Engaging a Telephone Answering Company

The process of choosing a telephone answering service is almost as serious as choosing a future spouse. This may sound like hyperbole, but your telephone answering company will be the public face of your business, and so needs to reflect its values of courtesy, efficiency and reliability. Make an unwise choice and your business' standing will suffer as a result.

So how do you choose a company to answer the telephone on your behalf? To continue the marriage analogy, your options include a series of blind dates, a trial marriage with suitable prenuptial agreements, picking a mail order bride or entering into a considered and potentially long-lasting relationship. The good news is that there is an abundance of telephone answering companies offering a broadly similar range of services, any of which would be delighted to receive your custom. Perhaps more surprisingly, there isn't a huge variation in prices between the various companies. Ultimately, your choice should be determined by the level and quality of the service offered, which means you need to be prepared to put in a little judicious research and, if necessary, play the field.

Seek Personal Recommendations

The first port of call in your search should be the recommendations of friends, colleagues or business acquaintances. The opinions of people you know and trust are invaluable in drawing up a shortlist of possible contenders, and discovering which companies should be avoided like the plague.

Consider Client Testimonials

In contrast to personal recommendations, client testimonials should be treated with a degree of caution. People with extensive business experience will attest that completely unsolicited testimonials are extremely infrequent. Much more common is the situation whereby clients are asked to provide a testimonial, sometimes being offered some form of inducement as a reward. The waters are further muddied by the fact that some companies quote selectively or massage testimonials to enhance their appeal, or simply fabricate them on behalf of fictitious clients. If a company is not willing to put you in contact with the provider of a testimonial so that you can check its validity, you should start to search elsewhere.

Take Up Free Trial Offers

The offer of a trial period of free telephone answering may be appealing, but only take up such an offer if the company meets your other selection criteria. A free trial may indicate the company's confidence that it can retain your business after the trial, but equally may be a sign that the business is struggling and desperate for clients. The last thing that you want to have to cope with is the fallout of your telephone answering service ceasing trading at a critical moment for your business.

Try Out Live Demonstrations

Most telephone answering companies offer some form of demonstration of their service via their website. Recordings of the company's call centre operators 'in action' are of little value, as the calls are invariably rehearsed or recorded under studio conditions, and you, the listener, you don't know whether you are listening to the first or the hundred and first take. Much more compelling are live call answering demonstrations, in which you are invited to phone a specified number, and have an opportunity to interact with an operator and judge their verbal communication skills and the accuracy of the transcription of your message, which is relayed to you via email or SMS.

Visit the Call Centre in Person

The recommendation to visit two or three of your prospective companies in person may seem unusual, but most reputable call centres are pleased to welcome potential clients to view their facility. Five minutes spent amid the bustle of a busy call centre will quickly confirm whether the operators are answering calls with the speed, efficiency and courtesy that your business demands. It will also save you from the potential embarrassment of discovering that you've contracted with a telephone answering service that is fronted in the UK, but whose operators are located in an exotic overseas location such as Mumbai or Manila.

If, after all your assiduous research, you select a partner, later to discover that the relationship just isn't working out, you can take some solace from the fact in that world of telephone answering, quickie divorces are just that.