About this FAQ

This is a collection of Frequently Asked Questions about telephone answering services, also known as live call answering or virtual telephone answering services. It is aimed at anyone considering using, or currently using, a telephone answering service for their business.

This FAQ was last updated July 2009.

What is a telephone answering service?

A telephone answering service is a company that answers incoming calls for other businesses. These calls may be transferred to an employee's phone, or a message recorded in their absence. For many small and medium businesses this is a cost effective alternative to hiring a dedicated receptionist. All call answering companies can:

Answer your calls during office hours

Calls are answered throughout the day (including the lunch hour) from 8.30-9am in the morning until 5.30pm-6pm in the evening, Monday to Friday. Some services can also answer your calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Bank holidays etc will vary from company to company.

Answer your calls in your company's name

Call answering services use software that identifies the source of each incoming call, and enables them to answer calls with the appropriate greeting, e.g. "Good morning, Widget & Co?". If you require a different greeting (such as "Kangaroo Website, G'Day" or "You're through to Sandra at The Watering Hole, how can I help?") your chosen call answering company will be more than happy to oblige.

Transfer calls to a landline or mobile number

Calls can be easily transferred (or 'patched') through to any standard telephone number (VOIP numbers may be a different matter). Mobile calls will probably cost more. You can specify who you want transferred, e.g. by providing a 'whitelist' of approved callers, a 'blacklist' of callers to screen, or a criteria for judging callers on a call-by-call basis. Either way, the caller is announced first, and you have the option of declining the call discreetly.

Store your messages and calls on a database

Names, telephone numbers, calls etc are generally either recorded on a caller database, or a more sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. You can call your telephone answering service and ask them for information about old calls, and in some cases you can even access the database yourself using your web browser. Some systems can generate reports and graphs, e.g. to display the number of calls for each month.

Send your messages via SMS, email or fax

Messages can be emailed or SMS texted as soon as the call ends. Faxes may be sent less frequently. This allows you to take a call at your desk and almost immediately bring up the caller's details (e.g. name and address) on your screen. Emails can be sent to any device capable of receiving them, such as an iPhone or Blackberry. Different types of message can be sent to separate email addresses,

Assist with typing, book-keeping, dictation etc

Some live call answering services are part of secretarial businesses and can assist with other administrative tasks, ranging from basic typing to marketing consultancy or Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

How does call answering work?

The virtual answering business gives you a dedicated telephone number

You wouldn't put this number on your business cards, vans or advertising - it's just for diverting. (In the event of you terminating your contract with the answering service, they would prefer not to receive calls from people seeing your old adverts)

You divert your calls to that number

You can divert your calls on a permanent basis if it is rarely convenient to answer the phone. You can also choose to divert calls only when your number is busy (prevents the caller from hearing an engaged tone), when you are away from your phone (prevents the caller from waiting forever for someone to answer, or going through to voicemail), or as and when required.

Your calls are routed to the answering service

The name of your company appears on the operator's screen - this is how they know how to answer the call.

Calls can be transferred, or a message recorded

They can to transferred (or 'patched') to any landline or mobile number, although mobile calls cost a bit more. Message can be emailed, faxed or SMSed.

What information will my call answering company need?

The more information you provide to your telephone answering service, the more professionally they can answer your calls. This helps to ensure your callers do not suddenly find themselves talking to people who don't appear to know everything they should. It is inevitable that you won't be able to think of everything - they will call you if they have any more queries.

How do you want callers to be greeted?

Think about how you and your employees answer the phone - do you refer to your company using its full name (e.g. "Dorset Welding Industries Ltd"), a slightly shorter form ("Dorset Welding") or even just initials ("DWI")? Do you want operators to identify themselves by name? ("...you're speaking to Sarah").

What does your company do?

Explain in basic terms what your company does, without using industry jargon ("We obsfuscate and frobnicate AJAX frameworks for SEO") or marketese ("We provide cost-effective, professional and reliable pro-active marketing solutions"). And while a caller may not receive the same expertise from a telephone answering service as from you or your employees, a little explanatory information (e.g. how a block-paved driveway is constructed or roughly how long it takes to paint a kitchen) will help maintain a professional appearance.

What information can be given out?

You probably won't want mobile numbers or home addresses disclosed, this is usually assumed but it's best to make this clear.

Where are you based?

Does your company have multiple locations? Directions are useful for people wanting to visit your premises - your call answering company will probably not know the area.

What is your website address?

A website is a useful source of additional information about your company, and can be used by your telephone answering service to familiarise themselves with your company. They can also use it to stay up-to-date with price changes, news etc. You might want to set aisde a dedicated page on your website to update your call answering service with information not relevant to your other customers.

What are your main (enquiries/sales/etc) email addresses?

You might not want your employee's individual email addresses given out to everyone who asks, which is why a generic email address is useful. You could even have an email address set aside for very low priority enquiries from cold callers.

What should they do with your calls?

• Calls can be handled differently depending on urgency, who they are for and why the person is calling
• Callers can be transferred to landline or mobile numbers

How should they send your call reports and messages?

• Messages can be sent by fax, SMS text and/or email
• Call answering systems usually record the time/date of each call they take, to whom it was transferred and the message taken
• You can call up your telephone answering company anytime and enquire about old callers or messages
• Urgent messages/repairs/sales/etc can be sent to different email addresses

Who are your employees?

At the very least, your call answering service will need telephone numbers (home/work/mobile) for calling employees or transferring calls, and email addresses for sending messages. They will also benefit from knowing the names, telephone numbers, email addresses and roles of all your employees - even if calls aren't transferred to them as your telephone answering service will need to know who does and doesn't work for your company.

How do I get the most out of my call answering service?

Communicating clearly with your call answering service and keeping them up-to-date will ensure the best quality service.

They're not psychic!

Your call answering service knows virtually nothing about your business, until you tell them. Don't assume that they know, for example, who your favoruite clients are or how you like your calls answered.

Keep them up-to-date

A call answering company's ability to present themselves as your business and provide quality customer service is dependent on them staying on top of:

• New employees joining your company, or existing employees leaving
• Internal restructures, promotions etc
• Employee daily or weekly whereabouts (ins and outs)
• Change of telephone numbers or email addresses
• Holidays and events
• New products, recalls or changes to existing products
• New services or changes to existing services
• Changes to how calls should be answered or transferred
• Changes to how or where messages should be sent

Don't send them 'junk calls'

Your answering service may charge you based on the number of calls you send them. This is okay if many of these calls can eventually be converted into sales leads, either by your staff or the answering service, but may prove costly if you are sending them large numbers of 'dead' leads. This could happen, for example, as the result of poorly targeted advertising.

Why/When would I want to divert my calls?

There are a number of reasons why you would want to divert your calls to a telephone answering company. You might be driving, in a meeting, having lunch, running errands, busy with clients, in an area with poor reception, trying to concentrate on a task that demands absolutely no interruptions (e.g. programming), taking a break or, well, just doing your job!

You have three options when deciding when to divert your calls:

Divert On Busy

This is only necessary if you will be in your home or office, taking incoming calls or making outgoing calls, and thus causing some callers to get an engaged tone.

Divert On Unanswered

This will divert the call if it is not answered with approximately 15 seconds or 4 rings (exact times may vary). Use this to prevent callers from going to voicemail (provided of course the voicemail doesn't kick in for 15 seconds).

Divert All

Use this if you never want to take calls yourself.