Answering Service Culture Shock

noreply@blogger.com (extremedad2000) — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 04:11:00 +0000

The First Acquisition

Following my father's footsteps, it was time to pursue growth through acquisition. I knew from my father's experience that when you buy a business it is not a good idea to make changes, at least not for a while. Give yourself time to get to know everyone. There will be plenty of time later to make changes, that is, if you need to make any changes at all. In the mean time, try to learn from the seller; get to know your clients, employees, and vendors.

The answers are usually not in one place so keep your ear to the ground and "Don't make any changes"! Yep, that was the plan, plain and simple, acquire and don't make any changes.

So armed with this plan we completed our first acquisition. No sooner than I had returned to my office a couple of days later I was handed a fax that required we must move all of the clients because the current telephone provider was no longer able to provide service. The choice was either find another carrier or be out of business. We did not even have one week without making changes and here we were making major changes.

No nobody likes change, and we were not planning to make any, but with time now against us we did what we could to keep the business going. Had we not taken steps we did this business would have shut down and the employees would no longer have work. It was amazing to see the process and teamwork swing into action. Training, operations, technology, client services and billing. It was an especially proud moment for me, because the best managers are able to delegate these tasks. I'm one of those types that has a difficult time letting go, but here I was, with nothing to do after the closing. The team was in top form and I am sure proud of all of them.

When you make these sort of business deals there are always a thing or two that you didn't think of. Here is one of them. It turns out that some of the telephone receptionists involved were feeling uneasy about their future employment, because the system is now connected to a much larger team of telephone receptionists. They may have felt that their jobs are no longer secure and/or important. This could not be further from the truth.

Clients develop trust with the people that handle their calls. Therefore, we designed the system for skill sets that are specific to certain clients. In this case the core team consists of the people that are most familiar with these clients. The answering service skill set is designed so the same telephone receptionists that clients are used to have been assigned to handle calls. The answering service telephone receptionists involved in the acquisition are really the core of the business! However, because of the advanced system design there is team of a additional telephone answering service receptionsists to back up the core staff. So when there are more calls than can be handled by the core team the calls will overflow to other members outside of the core team.

We hope to develop long-term trust between the company and our new employees.

www.answeringservicecare.com

noreply@blogger.com (extremedad2000) — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 16:06:00 +0000

Why Should I Use An Answering Service?by Michael Shooster,
Renowned For Creating Income Through Customer Care Services

Look…….. if you have a receptionist in your office, skip this month’s blog message. This message is for company owners and executives that do not have any one specific person assigned to answering phones.
There are hundreds of good reasons for having an answering service. And, the one honest way of answering the question posed in the headline (Why Should I Use An Answering Service?) is to call your own company. Try it now. I’ll wait. How many rings before someone answered (if someone did in fact answer the phone). Is your service so in need, is your company exclusive in its services and/or products that people can’t go elsewhere to buy what you sell?
HELP IS ON THE WAY.
But first, the best business practice, after you've phoned your own company and realized you should have a qualified answering service go to work for you, is to read some of the features and benefits from a long list I prepared for you and your staff to go over.

FEATURES & BENEFITS OF HAVING AN ANSWERING SERVICE
All your calls will be answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, everyday (24/7)
And, they’ll be answered by a “live” person
Your company image is raised a few notches
One of the best reasons…
no payroll, no related costs of employee benefits

Send For The 21 Reasons For Having An Answering Service
published by Answering Service Care.com providing telephone answering service nationwide service.

Other information about telephone answer services directly from Michael Shooster by email: Michael@globalresponse.com

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