How to Properly Staff An Answering Service

Companies of all shapes, sizes and industries are only as good as the people they are staffed by. The company could be an ice cream stand, if the employee isn't good working with people and making sundaes, they aren't going to help the company succeed. A life guard stand isn't helping anyone if the lifeguards staffing it aren't able to swim. Construction sites will become dangerous and fail if the people building there are unfamiliar with the tools they use. Likewise, an answering service will be unable to provide professional and effective service if not staffed by willing, able, and well trained call center operators. For this reason, properly staffing an answering service is one of the biggest considerations for any manager.

The entire process of staffing an answering service starts with the hiring process. When interviewing applicants, you need to pay special attention to their verbal communication skill as well as how friendly they are. Everyone has different skills and abilities and some people just aren't very adept at talking to other people, especially over the phone. For this reason, I sometimes suggest that call center managers first interview their prospective operators over the phone first. After all, what better way to conduct a job interview than via the medium the applicants would be using to do their job. I don't suggest making every hiring decision based on this first test, but you gain a humongous amount of insight in future job performance by this first call. If the answering service job applicant does well in this situation, I schedule a meeting in our office soon thereafter.

For many people, the job of answering service operator might seem like a very individualistic position. Indeed staff members spend a great deal communicating with people one-on-one over the phone, but it remains of the utmost importance that employees are team players and work well with others. Even though the center may answer for hundreds of clients over dozens of industries, the entire center must work as a whole. I sometimes compare the staff of an answering service to a television. Although there are many different parts each doing a specific task at any one time, the entire system has to perform in harmony if the entire operation is to work correctly. If there are a few points in the system that underperform or cause issues, it holds back the rest.

A very important thing to consider when properly staffing an answering service is how much prior experience the applicant has. Many people in this business have been answering calls for decades and really do have much to offer you and your center. These are the sorts of people who love what they do and are great sources of motivation for the newer operators. Training is always paramount but much is learned on the job over the course of working day to day answering calls. Experienced operators are frequently some of the biggest teachers in the business, passing on tips and knowledge to the rookies.

After a number of years, I've actually had these experts run the training sessions and I've been very fortunate to have them on staff. They have been invaluable in helping me to decide which applicants will work well together in our operation long term. When hiring for an answering service call center, you ought to seek people you can visualize being a part of your center for years to come. Answering services come and go but the ones who stick around for years after years are those who take each and every call seriously and help and encourage their operators to strive for excellence.