These days it’s hard for anyone to not feel the effects of the digital age on everyday interactions. Where real live human beings used to staff certain positions, we now encounter automated services that have replaced that human touch. Even at the grocery store, where you would hardly expect to see automation replace a real person, self-checkout has become very popular.

It makes sense. Businesses want to spend less on their workforce and use that money elsewhere. But it doesn’t have to be that way for everything. When it comes to an answering service for your company, it might be time to consider what would happen if you employed a live receptionist answering service.

If you have a business where customer service is an important part of what you do, a live receptionist answering service might just be the thing that can propel your business to the greater heights you desire. One of the main reasons this is true is that in a recent survey 78% of Americans who were polled said that they did not follow through on a purchase they were making because the customer service was not good. Good customer service is paramount to any business that sells a product or service to a customer base. One of the ways to get off on the right foot with regard to customer service is to make sure that it is available any time of day. With a live receptionist answering service, customers can reach a real person any time of the day or night. This is very important to people with an issue or a problem they need to be addressed.

Customer retention is very important to a business’s profits. Just a 5% increase in customer retention can mean a 125% increase in profits for a company. Giving the customer a personal touch throughout a transaction and even after the sale goes a long way toward gaining a lifelong customer. Many people will stay with a certain brand for life simply because the customer service team employed by a company exceeded their expectations.

When the communication technology made automated services available to businesses, many of them used this technology and moved away from the services of real people for things like automated telephone system operators, voice mail machines for people to leave messages, and automated distribution of incoming telephone calls. But an automated answering service has no ability for nuance. It can’t respond to someone who may be upset or agitated. A 24 hour answering service staffed with real people, on the other hand, can often times handle problems by clearing up issues that only needed a simple explanation.

After hours answering is another plus when you employ a live phone answering service. When a customer is able to hear a live voice rather than an automated one, he knows that your company cares more about people than it does about profits. That’s great customer service.

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