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.
Customer service is the cornerstone of a positive relationship between a business and their clients. If a customer does not feel valued by a business or service provider it can damage the relationship to the point where they may cut ties entirely. But it can be difficult to maintain these quality client relationships, with potential issues popping up around the clock and complex questions demanding thorough answers. At PATLive, we are proud to ensure that our clients are not alone in their efforts to provide customers with the 24/7 care and attention they deserve.
While we help our clients build positive relationships with their customers, we also wanted to get a better feeling of how we were doing for our own clients. For this, we turned to Clutch, a platform for companies to post reviews of their B2B service suppliers. Since first being listed on Clutch in January 2019 (a short 5 months ago), we are proud to note that PATLive has already been listed on their directory of the top answering services in the world, as well as their Leaders’ Matrix for both answering services and live virtual receptionist services.
Aside from the quality of our work, our verified client reviews are what earned us one of the top spots on Clutch. We already have seven verified client reviews, earning us a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars. The structure of these client interviews includes questions about cost, satisfaction, and what specifically impressed the client about our services. When asked what they found impressive about PATLive, one client responded:
“PATLive has improved my workload, and the amount of time they’ve freed up is invaluable. They’ve improved the quality of my calls and I’ve picked up extra listings and transactions with their help.”
It’s our goal to bring not only care and attention, but our expertise to each and every call that clients send our way. We are looking forward to growing our presence on the Clutch platform and learning from our clients’ feedback.
In addition to our presence on Clutch, we are featured on their sister-site, The Manifest. The Manifest is a resource for businesses to identify and address their challenges, providing industry insights and how-to guides. Our inclusion on their list of the top voice services companies helps solidify our reputation as a trusted partner. We have also expanded our presence to Visual Objects, a platform for firms to share their work with prospective clients. It is important to match praise with substance, and we hope that the quality of our work will speak for itself.
Thank you to all of our clients! We love the work that we do, and we are so grateful for the people we have had the opportunity to work alongside. If you have worked with us and want to talk about it, feel free to leave a review, and if you are interested in learning more about an answering service, contact us any time.
Customer service has increasingly become an omnichannel experience for both customers and the businesses trying their best to serve them. Trying to keep up with the evolving technological landscape, many companies are offering phone lines, social media messaging, email responses, and even live chat on their site.
It’s ringing when you’re trying to finish an expense report. It’s ringing when you’re trying to take ten minutes for lunch. It’s even ringing while you’re on the phone with another client.
Standing out from your competition has never been more difficult thanks to the far-reaching potential of the internet. Companies from the opposite side of the globe can now accurately advertise to your audience with laser-focused targeting and PPC campaigns, giving you thousands of businesses to compete with instead of a handful of local options. As if it wasn’t difficult enough when that was the case.
First impressions matter, and even if someone is familiar enough with your business to get on phone and reach out, that first call can have a big impact on how they perceive your business.
Marketing is essential if you want to attract new clients, make sales, and scale your business. It can also be really, really expensive.
With strategies like expensive Paid Search ads, sponsored campaigns, and costly consultants taking center stage in the marketing world, it’s easy for small businesses to feel intimidated and end up not getting the most results for their budget.
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. 
