A professional answering service guarantees that a human will respond when clients and customers call your business. A voicemail is pre-recorded, inviting the caller to leave their contact information and a brief message, so you can return their call. Both of these business call answering solutions have their drawbacks and benefits.
Using Voicemail
The most significant benefit to using voicemail is that it’s cost-effective. Most cell phone packages include a free voicemail box. You’ll be able to record a message on your work phone where all calls are safely stored in a digital log. The message that greets the customer can be evergreen, and there won’t be room for errors in the statement.
These benefits may be important to you, but voicemail has significant setbacks. It lacks the personality and attention that a real person can offer when answering the phone. Voicemails also don’t perform well in emergencies. When you’re out on the job or working after hours, it’s understandable that you won’t be available to personally answer all calls. If you do the type of work that can involve emergency situations, missing the call can have negative consequences for yourself and your client. Missed calls might not always be an emergency, but they are often a loss of business. If you have a potential customer in a hurry to choose a company or service and you don’t answer and don’t call back immediately, they’re likely to move on and try the next company.
Using a Business Answering Service
While some customers and clients might be more comfortable leaving a message and waiting for a callback, many called your business hoping to speak to you or your staff. By outsourcing the task of dealing with phone calls to an answering service, you have a guaranteed team member to greet each caller and answer their questions. The service will be available 24/7 to offer superior service to whoever calls. Using VoiceNation is a way to provide attentive service to whoever calls. Speaking with another human makes potential customers feel like they’ve got the ball rolling and can proceed with working with you. When a live person answers your business phone, customers can have questions answered and feel like they’ve been well-served. They don’t get this same feeling from leaving a message, even if you’re prompt when returning calls.
The biggest drawback to using an answering service is the potential for human error that comes with any live person answering the phone. They might mistakenly give the caller the wrong information, or a message or phone number can become misplaced. Professionals working for an answering service are very experienced and trustworthy. Still, they are human, and with all the benefits of having a person on the other end of the line comes a human who can make mistakes.
Working with Voice Nation
When you are considering an answering service vs voicemail, choose to work with VoiceNation; you’ll be able to set up a 24/7 call answering service. Our answering service experts are friendly, professional, bilingual, and empathetic to your callers and their needs. You’ll also get our excellent app that will show the messages sent to you from our staff and allow you to take quick action if needed. You can even return calls from right within the app. Our team is always on standby to help you with any questions. VoiceNation makes answering calls professional, streamlined, and personal.