Fulfillment services provide businesses with professional receptionists who can handle routine calls and after-hours sales orders, making smaller businesses look bigger. Prices and flexibility vary, with some offering customized plans and paid training sessions.
Many companies and organizations have developed a love/hate relationship with their phone services. Providing dial-in access to the public can result in increased sales or effective communication with customers, but it also means adding well-trained employees to handle the extra workload. A company may not be able to run 24/7, but the phone company never sleeps. This is where fulfillment services fill a vital niche in business.
Advance fulfillment services focused primarily on getting messages to customers after normal work hours or during vacations. A doctor or lawyer might hire answering services to handle emergency calls over the weekend, for example. These answering service providers would receive calls transferred from the customer’s line of business and would generally establish their limitations as caregivers. Important calls can be directed to a contact phone number, but others would be advised to call the customer directly upon returning to the office.
Now that telecommunications services for businesses have become so advanced, the role of answering services has also changed. Now companies can place most of their routine calls to professional receptionists trained to understand their system. Requests for employment references, for example, can be handled by responding to services with access to human resource records. After-hours sales orders can also be obtained through a custom computer program with specific catalog information.
Fulfillment services can also help smaller businesses look bigger. Fulfillment service company employees are often listed as associated with the customer’s company. Rather than hiring additional sales reps or receptionists, a smaller company might suggest that callers request ‘Sheila or Bill’ on a pre-arranged toll-free number. Customers may never realize that Sheila and Bill actually work for an answering service company. Some answering service companies even train workers to become active telephone sales representatives for their customers.
Fulfillment services vary widely in price and flexibility. A basic phone answering service may only charge a few dollars a month, but phone calls can be answered by people unfamiliar with a specific customer’s needs. Professional answering services can usually customize their plans as per the customer’s needs. Some paid training sessions may be involved before designated workers can take over the phone lines. Cutting-edge fulfillment services can provide everything from telephone messages to dispatch and telephone sales. These service providers advertise a lot in trade magazines and on the internet. Some may charge a substantial setup fee, while others offer a flat monthly fee for a toll free number and their employee services.
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