Incoming telephone calls – curse and blessing at the same time
Anyone who is self-employed, whether as a freelancer or a trader, knows the phenomenon that the day simply has too few hours to do everything that needs to be done.
One possibility is to simply work longer hours or to make full use of the weekends. However, this increases the risk of overwork. Those who are overworked become ill more quickly. The danger increases of a longer absence up to several months of cures, in which the activity rests. This can mean the end of a freelancer’s career, since the carefully built customer base is migrating and most regular customers are orienting themselves towards the competition. If insurance coverage is poor, this is compounded by lost income and health care costs.
Another possibility is to simply switch off your telephone for a certain time of the day and redirect incoming calls to a mailbox, for example. However, this is unprofessional and will deter new customers (“I call all the time and nobody answers!”) or annoy regular customers in the long run.
Why you should outsource inbound telephony
In recent years, service providers have established themselves on the market who offer the acceptance and processing of incoming telephone calls as a service.
The advantages are obvious: you have one person who takes care of incoming calls. This is professional. However, you can also book this service flexibly. If you want to answer the phone yourself, you simply don’t book the service. A permanent assistant has to be paid, whether she works or not.
The telephone operator can pre-sort telephone calls. There is also an indisputable advantage in knowing who called to take the initiative. This is an invaluable advantage for sales calls, as you can prepare yourself and don’t get caught unexpectedly on the phone, between the door and the hinge and in the worst case a good deal is a mess.
Furthermore the employees of Telefon Service Dienstleister are excellently trained and polite. Many freelancers know this, one is called in the middle of an important job, perceives the caller as a troublemaker and lets him know it subliminally. This can also cause a business to burst or not even be initiated at all.
In any case, you should make sure that the telephone service provider does not have a call center atmosphere. The caller also notices this and may feel deterred by it. Especially when he expects to reach a sole proprietor, but has the feeling of calling a huge office center.
What such a telephone service offers can be seen on the website of a telephone service provider from Hannover.