Unanswered phone calls can result in lost business. If you are faced with an influx of inbound calls, one major decision you have to make is whether you want to outsource your call answering or hire someone in-house.
John Marin, co-founder and CMO of Gozango, a lead-generating marketing platform, says the choice is often determined by money and quality control.
You need to calculate the cost of lost opportunities versus the cost of adding a call answering service or an in-house employee.
Pros and Cons of Call Answering Services
If you are trying to keep your overhead costs under control, outsourcing with a call answering service can help meet your needs without hiring a specific employee for that task, and is significantly cheaper.
“I would probably look at outsourcing first, so then you can work out the kinks with something that’s a little less locked in, and then after you’ve learned from that experience, eventually, and if you get large enough, then it actually might make more sense to bring it in-house at that point,” Martin says.
Martin notes it is also faster to get quotes and find a call answering company to work with than having to interview multiple people and hope someone accepts your job offer. He says depending on the nature of your work and how high paying your jobs are, being able to add a call answering service right away can prevent more lost projects.
Implementing a call answering service can also improve your customer satisfaction because you are getting to them in a timely manner.
Depending on the call answering company you hire, Martin says a possible drawback is if they don’t have a good understanding of your services and customer base.
For instance, if a client calls asking for a new yard, and the call answering service doesn’t understand that it means the homeowner wants sod installed, it could make your company come across as underqualified to the consumer.
“You’re going to have such a wide range clientele that know nothing about your products and services and just know they need someone who’s an expert, versus those that either think they are or might be experts themselves, and either don’t have the time or energy to do the service themselves, but they want to make sure whoever they’re talking to knows what they’re talking about,” Martin says.
Martin explains that your call answering service doesn’t need to be the actual experts, but they should understand enough to have a logical conversation.
Pros and Cons of In-House Staff
The main pro of having an in-house employee answer calls is better quality control. They should be deeply familiar with your area and your company’s values. However, depending on who you hire, training will likely still be necessary unless the individual has a background understanding of the industry already.
Also, bringing on a W-2 employee calls for paying for additional benefits like insurance, so Martin says it’s important to weigh the true cost of having an in-house person to answer all your calls.
If you are on the smaller side, you may not have an office yet, but you can still hire a 1099 contractor with limited hours or a remote worker. Yet this will still be more expensive than hiring a call answering service.
Advice for Others
There is no right or wrong answer for who you have handle inbound calls. It’s more about setting either party up for success.
“Whether you hire someone in-house or outsource it, you’re probably going to have to do some coaching and some training on how you would like your specific business calls to be answered,” Martin says.
As far as having AI answering customer questions and offering quotes, Martin doesn’t recommend going this route as the technology is so new there is an increased risk of bad customer interactions.
“I know people who are all about just the latest thing, but the latest doesn’t mean greatest,” Martin says. “If you’re a smaller business where every new customer matters so much to your business, I probably wouldn’t take the risk of having that go wrong.”
Martin encourages seeking out local and industry-specific call answering services to help mitigate issues of quality control.
“The other component I would look at is scalability,” Martin says. “Is your goal to hire a call answering service now and then get to the point where you want to bring someone in-house, or is your plan to just forever scale with a call answering service? If so, then you might want to look at options that have more long-term tiered packages.”
Also, with scaling, consider if the call answering service will be able to integrate with your CRM and scheduling software.
