Product category:
Finance and Innovation Support
News Release from: Answerlink | Subject: Callcentre
Edited by the Processingtalk Editorial
Team on 24 January 2007
Building a business? Leave the phone
alone!
For a one man business, handling telephone calls is fine when you are at your desk, but what happens when you are temporarily away from the office, on site or in a meeting?
Starting a new business is difficult No matter what anyone says, wrestling with marketing, health and safety, employment legislation and all the rest can test the heart and the patience of anyone trying to build something from scratch
This article was originally published on Processingtalk on 28 Feb 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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All this, of course, whilst trying to make a living at whatever it is you do best.
It's hard! Many small business owners suffer from a fundamental dilemma: they can't work while they promote their business - if they don't promote their business they run out of work.
When they grow big enough to employ sales staff, the problem goes away but the early days are very tough.
Some never make it past the early days.
One problem, for some businesses, is how to handle the telephone calls.
It's fine if you work from an office with the telephone at hand, but what happens when you are away from the office, on an overseas trip, on holiday or in a meeting? You can't always be a slave to the mobile.
If you are, you'll never get anything done.
And what happens if you work with your hands? A mobile might be impractical.
What's more, many of the phone calls you do take, those that disturb your meeting or interrupt your journey, are from people you don't want to talk to anyway.
The answer, even for new businesses without cash to burn, might be to use the services of a call centre.
Jody Harkness is the Manager at Answerlink in Bedford, a call centre that specialises in providing back-up services for small and medium-sized companies.
"If you choose the right type of call centre they don't cost a fortune," she explained: "Just 50p a message is about right.
You can turn them on whenever you like and back off again when you want to handle your own calls.
A good call centre, properly briefed, will release you from being a slave of the telephone, give your business a professional image, and allow you the time you need to do the things that really matter".
Yes, building a new business is hard work.
But there's no need to make it any harder than it needs to be.
For a few pounds every month you can employ a call centre so that you never miss an important call, yet are never disturbed by those that don't help your business to grow.
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