Use An Answering Service To Improve Your Customer Service

There's no excuse for foul customer service!

Consistent, prompt responses to your business communications lead to happy customers, business growth and a reputation of great customer service for your business.

Our Motivation 

We only collect a $20.00 base rate up-front; we actually have to answer your calls and respond to your emails to earn any additional money. This makes us HIGHLY motivated to answer every inbound communication in a timely and professional manner. Services that make you pay upfront for a package of calls, minutes or units do not have this same level of motivation because they’ve already been paid. At AnswerFirst, a lost call from one of your customers tired of waiting in a hold queue means potential lost revenue for you and guaranteed lost revenue for us.

Total Dedication to Delivering Results

• Prompt and Professional Responses
• Agents With Customer Service Experience
• Dedicated Dispatch Operators
• Reliable and Redundant Infrastructure

Services Include:

• 24/7 Live Answering Service
• Answering Services
• Inbound Email Processing
• Virtual Receptionist
• Online Order Fulfillment
• Call Center Solutions
• Technical Support
• Scheduling & Reservation

Value:

• Pay Only For What You Use
• Free Client Web Access Portal
• Full Unlimited Access to All of Your Call Recordings & Reports
• Redundant Power, Data & Telephony Infrastructures for 99% Uptime

Try us before you buy at www.AnswerFirst.com/demo

Looking for more info? Download a free Pricing & Plans Packet at www.AnswerFirst.com/pricing

Answering Service & Call Center Industry Terminology

At AnswerFirst, we feel that it's part of our job to educate our clients about the services and products we offer and part of that process is teaching clients about some of the more technical aspects of a call center including the terminology that goes along with learning about it.  With that goal in mind, here is a list of answering service and call center industry terms with layman's definitions.  This list of terms consists of words and acronyms that we use almost every day when speaking with our current and potential clients; these definitions are useful for anyone who is new to dealing with answering services and call centers.

IVR or Interactive Voice Response: A technology that allows humans to interacts with computers through the use of voice and tone inputs.  When you call a business and a machine picks up that asks you to make choices by speaking or pressing buttons on the phone you are interacting with an IVR system.  Most callers find IVR systems to be annoying because many of these systems don't work well; this can result in substandard customer service experiences.

CSR or Customer Service Representative: These are AnswerFirst staff members that will be answering your phone calls and emails.  Our customer service representatives must have prior customer service experience; it's their job to answer all of your business communications according to the protocols you have created while being both professional and friendly.

DID or Direct Inward Dialing: Your DID is the number that is designated as your direct line in our call center.  When this number is dialed and the phone rings in our call center our agents know that these calls are for your account.

CWA or Client Web Access: This is our version of a free online customer account portal.  You can access your messages, check your invoices and change the way your calls are handled by logging in and taking advantage of the many features of CWA.

If you're currently shopping for an answering service you might also want to check out our answering service comparison chart.  Even if you decide that our services are not right for your particular business needs, we hope you feel that you've learned something about the services you were shopping for during your interactions with us.

Looking for more information? Give us a call at 1-800-645-2616, tweet or Facebook us.

Evaluate Answering Services Before You Buy!

Shopping for an answering service can be tricky because not all services are equal.  Hidden fees, unreliable infrastructures, outsourcing to non-U.S. agents and limiting access to your call recordings are just a few of many issues that an answering service or call center might have and, if you're not careful, you can end up stuck in a long-term contract with exorbitant bills and unreliable sub-standard service.

So, how can you avoid choosing the wrong service?  We've put together a list of more than 30 questions that you can utilize to compare answering services.  Here are just a few of the questions you should ask any answering service that you are considering:

• Does your normal rate include answering on holidays, weekends or nights?
• Can I forward my phones any time I wish without penalty or additional charges?
• In the event of a power outage, will the service continue to function?
• Is my account data protected by a firewall and backed-up daily?

(You can view the rest of the questions by clicking here.)

If you choose an unreliable or unprofessional answering service, you risk upsetting your existing and potential clients so take your time and ask questions.  If you're looking for more information about AnswerFirst and our answering services then click here to download our free pricing and information packet.

AnswerFirst Reveals Their New Brand Identity

We're happy to announce that we have finally revealed our new brand identity.  Our new logo, website, sales documents and social media presence can be seen at the following locations:

Logo and Website: http://www.answerfirst.com

Sales Documents: Please fill out a pricing packet request at http://www.answerfirst.com/pricing

Social Media: Visit us on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Do you like what you see?  Let us know!  Leave comments on this blog post or on our social media channels.  For more information about our answering services, virtual receptionist services and call center solutions visit us

AnswerFirst Communications: Your Valentine's Day Answering Service

Looking for an answering service or call center? We can help! Contact us today at 1-800-645-2616.

Inside AnswerFirst: The Marketing Department

At AnswerFirst our management staff is split into four departments: Operations, Sales, Marketing and IT.  Each department is responsible for specific duties that are crucial to the success of the other departments and AnswerFirst, as a whole.  Through collaboration and focus these four departments are consistently successful at achieving our mission to provide the best customer service to our clients and our clients’ callers, in a timely fashion and as efficiently as possible.  This post is one of a few blog posts that are about the responsibilities of each of these four main departments and how they interact with each other to make AnswerFirst successful.  Introducing the AnswerFirst Marketing Department...

The goal of the Marketing Department is to develop new and innovative ways to connect with existing and potential AnswerFirst customers.  Marketing is responsible for how potential clients perceive AnswerFirst before they speak to an AnswerFirst Sales Representative and, therefore, is focused on distributing professional, informative, appealing and engaging content across all media including social, web and print.  This department is responsible for teaching potential clients how we are different from our competitors while teaching existing clients about old and new services that we offer.  We are an industry leader in social media with our active Twittter, Facebook and YouTube accounts; we encourage our clients to interact with us via any or all of our social channels.  We believe that interaction with our clients helps to solidify our relationships and leads to superior customer service experiences.  The Marketing Department also develops and implements Internet marketing strategies, working closely with the Sales Department for the purpose of bringing new clients to AnswerFirst and also teaching sales team members how to effectively use social media in their sales efforts. Marketing relies on the IT Department for implementing technology solutions that result in improved marketing agendas and more efficient social and Internet marketing strategies.  The Marketing Department acts as eyes and ears of AnswerFirst; without the Marketing Department we can’t attract new clients or differentiate ourselves from our competitors.

For more information about AnswerFirst's answering services and call center solutions, please visit our wesbite http://www.answerfirst.com or call us at 1-800-645-2616

Inside AnswerFirst: The IT Department

At AnswerFirst our management staff is split into four departments: Operations, Sales, Marketing and IT.  Each department is responsible for specific duties that are crucial to the success of the other departments and AnswerFirst, as a whole.  Through collaboration and focus these four departments are consistently successful at achieving our mission to provide the best customer service to our clients and our clients’ callers, in a timely fashion and as efficiently as possible.  This post is one of a few blog posts that are about the responsibilities of each of these four main departments and how they interact with each other to make AnswerFirst successful.  Introducing the AnswerFirst IT Department...

The goal of the IT Department is to ensure that all AnswerFirst staff and clients have access to the IT infrastructure, services and support that they require to accomplish their work efficiently and effectively.  The IT Department is responsible for maintaining the necessary IT infrastructure for all other departments, as well as supporting all business, e-business, decisions and project planning tools used at AnswerFirst.  AnswerFirst’s business model requires a reliable infrastructure; our call center is open 24/7/365 and downtime is unacceptable to us and our clients.  Therefore, the IT Department plays a crucial role in supporting our clients and our Operations Department via the implementation of a fully redundant infrastructure that is not only reliable but secure. Implementing back-up systems for back-up systems is common practice and testing fail over procedures is a major department focus.  Also, the IT Department must work closely with all departments for the purpose of refining all business processes through the use of technology; IT is constantly looking for ways to decrease costs by increasing efficiency and ROI, and boosting productivity of all departments within the corporation.  The IT Department is the backbone of AnswerFirst, providing reliable structure and solid support; without this department AnswerFirst can’t sustain or grow.

For more information about AnswerFirst's answering services and call center solutions, please visit our wesbite http://www.answerfirst.com or call us at 1-800-645-2616