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Apr18

Office Response leading the way for Contact Centre Apprenticeships

Posted in Call Centre Industry,Staffing & Resources,Tips, Knowledge and Experience,Uncategorized | No Comments

 

Apprenticeship schemes have become a high profile political angle for all parties in recent years as a way of combating the growing numbers in unemployment in young people. Although growing numbers are going to university when they leave school, the increased unemployment means that companies have a larger skill pool for recruiting, and lesser experienced school leavers will not always be given the opportunity to show what they can do.

Office Response has provided an apprenticeship programme, named the Academy, for 16-19 year olds for the past three years, and has recognised the importance of discovering highly skilled workers who can grow and develop within the business. In the past six months, over 90% of the young people in our programme have completed their NVQ and have either been offered a permanent position within the company, or have moved to other positions with six months on the job work experience and a nationally recognised certificate – an NVQ Level 2 in Commerce Innovation and Skills Faculty.

…continue reading

Dec15

Personal trainers escape ‘voicemail cycle’ and embrace telephone answering services to capture more clients

Posted in Call Centre Industry,General Business Comments,Surveys,Tips, Knowledge and Experience,Uncategorized | No Comments

 

After researching a sample of registered Personal Trainers we found that the vast majority spend most of their “earning” hours with clients and that any prospective new clients who call at these times are  typically asked to leave a voicemail (rule number one – never answer your phone during a personal training session!).

At Office Response we have studied the use of voicemail facilities to see how effective, or not, they truly are. You might be surprised to hear that a staggering 79% of people will not leave a voicemail if they are calling to place an order for a product or service for the first time. And the majority of people surveyed expect to be called back the same day if they do leave a voicemail.

Whilst offering voicemail may be the norm for the majority of personal trainers the real question is whether it really provides the solution you need to grow your business, deliver customer satisfaction & optimise your marketing spend? That said we believe that your real challenge is achieving the optimum workload for you and your business. Clearly the busier you are training the less you are available to take valuable new business calls which will ultimately restrict your ability to grow.

One way to break this cycle is to outsource your Telephone Answering to a live Telephone Answering Service. You could employ an assistant or, more reasonably, use the services of a 24/7 Telephone Answering Service. In our experience, not surprisingly, whichever option you go for will be better than voicemail… but we’d love to hear of your experiences either way.

Please add your comments below or, if you would like to learn more about how Office Response could support you and differentiate your business from your competition please contact our Business Development Team on 0845 223 7004

Dec07

Boom in business for personal trainers! Telephone answering benefits for the festive season and beyond

Posted in Call Centre Industry,General Business Comments,Tips, Knowledge and Experience,Uncategorized | 1 Comment

 

The fitness industry is already booming and as we head closer towards the end of the year it’s set to get busier, with increasing new clients looking to feel their best this New Year or to burn off those extra festive treats afterwards!
The 2011 FIA State of the UK Fitness Industry Report has advised that the UK health and fitness industry has maintained a total market value of £3.81 billion.  The Fitness Industry Association (FIA) reports that since the start of the recession in 2008, the fitness industry has grown its total market value by 4% and increased the member base by 2%. …continue reading

Oct19

Insurance Industry Provides Niche Services

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Office Response proudly work alongside numerous insurance companies, all of which offer a variety of policies – from home, car and business insurance to specialist yacht insurance. We all know the importance of having secure insurance policies in place for a variety of situations, but there are a small selection of companies offering more unique niche policies to those who seek insurance cover for any given situation, regardless of the obscurity.

Here are a few of our favourites:

Alien abduction insurance – for those who live in fear of being abducted during the night and pulled aboard a spaceship, help is at hand in the form of alien abduction insurance. The first company to offer such a thing was St. Lawrence Agency, an insurance provider who claims to have sold over 20,000 of these policies!

Paranormal activity insurance – back in 2002, it was reported by the BBC that hotel owner Terry Meggs took out insurance to protect his patrons against an unruly poltergeist with the potential to harm. It is said that he paid £500 a year to insurers Ultraviolet, to be covered by their ‘SpookSafe’ policy.

Attractiveness insurance – another unique one which has featured in the Daily Mail, is the ‘FaceSafe’ policy which will pay out if the policy holder is no longer deemed as attractive. In one case, to claim on the policy the holder would have to be declared unattractive by a panel of 10 builders – a test she said her husband appreciated being a builder himself!

Winning the lottery – Lloyd’s of London offers policies which will protect an employer if more than two of their staff win the lottery and decide not to return to work. It has been reported that payment is triggered when two or more staff win at least £100,000 each, and leave within 14 days, and the payout would be between £25,000 and £500,000 to cover the cost of hiring temps or recruiting new staff.

If you work in the insurance industry and know of any other unique insurance policies, or even if you’ve taken a policy out yourself, we’d love to hear from you!

Jul12

Outsourced Call Handling Benefits From Recession

Posted in Call Centre Industry,General Business Comments,Uncategorized | No Comments

 

Companies House have revealed that the number of UK registered companies increased by over 7,000 during May this year.

According to The Office for National Statistics, (for the three months to April 2011) the number of employees and self-employed people working part-time, because they could not find a full-time job, increased to the highest figure since comparable records began in 1992. With more than 35,000 people delving into the world of self-employment last year, there are now almost 4 million small-business owners and freelancers in the UK. …continue reading