Small Business Owners: Spend Less Time at the Office with These 4 Tips

Here at AnswerFirst, we work with small business owners and their customers 24/7.

Our clients save time and money by using our AnswerFirst answering services, but we know that they still spend countless hours devoted to their businesses.

With the following four time management tips, small business owners will find time to accomplish more business-related tasks, while also making time to enjoy life outside of work.

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Why We Don't Discount Our Services

Sometimes potential clients ask me to discount our answering services or our set-up fees as an incentive for them to do business with us.

I won’t say that I’ve never offered a reduced rate to a potential client because there are times when it makes sense to do so.  However, it’s very rare that I am willing to budge on price and I’ve got several reasons for this mentality.  Instead of explaining myself, I’m going to share a few emails that were exchanged between me and a potential client.

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What Happened to Customer Service in the Healthcare Industry?

I might be stating the obvious here, but it seems to me that businesses in the healthcare industry provide some of the worst customer service, ever.

Recently, I have dealt with several doctors' offices that take messages, but don’t return phone calls. I actually had one doctor's office tell me that the person that handled referrals was let go so they switched me into someone else’s voice mail that never called me back.

I wasn't even a patient yet and they were already dropping the ball.

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Happy Valentine's Day from AnswerFirst Answering Service

Are you tired of being tied to your office phone?? When you're ready to move on, give us a call at 1-800-645-2616 to learn about how our services can help set you free.

Our call centers are U.S. based and staffed with English speaking customer service professionals 24/7/365. No contracts or long-term commitment required. Pay only for what you use and no hidden fees. No additional charges for nights, weekends or holidays.

For more information, please download our Pricing & Info Packet: http://www.answerfirst.com/pricing or call us at 1-800-645-2616. 

Get Out of Your Office!

With the growth of social networking, advances in smart phone innovation and overall increased mobile computing capabilities it’s becoming nearly impossible to step away from our work.  Answering emails from your phone while you wait to meet with a prospective client, tweeting with customers while you ride the subway to a meeting and responding to your clients on Facebook while you’re having a drink at a bar are all becoming commonplace practices.

There’s no denying that internet and smartphone technologies have positively affected the way we do business by shortening the sales cycle and allowing us to build stronger relationships with our customers, but balancing work and personal time has become more difficult with the increased demand for responsiveness.

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AnswerFirst Communications Launches New Website to Market Phone Answering Services

AnswerFirst Communications, an international live telephone answering service and customer service solutions company specializing in answering services, messaging services, virtual receptionist and call center solutions announced this week that they’ve launched a new website to market the phone answering services segment of their professional contact center services.

According to their website, AnswerFirst, “provides complete contact center and customer service solutions to more than 1700 companies around the globe.” AnswerFirst’s Marketing Coordinator, April Gillmore, said, “Many of our clients know that we are a full-fledged contact center and that we actually provide many other services outside of live telephone answering services, including inbound email processing, social media monitoring and customized customer service solutions.

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AnswerFirst's New Call Center & Corporate Headquarters

AnswerFirst's New Call Center & Corporate Headquarters, a set on Flickr.

We're excited to announce that we've recently purchased a building to serve as the future location of our new Call Center and Corporate Headquarters. The building is located just outside of downtown Tampa in beautiful historic Ybor City. We've got a few months of work to do before we can move in, but we'll keep you updated with our progress here and on our Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/answerfirstinc