Pros and Cons of Outsourcing Answering Services

Many businesses consider outsourcing their answering services process when they are in growth mode or would like to be. If you are considering outsourcing your business’s call answering services, it’s important to understand the pros and cons of doing so.

Pros of Outsourcing Answering Services

• Outsourcing answering services is less expensive than hiring staff. Business owners spend tens of thousands of dollars every year hiring and training receptionists, providing workspace and equipment, and paying for their benefits. Outsourcing allows you to save on those costs and benefit from professional operators who are trained specifically to represent your brand as you would do.
• There is no downtime with answering services. Your customers’ phone calls are answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year or just when you need support - you choose what works for you. You don’t need to worry about operators taking vacations or time off for any reason because your calls are always covered.
• Outsourcing answering services allows your staff to focus on your core business. When your staff only handles the calls that are relevant to them, they are able to effectively focus on other important aspects of your business. At the same time, you know that your customers’ calls are being handled in the most professional manner, consistent with your brand, and to your customers’ satisfaction.

Cons of Outsourcing Answering Services

• Management has less direct oversight of the answering service functions. Although this is a positive in many respects, it can be a negative if you don’t take an active role in defining your expectations of the answering service at the onset. You will also need to stay in touch with them on a regular basis and request the call metrics that are meaningful to you.
• There could be negative effects on staff morale. Sometimes, company employees take the idea of any aspect of business being outsourced the wrong way. If you communicate clearly to them that the move to outsource telephone answering services will help them grow their expertise and value to the company.
• Communications challenges may arise. When you work with any vendor, you add a layer of communication necessary to facilitate and make the most of the relationship. Make certain that you set up staff protocol for communication with your answering service early in the process and make adjustments as necessary.

Is outsourcing your telephone answering services right for your business?

Knowing when to outsource your calls to a call center is simple. Is the productivity of your business in any way diminished by an influx of calls or emails? Could your company answer more calls? Are they often forced to put aside other tasks because of incoming calls? Do you presently have calls, emails or voicemails that have not been returned? If you have answered ‘yes’ to any of these questions, it is time to find out about what Pittsburgh Telephone Answering Service can do for you and your company to help you focus on your goals and grow your brand. Contact us today!

Source: https://www.pittsburghanswering.com/pros-and-cons-of-outsourcing-answering-services/

2023 Buyers Guide

Get Listed

IVR

 

1.)

Premium Listing Call Center Studio Call Center Studio Call Center Studio is the world’s first call center built on Google and is one of the most secure and stable systems with some of the industry’s best reporting. It is one of the most full-featured enterprise grade systems (with the most calling features, one of the best call distribution, outbound dialing features and integrations—including IVR, AI Speech Recognition, blended inbound/outbound calling and includes Google’s new Dialogflow and Speech API. Call Center Studio is the absolute easiest to use (with a 10 minute setup), and is the price performance leader with lower equipment cost and less setup time.

2.)	Computer Data Services, LLC VIRTUAL PBX Get the benefits of an expensive, on-premise telephone system without the high price tag and annoying maintenance. - Never miss another phone call - No more busy signals - Feature rich - Answer your calls from anywhere

3.)	eGain Corporation eGain SmartIVR eGain SmartIVR is an over-the-top solution to modernize IVR systems. Businesses can offer smartphone callers an easy choice to resolve queries via digital messaging and intelligent self-service. And they can optimize the IVR experience with end-to-end analytics.

4.)

Megacall Virtual Switchboard Megacall provides a fully customised Virtual Switchboard software for all companies (including IVR service). No matter the size of your business, our services adapt to the needs of each client. Are you looking for a more effective way to communicate with your customers? Discover the advantages of using the IVR and how it can help in your communications.

5.)	MightyCall MightyCall's IVR that will increase your business’s efficiency at a fraction of the cost of a secretary. Your auto-attendant is designed to: - Greet callers - Deliver necessary information - Forward calls to the appropriate extension - Take human error out of the system

6.)

Nuxiba Technologies CenterWare Provide your customers with an effortless self-service experience. Easily create menus using predefined or custom prompts and data dips and route customers to live agents when needed. Enable your customers to make payments and access information 24/7 at their convenience. Request a quote or live demo today.

7.)

OpsTel Services SPEED The SPEED solution solves for service level issues while cost optimizing the environment with automation. Provides an enhanced way to speed up & optimize invoking temporary agent skills configuration changes into the contact center environment. Speed allows you to schedule both future changes & temporary changes that auto-revert back to the original state when scheduled time expires. Speed features: *Automated / Scheduled Temporary Agent Skills Configuration Management *Immediate Temporary or Reoccurring Schedule Skills Configuration Changes *Easy to Use/Operations Administration Focused *Descriptive Monitoring Activity Dashboard *Detailed “End to End’ Audit Trail and Performance Monitoring

8.)

PEC Telecom Virtual Phone Numbers (DID) and Business VoIP Phone Service Whether a customer is running a Call Center business, an IVR system to take phone orders or a voice mail service bureau, he still needs inbound lines and access numbers (DIDs). These lines and DIDs give customers the ability to call in and use the service. Traditionally, these lines and DIDs were obtained through the local telephone company (i.e. Verizon, AT&T or Time Warner) and a company could only purchase numbers with area codes in the region the system resided. With VoIP, this has changed. DID Live is an IP DID service that allows you to accept incoming calls via VoIP as an alternative to standard digital or analog lines. The service provides the same quality of sound you expect from... (read more)Whether a customer is running a Call Center business, an IVR system to take phone orders or a voice mail service bureau, he still needs inbound lines and access numbers (DIDs). These lines and DIDs give customers the ability to call in and use the service. Traditionally, these lines and DIDs were obtained through the local telephone company (i.e. Verizon, AT&T or Time Warner) and a company could only purchase numbers with area codes in the region the system resided. With VoIP, this has changed. DID Live is an IP DID service that allows you to accept incoming calls via VoIP as an alternative to standard digital or analog lines. The service provides the same quality of sound you expect from standard lines at a fraction of the price. In addition, it allows you to purchase DIDs all over the United States. A company in California can purchase access numbers in New York or Texas for the same price as access numbers in its local area. This feature gives the company the opportunity to provide local access numbers to its customers around the United States at a fraction of the cost of traditional phone lines and access numbers. Local phone companies often take weeks or months to install phone lines at a company's location; and in many cases they are unable to install more than a few lines do to physical limitations. The DID Live Virtual Number service only requires a company to have an Internet connection, therefore eliminating the limitations posed by local telephone lines. If the company has a solid Internet Connection, the DID Live service can be up and running within hours.

9.)

Pointel Voice self-service can reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction. As with every system implementation, it is not the software, but the implementation that will define the success of the project. This also holds true for self-service implementations. Pointel follows a unique and proven process to implement voice self service. This process has been fine-tuned through years of experience implementing contact center and self-service applications. Pointel can design and develop solutions that will meet and exceed our client’s voice application needs. With several years of experience in Genesys GVP(Genesys Voice Platform) implementation and integration, Pointel can provide an integrated voice... (read more)Voice self-service can reduce cost and improve customer satisfaction. As with every system implementation, it is not the software, but the implementation that will define the success of the project. This also holds true for self-service implementations. Pointel follows a unique and proven process to implement voice self service. This process has been fine-tuned through years of experience implementing contact center and self-service applications. Pointel can design and develop solutions that will meet and exceed our client’s voice application needs. With several years of experience in Genesys GVP(Genesys Voice Platform) implementation and integration, Pointel can provide an integrated voice self-service application to improve overall customer experience. Why Pointel? Extensive experience in implementing and integrating IVR and CTI/CRM applications Specialized in implementing contact center solutions using Genesys Genesys premier consulting partner Worked with Fortune 500 customers building voice self-service applications and integrating front office and back office applications including data retrieval from Mainframe-based systems Experience in building applications using VXML and custom self-service speech grammars Follows best practices in implementing voice self service applications Experience with self-service products such as Service Ware, Motive and Kanisa Developed products using Genesys GVP to provide voice self-service Reputation of 100% success in all implementations with a 100% reference-able customer base Partner with Nuance and Microsoft for developing speech applications

10.)

Teckinfo Solutions Pvt. Ltd. IVR Edge IVR Edge is a high performance, robust and scalable ivr system that works on various leading hardware such as Dialogic, Keygoe and Synway etc. It can handle the simplest of simple to the most complex of requirements to when it come to creating an IVR. Integration with any 3rd party database, be it for banking, telecom, insurance, travel, payment gateway etc can be handled with ease. Ideally suited to create Hosted IVR and virtual patching solutions with scalabilities that can range from 4 to 128 E1’s per setup with voice recording and CDR functionality. Integration with leading text to speech (TTS) and speech recognition ASR engines add to the flexibility and functionality.

 

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