Using a business telephone answering service can save you hundreds of man hours per year, not to mention tens of thousands of dollars. An answering service for your business is an invaluable tool, especially in today’s fast paced economy. No business nowadays can afford to turn away the smallest of customers, and if your phones are down, you’re not getting any calls from potential new clients. A business telephone answering service does not call out. It does not take holidays or personal days, it doesn’t require a benefits package from you, or worker’s compensation insurance, or taxes, or any of the other fiscal headaches that hiring and maintaining a new employee who may or may not work out does.

There does seem to be a good bit of stigma surrounding business telephone answering services. Some of the biggest assumptions are:

1. Answering services are overseas, and take jobs away from Americans. While it’s true that some answering services are located overseas, this is not the case for the majority. There are a great many answering services located right here in the U.S.
2. Business telephone answering services take jobs away from people who need them. Again, this is a myth. The fact is answering services provide jobs to people who need them. They employ a full, large staff of the very same professionals that you would normally hire, and provide their services to you at a fraction of the cost. As a matter of fact, if you utilize an answering service, you’re supporting dozens of working people instead of just one or two.
3. Answering services are staffed with temps that don’t know, or even care to know about my business. While this may be true of a handful of haphazardly put together call centers, it is not so for a professional answering service. A professional answering service takes a great deal of pride in the service they offer. They expertly train a team of operators for every client after collecting all pertinent information. In a sense, you train the team vicariously through their team leaders. A professional answering service will set up a consultation and meet with you to determine your specific wants and needs.

Employing a business telephone answering service is a great way to streamline your business while cutting costs. You’re still keeping people employed; just as a third party service instead of in house. There are many professional, reputable answering services operating in the United States. The assumption that using answering services (or outsourcing) means you’re exporting jobs or denying Americans work is a huge inaccuracy.

Kris Leeds is a freelance writer for Anser Services, a leading provider of answering service for business. For more information on business telephone answering service, please visit us at Anser.com.