If you turn the clock back only a few decades ago, you'll find that customer service was a very different animal. Whilst politeness and due care and attention were always high on the agenda, the immediacy which customers now demand was an alien concept. Back in the days when you could only buy the vegetables that were in season and the internet was the thing of sci-fi novels, all that consumers asked of a business was quality.

However, in these days of immediate gratification, consumers don't only expect quality, they also demand that they can get what they want, exactly when they want it too. The pressure this puts on businesses (especially SMEs) is of course immense, but with services like 24 hour call answering on offer, there's no reason why every business can't be in tune with their customer base.

The beauty of telephone answering services is that they can be tailored to whatever your business needs are, including, but not limited to:

Orders

If your business is one that resolves around order taking, it might be tempting to keep your hours of business within the typical 9-5 slot. However, with a call answering service you can have 24-hour order processing tailored to your business without the need for a costly hire. It also eliminates the lengthy training process involved and means your customers (most of which are working between 9-5 themselves) won't look elsewhere.

Support

This is a big one. In any industry, whether it's technology or healthcare, people like to be able to reach a human being for guidance. There's nothing more irritating (or off-putting) than not being able to contact a business when you're in need. Once again, you can go down the route of a costly hire and in depth training, or you can use a call answering service at a substantially lower cost with none of the worry of the time or training involved. Any quality phone answering service agency will have a wealth of experience when it comes to adapting their style to suit that of your business and means you can accommodate a 24-hour system with minimal disruption.

Diary Management

Booking appointments is something which again, people expect to be able to do any time. The beauty of adopting a phone answering service in this scenario is that you can have a set of people on hand to manage you and your teams diary, meaning that potential new custom, networking opportunities and new talent don't pass your company by simply because you have a limited set of hours.

The New Normal?

Business now is becoming synonymous with 'around-the-clock'. To meet the needs and wants of customers nowadays is to not only to provide a quality product or service, it's to be on hand all the time. Thankfully, businesses don't have to spread themselves too thin or consider costly new hires, as there's plenty of phone and chat answering companies who can lighten the load.