Demise Of The Machines: Why Using An Answering Service Keeps Your Patients Happier

By Author: K. Leeds
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Why a phone answering service?

A phone answering service for small business is vital to any medical office, regardless of size. In a chaotic, fast-paced world where people are relying on your expertise as a medical practitioner, having a phone answering service available on demand for sorting and prioritizing calls, forwarding those calls to the appropriate people, and reliably documenting information on a consistent basis is fundamental. This is what phone answering services for small businesses do. Just as your profession is healing the sick, phone answering services have honed the profession of organizing and dealing with the massive quantities of information that come in from the public at large. Rather than leave an answering machine on with your emergency contact number, you can leave your emergency contact number with a phone answering service so that after office hours, your patients can talk to a real live person, establish whether they actually have an emergency or not, then pursue the appropriate course of action. The phone answering service can forward the call to you, forward it ...
... to the appropriate entity (911, or an analogous service), or simply take a message.



Phone answering services versus answering machines:

Machines are functional, but static. A phone answering service for small business is more functional, and dynamic. While a machine can record a caller’s voice, and the information that caller provides, a phone answering service (being staffed with live people) can make vital and necessary inquiries, take down information, provide answers for general inquiries, direct calls to the appropriate entities, and even potentially calm down a distraught or irate caller. Answering services are professionally trained to deal with people. Machines are not, and occasionally, calling your doctor for help and being received by a machine can exponentially worsen the patient’s state of mind. If a patient calls your office after hours in a worried state, and gets a machine, that patient can go from worry to panic very quickly simply by not being able to reach a live person. They may become distraught, and leave an unintelligible message. That same patient reaching an answering service or inbound call center can potentially be calmed down by being able to reach a live person, who is able to listen to their concern, and direct it appropriately.

Is an answering service the same as hiring a receptionist?

An answering service is better than a receptionist. A receptionist is available during a set number of hours per day, and requires scheduling, days off, income taxes, benefits, and will cost you as a business owner an average of fifty thousand dollars per annum. A phone answering service will cost you a fraction of that, with none of the headaches brought on by piles of paperwork, and is available to you twenty four hours a day, three hundred sixty five days per year, for a nominal fee.

Due diligence:

It is important to remember that not all answering services are the same. There are varying types of phone answering services for small business, from single, virtual receptionists, who remotely provide the answering service, to full-fledged inbound call centers. As with anything, do your research. Investigate all your options, and choose the phone answering service that best fits your needs. Many providers of answering services have a core staff of receptionists for general purposes, as well as receptionists trained in specific fields such as: legal, medical, and business. Reputable phone answering services are aware that though nuanced, there are many variances in different fields, and will be able to match you up with the best phone answering service to fit your small business.



K. Leeds is a freelance writer for Alert Communications, a leading provider of business answering service, inbound call center services, answering services and call center services. Learn more about virtual answering service at Alertcommunications.com.