Having some extra customer support surrounding pre and post holiday hustle and bustle pays off immensely. Not only will you be providing new and existing clients with consistent high quality, you will also cut down on employee stress and increase your revenue.

The first item to consider is how orders will be placed throughout the season. By phone? Email? Online order form? A call center provides highly trained agents to handle increased order volume. Call center agents will efficiently and accurately place and manage orders as well as cross sell and upsell your products or services. Agents are also available to answer questions about shipment status, product details, new inventory, holiday specials, and other important information before, during, and after regular business hours.

Post holiday customer service is just as important if not more so – business owners know to expect a high number of returns, exchanges, and various questions about product care, set up, or problems encountered. Strengthen your customer service department with a team of trained virtual receptionists. Virtual receptionists follow customized protocol to handle each situation appropriately, just as a member of your own company would.

Call center and virtual receptionist services are an extension of your business, used to reinforce your own staff during heavy call times. Virtual receptionists will answer the phone professionally and courteously, greeting callers with your business name and following customized scripts that you provide.

Consult with your team before you’re in over your heads – virtual receptionists save time, stress, and money during the profitable but sometimes trying holiday season.

As Nancy R. Lockwood from the Society for Human Resource Management states, “Employee engagement has emerged as a critical driver of business success in today’s competitive marketplace. Further, employee engagement can be a deciding factor in an organization’s success. Engaged employees work harder, are more loyal and are more likely to go the ‘extra mile’ for the corporation.”

Research shows that engaged employees generate 43% more revenue than disengaged workers. How is your call center management team actively engaging your workforce? Take note that employees can be “engaged” in a number of things; work matters, issues at home, social media websites, gossip among co-workers. The goal here is to activate focused engagement on your work objectives. Focused engagement ultimately leads to productivity and profitability.

To foster focused engagement among call center agents, first you must redefine the workplace. Create a workplace environment that allows for engagement with the job and others while also focusing employees on a certain set of goals.

Engage.  Call center agents are the face of the company. They need to be articulate, competent, and understanding of client needs at all times. Achieving this starts with workplace communication. Employees need to recognize the vision of the call center and the necessary steps to achieve this vision. Once they do this, they will feel engaged with clients rather than robotically going through the motions.

Encourage.  Reach out to your workforce – recognize a job well done, give feedback, accept their insights. Vocally communicate with them by making rounds in the office instead of sending an email. Showing your agents that you appreciate their ideas, opinions, and suggestions make them feel like part of the team. A word of encouragement can go a long way, especially if the job itself is monotonous or repetitive.

Involve.  Simply put, the more personal interaction you have with employees, the more engaged and involved they will want to be. Management that spends a large amount of time directly communicating with their teams increase focus and engagement on business goals. By asking for opinions or giving special opportunities for participation, call center agents will feel respected and empowered. Involvement in organization matters and activities will ultimately improve performance.

Combining these three efforts on a regular basis will set your workforce’s eyes on the goals. Improving the workplace environment can result in increased profitability and productivity with open channels of communication.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications. Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support.

One problem many businesses face is the negative effects of offshore outsourcing. While the business move seems economical, the quality of care callers receive is sacrificed due to distance and language barriers. Maintaining a professional image for your company is a must. In a large city such as Los Angeles or San Diego, retention rate is invaluable considering the number of choices customers are given. Don’t lose your potential client base due to an easily controllable factor such as customer service.

Hiring a call center in California not only puts forth a professional “executive suite” image, it also shows customers your dedication to their satisfaction. Hiring a local call center in California demonstrates your concern and ability to take care of caller needs. While call centers in California may come at a higher cost, the price will be reciprocated by quality customer service and higher conversions and retention rates. A local center in California has the ability to focus on capturing leads and developing a rapport with natural ease of communication.

Remember: allocating a higher portion of your budget to manage the “face” of your business is a return on investment, not an extra expense. Alert Communications prides itself on being an extension of our clients businesses, almost making it seem as if we are part of their team. We happily provide services anywhere nationwide, making it our goal to connect on a higher level with potential leads and current customers to guarantee your lasting success.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications. Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support.

Service providers that offer 24/7 emergency assistance receive calls around the clock. Naturally, not all of these calls can be taken and voice mailboxes fill up quickly. Some businesses don’t even have the time to go through all of their messages, let alone return calls. Allow a 24-hour virtual receptionist to handle this for you. Especially in emergency situations, callers are more likely to keep dialing until they reach immediate assistance. When a caller reaches a live person, they are much less likely to drop the call.

Whether you are fixing a broken air conditioner or sending out roadside assistance for an overheated car, virtual receptionists for service providers ensure that your business is reachable 24 hours a day for the ultimate in customer care. Virtual receptionist services allow you to customize scripts in line with your business objectives so no information slips through the cracks. Answering services can take incoming calls 24 hours, after business hours, or simply just for overflow. Automated services can also be used solely or in combination with a live receptionist to screen calls before answering. Several options are available depending on the size of your business and its needs. Choose to receive messages via email or text, or even implement bilingual call center agents for Spanish-speaking callers.

Virtual receptionists take over the administrative duties so that you have time to run your business. Virtual receptionists will manage scheduling tasks, collect accurate client information, dispatch calls to technicians, put through emergency service callers, record messages, and provide post service customer satisfaction calls. Service packages can be purchased with no contract according to your call volume. As a service provider, your leads can now become clients with the help of a virtual receptionist.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support.

Think of yourself as a customer for a moment, searching for a new product or service provider with which you are unfamiliar. Reaching voicemail after voicemail leaves you doubtful that you will ever receive a return phone call. As a result, finding a business that utilizes a business answering service instantly gives that company a one-up over competition. Businesses that are available to their customers 24/7 are the ones that persevere.

A Company With A Business Answering Service Increases:

• Potential client acquisition – callers are less likely to hang up the phone when they reach a live person
• Ability to measure call volume and number of prospective clients
• Less opportunity for competition to grow
• Ability to filter calls
• Acquisition of important information to send the caller in the right direction
• Promotion of products and services – a call center representative can easily mention additional products, promotions, and deals to increase your company’s bottom line
• Locking in business leads

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support.

We were happy to explain to her that we offer 24/7 bilingual Spanish answering services to a number of businesses serving the Hispanic market and our bilingual call-support solutions would ensure her potential clients were always able to speak directly to someone who would understand them. By gathering detailed lead information regarding the pending event, our professional agents help prospective clients feel cared for, assures them that their needs are important and saves the planner a ton of time. With these details she can now return the call and hopefully close the sale. Alert can answer her calls when she’s going to be out of the office, after her regular business hours or all day, every day.

No matter what your business is — from an event planner to a realtor or a marketing firm with leads coming in 24/7 — we are your bilingual resource. While providing translation and interpretation services, our Spanish-speaking agents ensure every lead is handled according to your instructions, resulting in more new business for you! .

If  your customer base is in the Hispanic market or you want to start targeting that market to grow your business, talk with us today to find out how our Spanish answering services can help you provide the customer service your callers need.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support including: spanish answering.

Two ways to turn leads into conversions:

1. Have a real person answer prospective-client calls. An answering machine or voicemail can only answer a call, not questions.  There may be times during the day or after hours when no one is in the office to take potential client calls.  Route those calls to an on-call attorney or have an industry-savvy receptionist at a live call center answer them.  Prospective clients want to speak with a real person and if one is not available then they’ll often hang up and call another law practice. 
    
2. Take the caller to the next step in the ‘selling’ process.  Sales gurus say that each contact with a prospect should take them to the next step in the selling process.  If you’re outsourcing your potential client calls, rather then just taking a message the receptionst could collect intake information, connecting qualified leads or schedule consults.  All of these would qualify as taking the caller to the next step in the process

And here are the ways Alert Communications can help:

• Manage your leads 24/7, and record calls for quality assurance.
• Develop custom scripts to qualify those leads.
• Deliver qualified leads to your sale people via call transfer or e-mail.
• Schedule appointments and confirm scheduled appointments.

We can answer your calls 24/7, after regular hours and/or for overflow. Our live and automated services enable customized call routing, which can help you manage costs and increase the efficiency of your call traffic. We even provide Spanish-language support at no charge.

If you’re expanding your marketing and media efforts to promote your business, or your business provides that service to others, talk with Alert Communications to learn more about our 24/7 media and marketing support services.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications provides 24/7 call answering support including: legal media and marketing support.

Click-to-call, also known as click-to-talk, allows a person to click on an object to request an immediate connection with someone in real-time either via phone, Voice-over-Internet-Protocol or text. Click to talk requests are most commonly found on websites but can be included in e-mails, blogs, wikis, flash animations or video.

Using Click-to-Call Service for Your Business

When a customer enters their phone number into your Click-to-Call, both your phone and your customer’s phone will ring and you’ll be on the phone together.

Click-to-Call turns website clicks into phone calls, by making it simple for customers to ‘call me now’. Click-to-Call service helps reduce website abandonment, increase lead conversion and improve online marketing analytics. Additionally, a 24/7 call center enables you to instantly respond to your click to call web leads.

Key Features to Look For in your Click-to-Call Services

• Instant and easy web configuration
  In just minutes you can embed a Click-to-Call link into your website.
• Hidden Click-to-Call for web form lead generation
  Do you ask your website or landing page visitors to submit their contact info into a web form? With Click-to-Call, you can automatically call back customers and prospects as soon as they submit the form.
• Advanced phone call routing functionality
  Many Click-to-Call providers can route callers based on your schedule, or connect callers to a regular toll-free or local phone number.
• Complete call tracking reports about each call
  You may want reports about each call, including the referral source and keyword of traffic to your website, the page the web visitor called from, the duration of the call and more.
• Insert as a link in a web page, email, PDF, or application
  You can easily use a Click-to-Call anywhere you can insert a link, including a website, email, PDF, social network profile and more.
• Ideal for web form verification
  When visitors submit information into a web form, trigger an immediate call to verify a phone number, ask survey questions, offer an opportunity to opt-out, and much more.
• Works on any website or content management system
  Using Joomla, Drupal or WordPress? No matter how you’re website is built you can implement Click-to-Call by simply copying and pasting a few lines or code.

Another thing to consider, if your business is open on the internet 24/7, then who’s answering your click to call when you’re not available.  Using your phone companies call forwarding feature forward your telephone line to a reputable call center when you’re not available and ensure you never miss a new client opportunity.

Whether you do it yourself or with the help of a CPA, don’t put off fourth-quarter planning. You could end up paying a heavy price — and not just in taxes —  if you don’t look at your books and think about how your company will fare for the rest of 2010 and into early 2011. By looking at your business over a longer period of time, you can make smarter decisions about spending and running your business.

Looking at your business performance over the long term is the best way to plan for what’s ahead. Accountants look at balance sheets as well as income statements for the past few years. Balance sheets show a company’s cash flow, and income statements help determine whether your business is likely to turn a profit. For instance, your company might show a significant profit by year’s end, but if the first quarter usually is a slow period (shown by cash flow), don’t be throwing your money around. Instead, put it aside for those lean days that are sure to hit in early 2011.

Fourth quarter is a good time to think about capital spending, too, and whether you can benefit from certain tax breaks, like Section 179 deductions. Those deductions allow you to deduct, up front,  the cost of certain kinds of equipment bought and used during the tax year rather than depreciating the purchase over time. You’ll also want to keep in mind what you’re cash flow is like when you’re making capital-spending decisions. Forgoing the tax break in order to have the cash on hand for the lean days of first quarter might be the smarter thing to do.

If you’re diligent about contributing to your retirement plan, take a look at your financial statements to decide how much you can contribute for 2010. Fourth quarter is also a good time to make any plan changes you might be considering and still possibly benefit from those changes in the current tax year.

As the summer heat starts to dwindle, consider turning up the heat on your fourth-quarter business review. It just might save you some cold, hard cash.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications is a 24/7bilingual inbound call center, specializing in professional attorney answering, virtual receptionist, Spanish answering and business answering solutions.

A live receptionist is as “human” as you can get.  If you can’t afford an onsite receptionist then try a virtual receptionist service.  Many offer their services in Spanish as well as English.

We know what so many companies are finding out — people want to talk to people, not machines. And it helps if they speak the same language. When your customers call, they want a live person to answer the phone and talk with them.  There is definately value in human interaction and a personal touch.  It doesn’t matter whether their handling emergency calls or covering your office while you’re out to lunch, live receptionists care about your customers as much as you do, and are dedicated to providing a professional, courteous service when you’re not there.

A machine never goes out of its way to calm someone down, get the right information or can’t determine just how urgent a call is. A live person, given the right training, can.  A machine may very well make an upset customer irate or overwhelmed. A live person, given the right training, won’t.

If you want to get your company’s name off the GetHuman.com list — or ensure your business never makes the list — try a virtual receptionist service. You can “get human” in no time.

Frances Starr, Director of Sales & Marketing for Alert Communications.  Alert Communications is a 24/7bilingual inbound call center, specializing in professional attorney answering, virtual receptionist, Spanish answering and business answering solutions.