at spending; taxpayers should get the best service at a reasonable cost." Perhaps by outsourcing answering services we could manage to afford police, emergency personnel, trash pickup and street repair? Perhaps looking at areas of cost savings doesn't mean cutting personnel in key positionsâ¦perhaps it can mean outsourcing functions that can probably better be handled by experts like 24/7 answering services.
Lots of other types of businesses can also benefit from a 24/7 answering service. Take for instance medical professionals who have to not only schedule regular visits but also have to handle emergencies. Their patients health could weigh in the balance of a missed call. Attorneys, home health care providers and insurance agents can also benefit from a 24/7 answering service. Employing the answering service is a quick and easy way to increase profits and customer satisfaction during this economically challenging time.
Sue McCrossin is a free-lance writer working for ACA on the subject of 24/7 Answering Service. She feels that what some may consider a luxury for their businesses using Answering Service in an aggressive cost savings measure.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com
