Phone Answering Services vs. Voicemail: Which Is Better for Your Business?

Customers end up being frustrated when they get through to a line only to be answered by a voicemail, they are denied their opportunities for the business. Indeed, it has been established that 80% of the call respondents disconnect their call once they hear a voicemail greeting, while only 10% leave a message. However, a live receptionist is able to offer a fancy welcome, offer further assistance in answering questions, scheduling appointments, which results in a 42% increase in qualified leads.

We will therefore discuss in this article the pros and cons of phone answering services over voicemail to enable you draw the best conclusion on the kind of service to go for in your business. This will let us compare metrics such as customer experience, lead capture, and operation efficiency to see how the current and new approach will enable growth.

Even though voicemail may do a good job in handling the incoming calls, it fails to deliver a good experience to the customers. The callers are often welcomed with generic messages, no attendance, and the inability to know when their call will be responded to. This, in turn, may result in frustration and loss of a chance to interact with the customer at that moment.

Voicemail Disadvantages

On the other hand, a live receptionist service is much more personal and effective for the customer. Companies’ use the direct connection of a live operator, where prospects get immediate answers to their questions, appointment setting, and lead qualifying-boosting the overall qualified leads by 42%. Furthermore, live receptionists can attend to the company’s customers even during odd times and harmonize with the company’s CRM eliminating instances when a customer is not considered.

Live Receptionist Advantages

Regarding answering incoming calls and ensuring the subsequent capturing of new business, the research findings indicate that live receptionist services are more efficient than forwarded voice-mail systems. Through the specific handling of leads and offering quality and prompt customer relations, organizations are likely to notice high and effective conversion of leads, increased customer satisfaction, and thus growth. Although voicemail might have some application for specific scenarios, a live receptionist service has many benefits that make it the preferred option for most companies.

A phone answering service is a business that offers organizations individuals who can answer the phone and discuss services and products for the company without being in the same area. These services can take a variety of forms:

Live Agent Answering Services

These services use live individuals that answer calls, messages and emails from customers, set appointments and undertake other management tasks. These purposes are to deliver a customized and excellent experience for those who call the numbers.

Automated Answering Services

These services are also referred to as IVR systems and involve the use of taped messages and computers for directing calls as answered. Switchboards are used by the callers to move through a list of numbers with a goal of getting to the required information or section.

Voicemail

Voicemail is a service in the telecommunication industry that permits the caller to record a message when the recipient is not able to answer the call. This is a frequently used component in business as well as in home phone systems.

Current Trends

Therefore, although voicemail is a good tool for handling incoming calls, this tool is not very effective in delivering a good customer experience. Research demonstrates that eight out of ten people are likely to () when the sound of a voicemail greeting is heard, while two out of ten are likely to leave a message.

On the other hand, there are real time answering services that can yield as much as forty- two percent higher lead conversion rate than voice mail services. The audiences sometimes appreciate the prompt help and direct communication with the help of live answering services.

The above statistics demonstrate how voicemail fails to capture potential business and how live answering services provide a superior service to your clients.

Possibly one of the biggest perks of phone answering services is that they offer human engagement on the phone in a bid. Such calls are very effective because live agents are in a position to deal with customers’ queries, challenges, and even suggest to them how to get to their preferred destination or goal. It is this kind of approach that makes it easier to establish some level of rapport and therefore increase the level of satisfaction of the customers.

A friendly and polite response from a live agent might make a lot of difference in the company’s reputation. Customers will be more inclined to trust a certain company more when they are attended to by a courteous and knowledgeable representative on the phone.

Telephone answering services can provide 24/7 services as well. Companies can be certain that their clients can always turn to to find help, not only during the company’s working hours. Such availability can help in enhancing the company’s reputation among its customers, and in turn boost loyalty.

The specific features of telephonic answering services help in catering to the specific requirements of businesses. Including greetings, scripts, and call handling procedures up to the identification of brand and corporate culture strongly suits clients. Such a level of customization is beneficial in that it helps to enhance the company’s ability to offer clients call experiences that are integrated and need no phenomenal transitions.

Read More: How Do Phone Answering Services Revolutionize Business Process Outsourcing?

While phone answering services offer numerous benefits, voicemail also has its advantages:

Cost-Effectiveness

Voicemail is cheaper than employing a live person to take calls as a receptionist or live answering service. It has been seen that companies are able to reduce the cost that is incurred on recruiting, training and retaining live agents.

Flexibility

Voicemail has the advantage of flexible messages left for customers depending on their preferred time for the call. This can be especially valuable for the callers who might have to relay the detailed information or the ones who would rather not speak on the phone immediately.

Time Management

To add, a voicemail system enables a company to attend to the messages on a prioritized basis depending on the received calls’ urgency and importance. This can assist in managing what and when it is important to be done and also what needs to be done when a certain priority is achieved.

Nonetheless, as mentioned before, we have to take into consideration that though voicemail encompasses these benefits, there are severe consequences that affect the customer experience and the leads. The very high percentage of male callers who cut the conversation mid-way by hanging up after listening to the voice greetings also supports the idea that businesses need to consider their available options and the customers’ needs.

While phone answering services offer numerous benefits, there are also some limitations to consider:

One disadvantage of the live agents is that they are hired and trained and this can prove to be costly as compared to the use of voicemail. It is also important to make sure the service is affordable consistently provided that it makes business sense to do so in terms of staffing, benefits, and training costs.

It is not uncommon for a live agent to misread something in the message taking process or provide an improper response themselves. This could result in confusion to the customers and may in some way be an influence on the customer relations. Organizations should practice precise quality assurance mechanisms to reduce mistakes and guarantee steady services.

Telemessaging services are likely to have problems in addressing large volumes of calls during busy times. There is always the issue of staffing levels which businesses have to establish in a way that they can effectively cope with surge in call volume without affecting the experience of the customers.

To avoid these inconveniences, businesses should engage their phone answering service provider to ensure you have the right resolution on cost concerns, the service provider should also help put measures in place to check on the quality of the service, and finally, strategies for handling high call volumes should also be discussed and put in place with the phone answering service provider. In this way, building up the rapport and having a possibility to give each other feedback can result in the absence of some crucial weak signals and guarantee the continual improvisation of the service as well as its’ adaption to the needs of the business and its customers.

Interesting Blog: Building Trust from Hello: How Phone Answering Services Impact Lead Quality?

The biggest disadvantage of voicemail is that it spells little to no interpersonal engagement. Customers may grow impatient and are left feeling as if they are not really interacting with an actual person when they can’t directly speak to an agent. These encounters are rather impersonal and can result in a negative attitude towards the business, and therefore reduced chances of further dealings.

Voicemail also has the disadvantage of losing possible clients if the latter’s messages are not answered back in a timely manner. Also, the callers may get bored on the line, or they move and look for other solutions to their problems. This negates business potential and growth of the firm ultimately reducing its chances of expansion and business success.

There are also added probabilities for customer irritation and dissatisfaction due to the nature of voicemail. The concerned callers may possibly find out that their concerns are unheard, or their messages are insignificant. This results in negative customer experience that is always detrimental to the reputation and profitability of a business.

However, phone answering services are more intimate and better in terms of response to the particular service thus leading to high customer satisfaction. As businesses are able to respond to the questions or complaints instantly, this creates goodwill and the prospects could be turned into loyal customers in the long run.

On the one hand, voicemail can be successfully used to handle incoming calls, but on the other hand, it can hardly be referred to as an effective means to guarantee the proper customer experience. The non-interactional approach, inability to respond to potential opportunities, and increased tendency of customer complaints are factors that make it imperative for companies to look into other effective ways that engage customers and demonstrate responsiveness. The importance of answering the business’ phone shows that by hiring a phone answering service, customers will be well attended to hence become loyal customers.

When deciding between phone answering services and voicemail, businesses need to carefully consider their specific needs, customer expectations, and industry standards.

Some elements that are crucial and should not be overlooked include the size of your business and the traffic of calls that you receive. Preliminary evidence shows that a voicemail would be acceptable to businesses making fewer calls while a live answering service would be more appropriate and practical for businesses that make more frequent calls and require their clients’ inquiries to be handled quickly and efficiently.

It is imperative that to gain an understanding of the customer so that an appropriate solution could be selected. If the target market appreciates individual communication and quick replies, it is more preferable to use the phone answering service. On the other hand there are those customers that are ok with leaving a message and having the recipient call them back, voicemail could work.

Looking at the existing literature will help gain knowledge on best practices to be adopted when managing an organization like yours. Some businesses for example, hospitals, insurance firms, and law firms will obviously need a higher value customer touch and therefore a phone answering service becomes appropriate.

When considering the importance of the above factors into account, a business can well and truly arrive at the most suitable solution that meets its needs best in the eyes of the customer and is compliant to certain standards among peers. Keep in mind the strategy is made in the best interest of your consumers, which includes what they will appreciate to enhance their pleasant experience and impact your business’ achievement.

While phone answering services and voicemail each have their own advantages, some businesses may find that a hybrid approach can provide the best of both worlds.

A synergy of phone answering services and voicemail provides a corporation with a complete overview of the communication with customers. For instance, a live agent can attend to calls in the duration that the business is within operation while the voicemail service can take care of the calls at any other time that the business is not operating.

This integrated approach enables businesses to get the kind of help needed at the time it is required besides being a good backup to having agents around. The tree offers an option of speaking to an agent alive, or even dropping a voice mail in case of the caller’s preference or necessity of the situation.

In any case, there are examples of companies that have already applied the best of both kinds of solution, hybrid, to good effect. For instance, in a medical practice, the live answering service is useful in receiving calls that involve booking of appointments or any issue a patient may want to discuss when the practice is still open while the voicemail service is used when the office has closed for the day. This way the patients are always able to be in touch with the practice even at odd hours of the day.

Likewise, a small professional services firm may use live answering service to answer and respond to new client business leads and sales calls but let the current client calls go to voicemail. This makes it possible for the firm to help new business prospects to develop by closely communicating with them while at the same time catering for the needs of the existing clients.

When implementing a hybrid solution, it's important to consider the following best practices:

Through effectively incorporating the techniques of phone answering services and voicemail, more value and benefits will be obtained within organizations for the purpose of enhancing customer satisfaction while determining future organizational development.

Check out: The Starter Guide of Phone Answering Services

It can be seen that the two services, namely the phone answering services and the voicemail, are opposite to each other but both serve some specific purpose. Thus, when considering the options and analyzing their strengths and weaknesses, companies will arrive at the most reasonable conclusion regarding which path it is better to choose.

Through phone answering services, customer experience of particularity, responsiveness, and effectiveness is realized, and this has resulted in an increase in qualified leads by 42%. Agents can attend to customer enquiries, fix appointments as well as offer professional services, and all this can help improve a business’s reputation. Furthermore, it is also useful to note that customers can be provided with a round-the-clock service or adapted according to their preferences, including greetings.

Voicemail on the other hand is a more affordable way of addressing customer voices, allowing customers to record details about their concerns for the business to attend to them at a convenient time. However, there are certain disadvantages that include; Since the delivery of voicemail is anonymous, the clients cannot respond personally, hence poses a lot of missed opportunities for business entities. Moreover, the chances of customer dissatisfaction are much higher compared to personalized calls.

Each of the aforementioned options for managing business customer communication such as phone answering services is effective for businesses but using a combination of the two, phone answering and voicemail, is the best option. It means that by implementing both of those systems in organizations, it is possible to use the possibilities of both improving the quality of communication with customers and creating an effective system for communication with them which fits all the needs of businesses.

Therefore it becomes important to determine the most suitable solution depending on the size of business, customer expectations and existing industry standards. It therefore makes a lot of sense to take time and determine where your current system is weak or requires improvement so that your business can prepare for the future and at the same time make sure that the customers are treated like the valued beings that deserve so much more than just an ordinary service.