Who Is Answering Your Phones? A Look at Answering Service Staff

Like many businesspeople, you may utilize an answering service or other live operator based call center support. Some companies use a service to answer their after-hours calls, take appointments, or process their customer's telephone orders. Many have found that these services do a great job making their operators more efficient, but you may as "who exactly is answering my phones?" The answer of course is that answering service staff is answering your phones, but who are these men and women? And where are they located? Here we will explore the exciting world of telephone answering service and the diverse groups of people who keep it running day in and day out.

As telephone answering service continues to grow as an industry, there have been many jobs opening up for operators. Call centers around the country and the world employ thousands of workers as professional receptionists. They come from all areas and take the job for a variety of reasons. One such reason is that there are many different times answering service staff can work. For services that operate 24 hours a day, they need adequate staff at all times. These positions are frequently filled by those who would prefer to work at night because of an existing obligation during the day, such as caring for children while their spouse is out working. For other night-owl answering service staff, they simply like working late at night and early in the morning.

A number of answering service staff members are students working their way through college. These ambitious students frequently schedule their class times on certain days to allow them to answer calls during the other days. Some are part of an answering service staff during the day and take their classes at night, or vice versa. Others get involved working for an answering service to improve their verbal communications skills. The training programs a lot of answering services offer new staff are very thorough and helpful in introducing those new to the industry. These programs and protocols allow operators to handle any situation that may arise.

One question many people have about who is answering their calls is "where are they answering from?" This is a very good question because although quality service can be provided from any location, a low-quality service might locate its operators in locations not appropriate for professionally answering calls, such as out in public on their cell phone. This can be a major problem for those who use telephone answering services and it is very important to do regular quality checks to ensure that the people answering your calls are doing so in a professional manner. Do not wait until you get complaints from your customers about your answering service because by then it may be too late.

One of the reasons you might have an answering service is because you are frequently out of the office and do not want to sound unprofessional by taking calls while engaged in something else. Why then would you pay to have someone else answer your calls in the same manner? With few exceptions, the best answering services are those with actual call centers where operators show up to work. This allows excellent quality control and professionalism, not to mention quicker answering times. This is why it is important to ask where your calls will be answered, along with whether the calls will be outsourced to a different country. Using outsourced answering service is an entirely different discussion and requires more decisions on your part.