We can help organisations needing an extra "pair of hands" to handle telephone calls in numerous situations. For example you can divert calls to us when:
- Your office is unattended.
- When you need to work undisturbed.
- Your lines are engaged.
- During busy times when you don’t have enough staff available to answer all of your incoming calls.
- Outside of your normal office hours.
Call Answering Service Set Up
Setting up your account and call handling instructions
The setting up of your account is the most important part of the whole process. Before we take your calls we will liase with you and together agree the call handling instructions. When anybody calls you they will either ask to speak to a named individual or when not asking for somebody they will ask about something eg a new business enquiry. We will guide you as to the best set of call handling instructions for each different type of call you receive and as far as we can we will do whatever you require.
a New Business Enquiry could include questions such as:
"Which product are you interested in?"
"Where did you see us advertised?" etc
a Job Applicant could be asked:
"What experience have you got?" or
"Can you provide references?" etc.
Our receptionists are trained and monitored to answer your calls according to your instructions
Diverting Your Calls
Diverting calls to a unique telephone number
As part of the set up process we will issue you with a "unique telephone number". You then divert your calls to this number allowing us to differentiate them from those of other clients which in turn, enables us to answer each clients’ calls in their chosen name.
Diverting calls is easy and we will guide you in selecting the best method from the list below:
- Use your telephone line provider’s call divert service. Whoever you pay your telephone line rental to, (be it BT, Virgin Media or a mobile service like Orange) will have a call divert service that you could use to divert your calls.
- If you have your own digital internal telephone system it too will have divert capabilities.
- Alternatively you could use the divert functions of a "non geographic" 08 or certain "geographic" telephone numbers.
Choosing the calls to divert
You are in control of how and when calls are diverted. Whichever method you are using to divert calls there are usually three settings to choose from:
Divert all calls
This means that every call to your number will divert to us. The caller is normally unaware that the call is being diverted.
Divert Engaged Calls
All businesses occasionally have insufficient telephone lines to simultaneously answer all of their incoming calls. Should one of your callers be greeted by a engaged tone they may call back later or they might not. If you are concerned about missing new business opportunities when calls are lost or want to make it easier for existing contacts to call you then set up to divert your engaged calls. Callers will normally be unaware of the seamless diversion.
Divert Unanswered Calls
Nobody can effectively answer two calls at once and even a fully staffed office may have periods when there are more calls than people available to answer them. When you are in your office you can divert unanswered calls to us. The phone will ring in your office first, giving you an opportunity to answer the call. If the call is not answered within a certain period of time, the call will then divert and we will answer it on your behalf.
Answering Your Calls
Call answering on behalf of your company
Before answering the call your company’s information is automatically displayed on to the receptionist’s computer screen, this means there’s no chance they’ll answer in the wrong name or be uncertain what to do.
The trained Receptionist will answer the call in your chosen name and the caller will think they’re talking to your office.
The Receptionist’s computer screen now contains your company’s basic information which means that they can answer your caller’s basic questions in the way that your own receptionist would do e.g. "What’s your website address?"
The callers will either ask to speak to somebody by name or they’ll ask about something. Our receptionist will have a list of your staff and each staff member can have their calls answered according to their own specific instructions e.g. if somebody is on holiday they may change their call handling instructions whilst they are away.
Call answering according to your instuctions
When the caller does not ask for somebody they ask for something. Most of these calls can be grouped into a typical "call type" with its own instructions. As an example, if the caller is asking for details of your services, we would call that a "New Business Enquiry" and then follow your instructions whilst handling the call. A new business enquiry would then be handled differently to a caller with a customer service issue. Our aim is to provide a completely bespoke service and to be an extension of your organisation.
Sending You Messages and Call Data
Individual messages or batches of call information
The information captured during a call can either be sent as a message at the end of each call or in batches. Batched information is useful where we are handling a large number of calls for you for instance in response to a major advertising exercise. The data can then be sent over to you in a format allowing you to input the information automatically into your IT systems.
Our New Business Agent will guide you in choosing the most suitable options from the methods below:
Emailing your messages using the best call handling technology
Increasingly email is becoming our most common delivery method. There are many devices on the market that are now able to pick up email whilst away from the office making email useful for mobile working as well as for the office based professional.
A benefit of our investment in the best call handling technology is that each call type can have it’s own email address. For example new business enquiries could be sent to sales@yourcompany whilst your personal messages can be sent to your personal inbox. This feature makes it easier for you to respond to the messages we send you.
Faxing your messages
As an alternative to email, messages can be sent by fax at the end of each call. Please note that if you are a smaller business and use the same telephone line to receive your telephone calls and fax calls you will not be able to use this option as the fax we send you will be diverted back to us!
SMS text messaging
Messages can be sent as a Text message directly to a mobile phone. This is the ideal option for message delivery when a message needs to be relayed quickly to somebody working away from the office. SMS are limited by the number of characters set by the mobile provider (normally 160) so we recommend that messages sent via SMS are also copied to an e-mail address so you will always have all of the message.
Call forwarding
Another option is that after answering we can transfer the call to a "direct dial number" or "mobile phone". For example if your caller asks to speak to you we would put them on hold and then ring you to announce the caller. If you want to take the call we simply transfer the call to you giving the impression to the caller you are in "the office down the corridor" or if you don’t want to speak to the caller, we would go back to the caller, explain you are unavailable and take a message for you to deal with later.
Call forwarding allows the small business to create the illusion of being a larger concern or is a good way to run a "virtual reception" for businesses where people work in a number of different locations.
» Call Center & 24 hour telephone answering services
For a bespoke quotation call us free on 0800 694 0 222 or click here
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