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Your Business and the Changing Seasons
The leaves are changing, the jackets and jeans are coming out of storage and the phones are starting to ring off the hook. Welcome to fall, the beginning of the holiday season, and the craziest time of year for many businesses. Myriad companies will enjoy record sales through December. The weather makes for a busy time in the plumbing, heating and cooling and contracting industries. The countdown to Christmas has everyone scrambling to purchase gifts from retailers and gift cards from restaurants. This is the time to be fully available to your customers or risk certain social media backlash.
This is also the time that calls for family dinners, holiday celebrations and weekend getaways. We all want to enjoy the extra revenue brought on by the fruits of our labor, but how do we also enjoy our family and friends during this spectacular time of year? How does one resolve both professional and personal urgency? You could hire an extra employee to be on call and watch the extra revenue slip through your fingers. You could spend time with your family by sacrificing excellent customer service, only being available during the hours of 9-5 and weekdays. Then watch as the customer complaints pile up and the referrals stop coming in.
Or you could try hiring an answering service this holiday season. Let the operators be available to your customers every moment of every day. Watch your sales and customer satisfaction go through the roof! And your spouse, grandmother and children won’t know what to do with all of the extra time they have with you.
Answer Midwest Receives International Recognition…AGAIN!
Answer Midwest has once again been awarded the 2015 Award of Excellence by The Association of TeleServices International. ATSI is the international agency that sets the standard for the industry. Our answering service has won this prestigious Award of Excellence for 14 consecutive years, from 2002-2015.
This is the greatest honor one can be presented within the answering service community. It is international recognition for the highest level of customer service throughout every aspect of a caller’s experience.
The process to evaluate and award recipients is as follows. A panel of independent judges is contracted by ATSI to evaluate. Providers are judged on courtesy, response time, accuracy and overall service to their clients. The award is presented annually to the best telecommunications and call center services in North America and the UK.
Spring Forward
Looking forward to Spring and Summer, we would also like to focus on the many businesses that will be “blooming” in the coming months. Many seasonal businesses have a one-chance opportunity to get customers on board to sign a service contract for the rest of the season. While not all businesses lose a full season from one missed call, every lost customer is lost revenue.
Nine out of ten customers will call a competitor if you do not answer your phone the first time. This adds up to an enormous loss of revenue if your business does not have the competitive edge of being on call twenty-four hours a day. Step into Spring with a plan to generate more revenue, to have available a twenty-four hour customer service department and to afford yourself more personal freedom. You can have it all!
Answer Midwest Wins Best in Customer Service Award Again
Answer Midwest is very proud to announce our third win for Best in Customer Service in the St. Louis area. We would like to thank our knowledgable, highly trained telephone operators for their tireless work. We also credit our management staff for continuing to set such a high standard for customer service in our industry. This award, through St. Louis Small Business Monthly, is a special honor. We greatly appreciate our valued clients, friends and family members for their continued support. Answer Midwest will continue to provide the absolute Best in Customer Service!
Click here to see a list of 2015’s winners.
5 Reasons Your Business Needs Answer Midwest
The New Year is upon us again! Many business owners saw great increases in revenue, customer retention and call volume last year. The economy is continuing to do well, consumers are spending money and our heads are spinning from the chaos and long hours required to run a business over the holiday season. Although this should be a time when everyone is full of joy and cheer, the long lines at stores, waiting for service and excessive hold time on phone calls puts consumers on edge. The age old question is how do I keep my customers satisfied without hiring a team of receptionists and customer service agents? Answer Midwest has compiled a list of ways outsourcing a call center can keep revenue and customer retention up indefinitely.
1. An answering service makes you available to your customers 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year. With 24 hour service, your customers can rest assured knowing you are there when they need you. 75% of your customers believe it takes too long to get past an answering machine and to a live person.
2. You can take a break. You can leave the office early if need be without fear of missing a call from a prospective customer. You can go on a vacation. Many of our clients at Answer Midwest have the ability to do business from overseas, out of state, from their couch. Your customers are greeted with a warm, welcoming voice and our operators give them the assistance they are seeking. We then get the message immediately to you, in whatever form you wish to receive it. Text message, email, voicemail, fax, etc. You have all of the information you need at all times to provide excellent customer care.
3. Our services are cost effective. The cost of hiring even one extra person can be overwhelming. With taxes, insurance, vacation, etc., imagine what you would pay to have a receptionist or customer service agent on staff 24 hours a day. Our services are a very small fraction of that cost, with equal payout for your company. Many business owners don’t realize just how affordable an answering service is. Give us a call to get a quote so you can see just how invaluable this service will be for your business. 618-463-2430
4. Our agents are highly trained to answer questions and take information regarding your specific industry. We work with you to create a template for exactly how you would like our operators to interact with your customers. Our conversations are always natural and professional. It is like having a customer service professional on site every hour of the day. This makes your customers excited to refer you to friends and family, knowing they are in good hands.
5. Repeat customers come back because they receive immediate assistance. They receive answers to their questions, a live person to listen their problems and immediate issue resolve. 3 out of 5 Americans would try a new brand or company for a better service experience. Be the company the customers run to, not away from.
80% of companies say they deliver “superior” customer service, while only 8% of their customers agree. Answer Midwest has proven our superior customer service year after year, and we thrive on helping our clients improve theirs. Make your focus on the customer experience in 2015 and see this year be the most productive.
Scary Times Approaching for Retailers!
Forget the candy corn, Answer Midwest has the perfect Halloween treat for your favorite retail worker. With the busy season approaching, consider “Retail Rollover” for those frantic folks who are spending Halloween thinking about cloning themselves for the holidays.
The Answer Midwest “Rollover” plan lets you set company phones to roll over to a friendly operator if no one answers by the third or fourth ring (which ever you select). No more interrupting a customer or stopping a sale in order to answer the phone. We answer the easy questions, dodge the telemarketers, and put everything into an e-mail that’s available the minute you are done with the current customer. It is a delightful treat!
Call Answer Midwest today at 618-463-2430 for more information.
Answer Midwest Employee Spotlight: Lauren
We at Answer Midwest know how important our employees are to the ongoing success of our business. We would like to focus on a very special young lady, Lauren Pruitt, who has been with Answer Midwest since November of 2013.
Lauren is a senior at Alton High School with dual credits through Lewis & Clark. She looks forward to going to college and majoring in International business. She is a part of the National Honors Society and the Spanish Club.
Lauren has been involved in Panama missions for the last 3 years and is planning to go back this February for her 4th missions trip. She was so inspired after her first trip, she founded her very own non-profit foundation, Project Panama. She has already raised enough money to provide a wood burning stove and a water purification system for a village in Panama. We are proud to have Lauren as a part of our team!
Answer Midwest Receives International Recognition
At Answer Midwest we often brag that our service team provides clients the best service available in the nation. While we knew it was true, it sure was great to have our faith in the staff confirmed by a panel of independent judges.
The Association of TeleServices International (ATSI) has awarded Answer Midwest the 2014 Diamond Plus Award for winning the Award of Excellence more than 12 years in a row. Of the 2,700 answering services in the United States, only 13 have won as many consecutive years as Answer Midwest.
A panel of independent judges is contracted by ATSI to evaluate. Providers are judged on courtesy, response time, accuracy and overall service to their clients. The award is presented annually to the best telecommunications and call center services in North America and the UK.
“The ATSI Award of Excellence is the most prestigious recognition of exemplary customer service in the industry. Award recipients demonstrated the highest level of service throughout every aspect of a caller’s experience, it’s quite an honor,” says ATSI President Sharon Campbell.