Answering Service For Small Businesses

Security is becoming an increasing concern for businesses and consumers all across the globe. Digital risks are becoming even more prevalent, leaving business owners in charge of protecting themselves, their employees, and the customers that keep their doors open.

When it comes to security– and cyber security in particular– there’s a lot to keep up with. One particular area that you should never let slide, however, is your PCI compliance.

More than 65% of small businesses don’t live up to the minimum PCI security standards, and you don’t want to be one of them. Want to learn why PCI compliance is so important and how to stay compliant in 2019? We’ll go over all this and more.

Technology is evolving at a break-neck speed, with new developments coming out faster than most of us can keep up with them. This can be overwhelming for anyone, but especially for business owners and managers who are trying to keep up with changes in their business, their market, and their industry on top of everything else.

And then, even if you know of the technology, it can be overwhelming to know how to implement it and whether or not you actually need it. Some of it can even be downright intimidating, if not a little scary.

There are some tools out there that small businesses really don’t need, but there are a few that you should absolutely invest in, even if they sound a little intimidating. These are the four not-as-scary-as-they-sound technologies that you should consider implementing right away.

There are plenty of different scenarios that could put small businesses at risk. We have to worry about market fluctuations, competitors in the market, break-ins to the office, and even things like PR issues.

While we’re all focused on the day-to-day, however, it’s easy to miss one of the most hazardous risks to businesses today: cyber security threats.

Hackers are seemingly capable of more than ever before, and with the whole world going online, they can get into just about anything they want to. Finding ways to secure your business and tightening up your cyber security is crucial to protecting yourself, your business, and all of your clients, and these 5 tips are a good place to start.

No matter what type of law you practice, we know that you’ve got a lot of tasks on your plate and that all of them are pretty hands-on. You’re the one who needs to meet with your clients and discuss contracts, strategies, and next steps; you often need to handle the majority of cases yourself, even if you have a team supporting you.

What if we told you that there was one huge task that we could take off your plate? That you didn’t have to deal with answering too many calls on a regular basis?

Lawyers are often nervous about the idea of answering services, especially with concerns of confidentiality and the urgency that many of their cases require, but they also have a change of heart once they hear about what benefits the services can offer. In this post, we’ll take a look at whether legal answering services are right for your practice, and what you should look for if you decide to hire one.

Despite business communication transitioning to an omnichannel approach with new technology such as chat, phone calls remain a primary source of communication for countless businesses. In fact, phone calls to businesses have increased due to the adoption of mobile phones (85 billion in 2016 and 2020 is estimated to exceed 169 billion).

That’s a lot of calls. As a small business, it’s close to impossible to answer them all. That’s why thousands of businesses hire answering services like PATLive to answer calls around the clock so that they never miss an important call again.

Answering services do more than just eliminate your ringing phone. A great answering service becomes an integrated partner of your business by tailoring your scripting to sound like they’re right there in your office – minus the noise. So what can PATLive do for your business?

Everything about the business world is rapidly evolving, ranging from the tools we use to connect to customers to how exactly those client interactions are going. Customer service trends are no different.

We’re very much living in a buyer’s market, where the client holds all the power and has the option to choose from so many different brands, no matter what it is that they need.

This has made customer service more important than ever before, setting brands apart and being a key part of customer loyalty. A customer is 4x more likely to buy from a competitor if they believe there’s an issue with customer service (more so than price or product-related issues), and an outstanding 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they’re treated by a brand.

If you want to stay on top of the competition, check out these 7 customer service trends that are driving success in 2019. They’ll give you a solid idea of what you need to be doing and where you should shift your attention moving forward.

You call your doctor’s office, needing to make an appointment the next day for your sick first grader. It’s not an emergency, but you want to make sure that you can get an appointment the next day if it’s available.

You’re expecting to be sent to voicemail, because it’s 8 o’clock PM on a Tuesday, but instead after two rings someone picks up. They’re a third-party answering service that can set up appointments, and you hang up a few minutes later with an appointment at 9AM the next day– right when the office opens.

This is the magic of call forwarding, which can be a game changer for small businesses using it for a number of different purposes to best serve their customers and streamline their own communication efforts. In this post, we’re going to look at everything you need to know about how to leverage call forwarding for your small business and what it can do for you.

An enormous volume of incoming calls is just part of the deal when you’re running a growing business, even if the business is in relatively early stages. Potential leads, vendors, and customers alike are all calling to ask about everything from return policies to order tracking to appointment booking.

We’ve all been an angry customer on the other end of the phone, frustrated with a problem that a brand has caused us while a customer service representative tries to come up with a solution for us.

There are plenty of advantages to hiring an answering service that you’re likely already familiar with. Having someone else handle incoming calls is an enormous time-saver, and the fact that you can pass off the task to someone who will treat your customers as well as you do is a huge advantage. You and your staff can take breaks, holidays, and nights off without having to worry about customer calls coming in and not being answered.

PATLive Answering Services Blog

How to Keep Your Small Business PCI Compliant in 2019

4 Technologies That Aren’t As Scary As They Sound

Cyber Security Tips and Trends for Small Business

Is a Legal Answering Service Right for My Practice?

What PATLive Can Do For Your Business

7 Customer Service Trends Driving Success in 2019

Call Forwarding – How Can It Benefit My Small Business?

How to Protect Your Business Against Robocalls

7 Tips For Outstanding Phone Customer Service

The 4 Unexpected Benefits of an Answering Service