The Best Times to Respond to Online Leads and How Call Centers Can Help

Research has shown that the best time to reach an online lead is within five minutes of receiving it, but what do you do if the lead doesn’t answer? When do you call back? What are the best days and times to try and reach them?

There could be several scenarios that could inhibit you from making contact with a lead in that valuable five minute time frame. Maybe the lead came in late at night beyond a reasonable time to call back, let’s say 2 a.m. for example. Maybe the person was by their computer filling out the form but was not close to a phone, or at work, or just plainly didn’t want to take the call at that time. Now what? A call center may be your best option if your in-house staff is unable to quickly return calls and schedule call back attempts at the optimum times.

Research in lead response times by insidesales.com can help you answer the question of, “Ok, I called and they didn’t answer so what do I do now?” A conjoint research study between MIT Faculty Fellow Professor Oldroy and onlinesales.com examined 3 years of data. The study is much more in depth than just the best times to call back but for our purposes we are just going to focus on the best call back days and times and also the amount of call back attempts that should be made. You can read more of the study here.  

On a side note, keep in mind that even though the study focused around online web form submissions we can generalize that many of these same “best call back times” can apply to any form of lead that needs a call-back.

Here are their findings.

Day of the week:

The study wanted to find the highest rate of calls answered by the day of the week. They found that Wednesdays and Thursdays had the highest rate of answered calls. Friday came in a close third and Monday had the lowest answering rate.

Times of the day:

The study also looked at the best times of the day to call leads. They found that between the times of 8am-9am and 4pm-5pm had the best response times. The study didn’t take into account the 1-2 hours before and after because they considered the earlier and later hours not a part of the typical work day.

One key point to mention is that the study also looked at response times and concluded that calling back a lead within 5 minutes of their inquiry was best. Calling a lead 60 minutes later resulted in a decrease over 10 times.

Questions to ask:

1.)    Can you or your office staff call a lead within 5 minutes of getting it?

2.)    Are you or your office staff always available to respond to a lead between the optimal hours of 8-9am and 5-6pm? Remember that the study didn’t account for let’s say 7am or 7pm. You would most likely want to call a lead that comes in at 7am or 7pm within the first few minutes right?

3.)     Can you or your office staff schedule and follow through with callbacks that coincide with the optimal days of the week?

If you answered no to any of the above questions it may be time to consider outsourcing some of or all of your inbound leads to a professional call center. 

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.

Customer Service: The Go to Weapon and How a Professional Call Center/Virtual Assistant Can Help.

No matter what kind of company you have it’s paramount that your customer service be exceptional. A 2010 North America Customer Experience Report showed that 82% of consumers have stopped doing business with a company because of a bad customer experience. 79% of customers told their friends when they had a negative experience and 66% who had a negative experience wanted to discourage others from buying products and services from that company.

According to the same report one of the major complaints that consumers had was that they were not able to engage with the company. “Consumers expect to be able to engage with companies via several channels at their convenience.” 77% wanted to speak with someone on the phone and 61% wished to communicate with the company via email. In addition, 42% of consumers said they wanted to be contacted about their issues within 24 hours. These statistics point to the fact that consumers are still asking for better customer service and since the consumer is the livelihood of any company it’s important for all companies to reevaluate their customer service plans.

Could using services like a call center or virtual assistant services help you be more accessible and able to handle issues in a timely manner? Could being available 24 hours a day 7 days a week and 365 days a year improve your customer service goals? If you answered yes to either of those questions you may want to consider a professional call center or virtual assistant services.

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.

Getting Customer Feedback through a Professional Answering Service

Once you sell a product or service, it’s not always easy to get accurate customer feedback. Are clients happy with results? Can they reach technical support easily? Do they have suggestions for improvement? What procedures within your organization or features of your product are recurring problem areas?

A professional answering service removes the responsibility of routine client support from your in-house staff plus adds the bonus of monitoring customer feedback.

Keep track of recurring issues.
Does your business continuously receive calls about the same issues? Professional answering services can monitor and record these metrics so you can learn common buzzwords among clients and see which areas of your products or services could use improvement.

Offer unwavering customer care.
Professional answering services follow customized scripts to ensure each customer receives the same level of care every time they call. People like routine and getting their issues resolved quickly. A pleasant phone call most likely means they won’t mind staying on the line for another minute to answer questions about their level of satisfaction with the company.

Learn where other changes could be beneficial.
Through a professional answering service, you can learn where other aspects of your business could use changes. For example, say a large amount of customers call about confusing directions on the website – now you know to clarify them for easier reading. Or maybe you receive a high number of inquiries about a matter that could be placed on the FAQ page.

Professional answering services not only field incoming calls, but also provide an accurate measurement of customer satisfaction. Learn where your organization’s strengths and weaknesses lay, and where small changes can be made to cut down on high call volume all together. Professionals answering services act as an extension of your business, meaning it is in their best interest to collaboratively make it stronger.

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.

Attack Legal Intake with 24/7 Legal Receptionists

What practices are your law firm or legal lead generation company following to capture qualified leads? More often than not, an in-house legal reception department simply does not have the hours or the hands to field every incoming call effectively.  In-house legal receptionists must also wear many hats – handling paperwork, setting up consultations, and sending follow up emails on the attorney’s behalf. Monitoring best practice initiatives for new lead call handling can fall below the radar.

In order to continue growth, allow a 24/7 legal receptionist service to capture qualified leads so your team can focus on current cases.  Hire a service that specializes in the legal industry to handle the prospect phone calls in a way that produces the best results. Outsourcing to a legal receptionist service has many benefits, especially if the organization has experience with various practices of law.

When seeking a 24/7 legal receptionist service for your firm or lead generation company, make sure the following is considered for the handling of both web forms and telephone leads:

• Response time- Consumers have access to and are shopping multiple firms. The firm that responds immediately and effectively is more likely to get the opportunity.
• Intake data- The data collected will determine the quality of the lead, which determines the next step. Are you asking the right questions? Do you have next step protocols in place?
• Trust and confidence- The quality of communication between the consumer and the intake specialist must instill confidence in your firm, if there is any hope of influencing the decision to discontinue shopping your competition.
• Reporting- It’s important to collect and thoroughly analyze lead source data, lead conversion data, and call handling protocols to ensure every opportunity is maximized.

Attorney Answering Services Assist Business Growth

The most productive attorney answering services are the ones that have your best interest in mind. Choose an attorney answering service that is open to brainstorming ideas to make your firm more profitable. If they have experience with various practices, it is more likely that they will know effective strategies for continued success.

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.

10 Answering Service Tips for Call Centers in California

Sometimes it’s the small things that make people the happiest. In a call center in California, a little bit of customer service goes a long way. Read the following tips that many receptionists use for graceful, polite caller experiences.

1. Always use the caller’s name more than once throughout the call.  The smallest form of personalization makes the caller feel that they are important to the receptionist. Over the phone it can be difficult to build initial rapport, so this is always a good starting point.
2. Answer calls with gusto. Avoid becoming robotic – use day parts in your greeting such as “Good morning/afternoon/evening,” and thank them for calling. Always use the business name you are representing and ask a directive question such as “how may I assist you this morning?”
3. Ask a question to set the tone of the call, particularly if the client is waiting for you to pull up account data. Something as simple as “how are you?” can help build a relationship.
4. Show the caller you are happy to take care of their needs. Use enthusiastic phrases such as “My pleasure” or “Absolutely” in place of half-hearted agreements like “Okay” or “All right.”
5. Mind your manners – using “may” instead of “can” makes receptionists seem more professional.  “May I have your account number?” sounds more polite than “Can I have you account number?”
6. If a caller needs to be placed on hold for a significant period of time, check in with them to assure you will be back on the line shortly. Again, try using their name when doing this.
7. Saying “please” and “thank you” never go out of style – and in many cases can save a challenging phone call.
8. Avoid flat-out saying “no” or other negative phrases. Call centers in California train receptionists to focus on the positive. For instance, instead of telling a caller “Mr. Smith can’t talk right now,” choose something like “Mr. Smith stepped out of the office for a moment, but I’d be happy to transfer you to his line.”
9. When taking a message never say, “Mr. Smith will call you back right away”, unless you know for sure he will.   If it’s possible to know at what time Mr. Smith return’s calls that’s great, if not then it’s best to tell the caller you’ll get the message to Mr. Smith right away. 
10. End the call positively. Use friendly goodbyes such as “Have a wonderful day, Bill!” or “Great to hear from you Bill, don’t hesitate to contact us again.”

By following these tips, call centers in California will improve their image and convey a client-centric strategy. Customers will disassociate any bad stigma they have with call centers from past experience and go into future calls with your company more positively. 

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.

Time Management Tool: Accomplish More with a Virtual Receptionist

How many times have you cursed the fact that only 24 hours exist in one day?  When you manage your own business, it is especially difficult to balance time spent on new projects with handling routine administrative tasks.  A virtual receptionist service can regularly assist you by unloading the tasks that hold you back. Best of all, you don’t need additional space to house these receptionists in-office. A virtual telephone answering service works from a remote location to represent your business and field all incoming calls. 

 

Manage Your Time Effectively with Virtual Receptionist Services

• Think of all the time per week that you spend on the following:
• Answering calls
• Listening to and returning voice mail messages
• Scheduling appointments
• Trying to effectively capture leads while retaining existing clients
• Keeping track of new client documents
• Managing fax messages, voice mails, text messages, and emails simultaneously

For many business owners, this can subtract several hours from each day. To be more productive, outsource these tasks to a telephone answering service and see instant availability on your calendar. Now all of a sudden there is more time to meet with clients, brainstorm and execute new directives, and be away from your desk without stressing about the calls being missed. A virtual receptionist service ensures that you’ll never miss these opportunities again.

Any industry can afford to manage their time in a more useful manner.  Virtual telephone answering services not only increase productivity, but reduce stress as well.  Business owners can leave their work at work, instead of carrying it home with them. Virtual receptionist services replace the 3 a.m. phone calls – receptionists can field calls 24/7 and escalate only the highest priority issues via the message path you choose (cell, email, text, etc.). By outsourcing to a virtual telephone answering service, business owners can manage their time during the workday, and get the rest they need when the day is through.

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.

Capturing Legal Marketing Leads through Call Center Services

Are you getting the best ROI from your marketing dollars? The fact is that not all calls come in when you're office is available to answer and sometimes it's just too much to deal with.  If you're missing new client calls, well that's just lost marketing dollars. Attorney answering services can help you manage leads that come from television ads, billboards, business cards, radio spots, and your website.

Ideally, you'd love to have a have a live receptionist available 24/7 to field incoming leads and inquiries. You never know when a valuable lead from marketing could come in, even at 3 o’clock in the morning.  Attorney answering services should be available after business hours, weekends, holidays, or 24/7 to schedule consultations or process intakes and patch qualified leads directly to the attorney anytime.

Legal marketing can drive a variety of potential clients, not all of them the best fit to be represented by your firm. Call center services with intake specialists will qualify these leads and weed out the ones that don’t have relevance. They can transfer qualified leads to the attorney right away.  Unqualified leads can be delivered via text or email enabling the firms’ intake specialist’s final review.   Additionally, consumers are becoming more and more comfortable with completing online lead forms.  Routing these website lead forms directly to your attorney answering service can ensure that potential clients get a call back right away, anytime.   If the consumer is filling out multiple forms, they may choose the firm who reached out first.  These are just some of the ways a reputable attorney answering service can help.

Attorney answering services are trained in legal terminology to communicate intelligently with callers and answer their questions without having to escalate the call. Call center services employ Spanish-speaking agents to interact with a larger clientele and target an additional market.

Call center services can even help you keep track of how different legal marketing campaigns are performing. By inserting a question like “how did you hear about us?” into the call script, agents can record which marketing channels are most effective and where changes can be made.

Another perk of attorney answering services: flexibility and no contract required! If your firm needs a hand managing marketing leads, give our experienced representatives a call today.

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.

Cost Benefits of Using Specialized Lawyers Answering Services

Sometimes it's difficult to make the decision to choose a specialized service over a general service, especially when your first thought is whether or not it's cost effective. If you're an attorney, you may wonder about the differences between a general answering service and one that specializes in offering lawyer answering services. Consider this.

If you're a bankruptcy attorney, hiring a company that specializes in lawyer answering services can eliminate you handling client creditor calls. By providing a client list to the company, a receptionist can verify representation and notify you of the call details via e-mail. With a general answering service you might just get a message with a call-back number. More importantly you'll want a service that will identify your new client opportunity, schedule the consult and help to ensure a high rate of shows.

A personal injury practice also can benefit in both time and money with specialized lawyer answering services. The receptionist can take potential-client calls, complete an intake form and deliver it to you in csv format to import to your case management software. Some lawyer answering services can immediately connect the caller to you as well. This can reduce the time your practice spends on the phone with an unqualified caller.

If you choose the right lawyer answering service as a criminal defense attorney, you could retain a client on the first call. For instance, a receptionist can immediately connect potential traffic-violation clients to you and remain on the line to transcribe the conversation. You receive an e-mail from the receptionist that documents fees, credit card information and pertinent case facts. You've retained the client on the first call and have a detailed transcript of your conversation.

Immigration attorneys can benefit from a specialized lawyer answering service where potential clients are taken care of on the first call, giving them no reason to continue to shop for legal services. In this type of practice you want to be sure the lawyer answering service offers multi-lingual support as well as intake processing and appointment scheduling. 

When you shop around for lawyer answering services here are a few questions you should ask:

• Do they provide 24/7 service?
• Do they offer bilingual or multilingual services?
• Can they provide customer referrals?
• Do they have specialized training?

A specialized lawyer answering service will cost a bit more, but it’s a smart investment in your practice. The applications mentioned above are designed to either reduce your work load or help you capture potential new clients. Paying a bit more so your client calls are handled professionally and successfully the first time the phone rings is definitely worth a lot more.

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.

3 Jobs You Can Easily Assign to a Virtual Receptionist

Whether you’re short staffed or your staff is too busy, you may be considering hiring someone to help out. In this business climate, you may be reluctant to hire a full-time employee and instead look for ways to help increase the productivity of your current staff. Let’s look at a few ways a live virtual receptionist can enable your staff to be more productive without the cost of adding another employee.

In this blog series, we’re exploring creating solutions that are customized around your specific business goals. In the last post, we reviewed the following goals and discussed, in detail, the third goal.  Today, I’ll expand on Goal #4.  

1. Maximize every new client opportunity 24/7.
2. Increase client loyalty and gain referrals.
3. Reduce the cost of recruiting, hiring and training additional staff.
4. Enable your staff to focus its time and attention on other core areas of your business.

Many business owners overlook the simplicity and practicality of transferring routine tasks to a virtual receptionist. A live answering service is one of the wisest investments a growing business can make, with a great ROI.  Here are three duties that can easily be passed to personnel in a live answering service:

1. Phone Call and Lead Management   - While it’s just about impossible to run a business and answer every incoming call in a day, those that do are not superhuman. Rather, they are savvy business owners who know that a live answering service can efficiently answer incoming calls 24/7, greeting callers with a friendly introduction and offer of assistance rather than a frustrating voice mail. What’s more, live answering services can address general inquiries, transfer callers to the appropriate department, capture news leads, and escalate priority calls when needed.
2. Calendar Management - These tasks tend to be repetitive and systematic making them the ideal functions to be completed by a virtual receptionist. A virtual receptionist can manage your appointment calendar by scheduling, confirming, and following up on appointments, taking messages, distributing paperwork, and much more.
3. Call Screening and Urgent Response - A virtual receptionist is an invaluable team member who can help you manage your office when you’re out of town. Virtual receptionists allow prospective and current clients to reach your office even while you are gone. Depending on the urgency of the matter, a virtual receptionist can take a message, forward the caller to voice mail, deliver the message to you via text, or alert you in the method that you prefer. Virtual receptionists are also aware of personnel in your office who are the current on-call contacts in the event that you are unreachable.

Despite outsourcing sometimes carrying a negative connotation in business, it is one of the best things to do for your business. Using a U.S.-based live answering service not only alleviates the stress of handling a variety of office-related tasks, but better prepares you for the busy days ahead.

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.

4 Ways an Answering Service Can Reduce Recruiting, Hiring and Training Costs

There are many reasons businesses choose to outsource their daytime call answering needs. Chief among them is the need to reduce recruiting, hiring, and training costs for receptionist staff.  In fact, that’s why many businesses turn to a professional answering and/or virtual receptionist service.

In this blog series, we’re exploring creating solutions that are customized around your specific business goals. In the last post, we reviewed the following goals and discussed, in detail, the  second goal.  Today, I’ll expand on Goal #3.

1. Maximize every new client opportunity 24/7.
2. Increase client loyalty and gain referrals.
3. Reduce the cost of recruiting, hiring and training additional staff.
4. Enable your staff to focus its time and attention on other core areas of your business.

Hiring a quality service can save you substantial money in the cost areas below.

1. Advertising, promotion and any fees paid to recruiters or others
2. Staff time to review resumes and schedule interviews
3. Staff time to interview and discuss candidates
4. The cost of lost productivity due to an unfilled position, training and on boarding time for the new employee

The first three cost areas referenced above are direct and fairly easy to measure, while the fourth  can be challenging to measure, but definitely worth determining cost savings.

By using a professional service during office hours, you can eliminate or reduce full-time staff, and generate substantial cost savings in the above-mentioned areas. While some may question whether an answering service can truly deliver the same type of service to their callers as an in-house receptionist, we can say confidently that it can be done.

Calls answered by an off-site receptionist during office hours must be handled to a specific protocol so that client contact is seamless, produces positive feelings from the caller, and gives a professional impression.  For example: the answering service receptionist must use language that gives the impression she’s in the office, recognize frequent callers, accurately follow instructions for patching calls to your personnel, and manage calls so that each call is a maximized opportunity. 

 

Let us help you GROW your business! CALL US directly at 800.664.3489.