Telephone Answering Customer Service
Small Business Services, Telephone Answering

Customer Service Tips

Are you giving your customers a great customer service experience? Read on for our customer service tips.

Did you know that a person will determine whether or not they do business with in 7 seconds. It’s based on how you answer the phone, or your response to their initial enquiry.

How you respond is very important to secure their business. It’s no use just saying ‘hello’ or being impolite, or not mentioning your company name. This will have a negative impact on them and give a poor impression. It comes across as unprofessional, so then your potential customer may have doubts about how you will serve them.

Therefore, it’s imperative that the person answering your phone is well versed in customer service. That also goes for replying to a text, email, or live chat. Some telephone techniques or other customer service training will make a big difference.

A customer is more likely to remain loyal if you handle their issues promptly and efficiently and offer a solution.

If you cannot pay for an answering service, practise some of the following customer service tips. These will teach you how to handle customers – even the difficult ones.

  • Smile – it’s true that people can tell when you’re smiling down the phone. So when you take that call, make sure you put a smile on your face.
  • Check your tone of voice – how you sound impacts your customer. How you come across to the person on the other end is important. Make sure you speak clearly.
  • Greet the caller politely. Say “good morning/afternoon”, then your company name. You should then either say, “[your name] speaking, how can I help?”, or “how can I help?”
  • Listen – people like to be heard, so make sure you let your customer speak. Do not interrupt. Most people respond well when you are polite.
  • Empathise – your customer may have a complaint, so again listen without interrupting, Empathise to show that you understand their frustrations. This will help them to feel heard and understood. If they keep venting, let them continue without saying anything. They will feel better once they have got it all off their chest.
  • Offer a solution – tell them how you intend to fix their problem, and outline the steps you will take. Give them a timeline of when you will get back to them. Then ask them how that works for them.
  • Ask their opinion – is your customer satisfied? If not, ask them how they feel you could fix their issue.
  • Take ownership – it’s important that you donot blame the customer, your suppliers, or anyone else. Never tell them it’s not your problem. Your customer is doing business with you, not your contacts, so it’s up to you to sort the problem and keep them updated. Check back with the customer, or your contact, to ensure that the issue has actually been resolved and if it has not, follow up again.
  • Keep your customer informed – if you have to put them on hold, and you are waiting for an answer from someone, or the person you are transferring them to isn’t answering, then keep going back to them and apologise for keeping them waiting.
  • Escalate – if you cannot resolve the problem immediately you will need to do more. Tell your customer you will escalate the problem. Let them know you will get back to them later once you have an update.

Stand out from your competition and excel at customer service. Don’t leave them hanging, and make sure you have several ways that they can reach you, including a ‘live’ person.

We hope you found these customer service tips useful. If you don’t feel you can apply them effectively, then reconsider using a professional telephone call answering service. This will help with your reputation and to keep your customers coming back for more.

For more information on how we can help you to give your customers a great customer service experience get in touch. We’ve been doing it for our customers for over 20 years, and have over 40 years’ experience in dealing with customers on the phone.

Answer Service
Small Business Services, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant

Why you’re losing business and what you can do about it!

If you are a small business owner and you’re struggling to get and retain customers, read on. It could be due to lack of customer service training or a poor answer service.

Did you know that the first port of call when calling a company is usually the receptionist/telephonist. How they sound and interact with that first enquiry can make all the difference.

Simply answering the phone ‘hello’ won’t cut it. You also need to be empathetic and offer solutions, not excuses!

This is where a professional telephone call answering service can improve your sales and customer retention.

We have 40 years experience in handling customers on the phone. As we’re fully trained in telephone etiquette, we do it very well. That includes handling calls and dealing with customers effectively, even the irate ones!

We can simply take messages for you, or if you want something a little more involved, such as dealing with pre or post sales enquiries, we can do that too.

All calls will be answered promptly and your customers will feel listened to and will keep coming back for more (provided your offer is what they need of course!).

Get in touch today to find out how we can help your small business and leave you to focus on building your business.

Take out our answer service between now and the end of January and you can save 25% on the quarterly fee for 6 months.

Cyber Monday Answering Service 50% discount sale
Live Chat, Small Business Services, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant

Cyber Monday – Fancy a discount on our Answering Service?

Cyber Monday is just a week away, which means you will be able to make substantial savings on our answering service for one year!

If you want to be credible, you need to have a professional person at the end of the phone.

That person is the very first interaction a potential customer will have with your business and that alone could determine whether or not they do business with you.

They need to be professional, courteous and able to deal with any questions.

An answering service will ensure that your customers get a positive experience when calling you. This is particularly helpful if you’re not available to answer your own calls.

For intance you could be driving, in a meeting, having a zoom call, or having a day off! With a telephone answering service your calls will never go unanswered so you won’t miss any sales enquiries.

It also doesn’t bode well for existing customers if you’re not there to attend to any issues they might have.

Freelance Office Services and Virtual Assistance (FOSVA) can help by providing a virtual assistant to screen your calls so you don’t have to.

For one day only, Cyber Monday, you can get an answering service for one year and make a massive 50% saving in the process! You can’t quibble at that!

To get this offer, send us a message using our ‘live chat’ below on Monday 2 December via our website only – you’ll see the offer pop up in the chat window. It’s for one day only so don’t miss out!

Virtual Assistant Sale
Audio Transcription, Content Management, Live Chat, Small Business Services, Social Media Management, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Office

Virtual Assistant January Sale

Discounts across all of our services

If you haven’t used a virtual assistant before, now is the time in our January Sale!

If last year didn’t give you time to expand your business then perhaps you were just too busy. To build your business you need someone else to help with the day to day stuff.

A virtual assistant service is a good choice if you can’t afford a permanent employee. Especially in today’s ‘virtual’ ‘work from home’ trend. It’s affordable, dead handy, doesn’t eat into your pocket and does what it says on the tin!

So what can you get when you use this service? The answer is a reliable, professional, experienced virtual assistant who puts your business needs first.

Services on offer are listed below, just click on the links to read more about each one:

The above services can be combined or mixed and matched to suit your individual business needs.

Our Virtual Assistant January sale is now on. To get your discounted service simply visit the relative page and chat with us online using our chat facility. Tell us how we can help your business and what you need.

Discounts will be applied accordingly depending on the service.

Cyber Sale Monday
Small Business Services, Telephone Answering

Cyber Sale!

Are you ready for this year’s Cyber Sale?

Cyber Monday is nearly here again and you can benefit from great savings in our cyber sale.

It’s very important that potential customers get a professional experience when they call you. How you handle those calls alone will determine whether a customer would like to do business with you.

An answering service is a useful service to have if you’re a small business owner – especially if you don’t have a lot of time to answer the phone.

If you’re busy in meetings, or driving, or just doing day to day operational stuff, it means you could potentially be losing sales.

If you’re missing your existing customers calls too then that won’t bode well for your business reviews! Your customers should be getting a first-class customer service experience.

This is where Freelance Office Services and Virtual Assistance (FOSVA) can help. Our virtual assistant will screen your calls so you don’t have to. We can then transfer the caller to you. Or, we can simply take a message and email or WhatsApp the information to you.

In this year’s Cyber Sale you can save a massive 50% when you take out our Answering Service. This discount will remain in effect for 6 months!

Get in touch with us Monday 28 November to take advantage! It’s for one day only so don’t miss out!

A little love on Valentine's Day - Save 50%
Audio Transcription, Content Management, Small Business Services, Social Media Management, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant

A little love!

Let us give you a little love – Save 50% on Valentine’s Day 💞

A little love on Valentine’s Day goes a long way!

Valentine’s Day Special – yes we’re showing you some LURVE for ONE DAY ONLY!! 😍🥰

Chat with us here on our website on Valentine’s Day about taking out a new service and you can get a MASSIVE 50% off any of our services!

So that’s any service commencing from Valentine’s Day for half the usual price! 💷

Choose from:

And you know what else? If you continue to use the service month to month without a break, you’ll continue to save! 😮

Just come back on Valentine’s Day and chat with us to take advantage.

Remember it’s only for ONE DAY so don’t miss out! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♂️

And if you’re wondering what to give your loved ones for Valentine’s Day, how about a Classic Beatles Tour with the Fab 4 Taxi Tours 🚔. Perhaps a Rom Com Tour of London with Brit Movie Tours or a George Michael Tour with Brit Music Tours floats your boat? ⛵️

Happy Valentine’s Day! 💕

Retain your customers
Small Business Services, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant

Customer Retention – Achievable?

Customer retention is based on customer satisfaction.

Did you know that customers will base their decision about whether or not to do business with you within the first few minutes so it’s important you have a professional at the end of your phone!

Even more important is about how you handle their enquiries or even more so, their complaints!  It’s a fact that a customer is more likely to remain loyal, return, if you resolve their issues satisfactorily, regardless of how bad it was!

It’s all about a great customer service experience.  Give your customers what they want, deal with any issues quickly and promptly and they’ll keep coming back.

A virtual assistant or answering service is one way to keep your customers loyal. 

Watch the video for a few simple tips about how to give your customers a great customer service experience. This will increase customer retention.

A professional answering service will help you to keep your customer happy

SMEs and Covid
Audio Transcription, Content Management, Small Business Services, Social Media Management, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Office

SMEs and Covid

As the Covid restrictions are lifted, those who were confined to working at home will slowly start returning to their offices to work – albeit reluctantly!

If you are/were in this situation, do/did you prefer the solitude or are you the type of person who prefers to be in an office environment that enables you to interact easily with others?

Some of you may have started your own businesses from home and won’t have to return – how is that working out?

We’d love to know – maybe we can help?

Here at Freelance Office Services and Virtual Assistance we have always worked remotely so it’s second nature to us.

Struggling SMEs and Covid are not a great combination as I’m sure many have found out.

Plenty of businesses have suffered badly and many have lost their income completely.

If you are a sole trader or small business owner who has been affected by Covid – don’t fret as there’s help out there for you.

You can get support with any office based task such as:

  • administration
  • social media management
  • answering services
  • content management/marketing
  • customer service
  • audio transcription
  • training coordinator
  • event planning
  • project management
  • bookings/calendar appointments
  • secretarial support
  • order processing

Until August Bank Holiday you can benefit from half price services from our business support portfolio.

Take a look by following this link and give us a shout to find out how we can help get your business back up to speed breaking the bank

Virtual Assistant
Audio Transcription, Content Management, Small Business Services, Social Media Management, Telephone Answering, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Office

Remote Working – The New Norm?

Do you work from home? Is remote working the new normal for 2021?

For us as virtual assistants, we’ve been working from home since 2004! This makes us experts in the virtual working arena.

So what exactly is remote working? Well it can be pretty much anything.

Here are a few examples of work from home jobs:

And the list goes on…..

Working from home as an employee means your employer determines and controls your working hours, holidays and work load.

As a self employed business owner you have more control over what you do and who you do it for.

So – what is the answer if you are self employed or if you’re a small business who doesn’t have any employees? Is it to employ remote staff?

Well, that’s one solution. But it also means you would have to pay your staff a certain amount each month. That would also include any holiday entitlement.

You would also be responsible for maternity and paternity pay for new parents. Plus any other employer contributions.

A simpler solution would be to invest in the services of another small business owner, such as a virtual assistant, or virtual office services business.

They would be able to carry out any or all of the above tasks and more, without any of the red tape.

So, it may cost a little bit more per hour but you would save on all the other employer costs. Plus you’re not usually tied in as you can normally pay as you go!

And the bonus is, if you’re not happy you can cancel anytime, or change service providers quite easily without any repercussions.

It’s certainly worth thinking about isn’t it?

So, if you want to know more then have a chat with us – just click the chat button bottom right to get started.

Missing calls?
Small Business Services, Telephone Answering

Are you missing phone calls?

Startups and SMES – if you are missing phone calls then investing in a professional telephone answering service will make sure you don’t miss that important new customer enquiry.

Get your phone calls answered by customer service trained virtual assistants and build your customer base.

Improve on your customer service levels as well as customer retainment.

Buy our quarterly package before 31 December and get 1 month extra free.

For more information on how you can get your calls answered professionally, click here.

Check out our testimonials and reviews. Don’t lose potential customers by missing phone calls.