Having a professional answering or secretarial service attached to the business gives an impression of both size and professionalism.
For startup businesses especially, size can matter. Having someone else answer the phone and handle basic queries is a good way to immediately make the business look larger than a one wo/man band.
Often this can mean the difference between getting and not getting those larger contracts that give the business some stability.
For more established businesses using a professional service gives the operation a professional sheen that may just not be available by having the internal team take the call.
The cost of any subcontract resource can often seem expensive, but it is always less expensive than taking on employees. It is also more flexible as having a subcontract resource makes in easy to switch out someone who is not working out, or you can terminate the contract if it does not work at all.
In a post Covid-19 world, it is much more acceptable to find the person taking the call is not actually located in the business being called.
It may be worth taking a look at a professional service like MoneyPenny who are specialists in call handling and personal support.
Of course the person taking the call or handling the query may not have the technical knowledge about the business that someone working in the business may have, but that is not always a bad thing. It is often better to have the call or query directed to the right person than have an imperfect answer.
For new start businesses especially, it will always be better if the businesses owner(s) answers any difficult questions. If you are struggling to balance time between sales and delivery having a filter on calls and queries can seem like a godsend.
For established businesses, having someone fully trained to handle situations where the answer has to be deferred gives a much better impression that someone internal just saying they don't know.
Of course sometimes money is just too tight to do something like this, but if finances do allow then having this sort of service on board can give the leverage the business needs to allow the service to pay for itself.
