Telephone Answering Services in Charlotte: 6 Key Data Points

Telephone answering services play an important role for many small businesses in Charlotte, NC. After all, few small businesses have the personnel to make telephone reception a priority. Even fewer have the funds to hire a full-time or part-time receptionist.

Modern telephone answering companies offer a cost-effective alternative. By hiring a telephone answering service, small businesses in Charlotte can minimize workflow disruptions, increase time spent on earnings and growth, and improve their responsiveness to customers. Just as important, they can fit these services into their budget, even if they’re running a one-person organization.

Charlotte’s small businesses aren’t the only ones who’ve seized on the value of phone reception services. Telephone answering as a professional service is becoming more and more popular nationwide. Researchers have taken notice, too. Below, we’ve compiled the results of recent studies and reports that underscore the value delivered by live answering services.

How Telephone Answering Services Make a Difference in Charlotte

1. Receptionists Cost 10 to 20 Times More Than Remote Reception. Live answering plans offer huge savings over hiring a dedicated receptionist. In fact, the median monthly salary for a receptionist is more than you’d spend for a full year of high-quality remote receptionist services.
2. On Their Own, Small Businesses Struggle to Answer the Phone. Researchers have found that only 38% of calls to small businesses receive an answer. Live answering plans, on the other hand, ensure callers hear from a real person — not just your voicemail recording.
3. More Than 2 in 3 Callers Hang Up on Voicemail. Small business owners often overestimate the effectiveness of answering machines. Years ago, callers were eager to leave a message. That’s no longer the case. Today, nearly 70% of callers hang up before the beep.
4. Customers Prefer Live Agents, Dislike Virtual Receptionists. No matter how friendly your virtual receptionist sounds, most of your customers would prefer to speak with a real one. A 2016 study by HuffPost found that 90% of consumers prefer live agents, 7% have no preference, and only 3% prefer virtual reception.
5. Automated Answering Leads to Unhappy Customers. When HuffPost looked into the customer service performance of different phone systems, virtual receptionists underperformed even the lowest expectations. Only 10% of interactions with virtual reception resulted in a “satisfactory” customer experience.
6. Small Businesses Lose Half-a-Billion Every Year to Spam Numbers. Business numbers aren’t eligible for the Do Not Call registry. That’s a problem for small businesses without call screening measures in place. Experts estimate that spam callers cost these businesses $500 million each year in lost productivity.

Live Telephone Reception in Charlotte, NC

At Office Evolution® Charlotte (University Research Park), our own numbers confirm the value of telephone answering services. Professionals on our live answering plans typically save 2+ hours a week. Over the course of a year, that’s 100+ hours of additional productivity — time our clients redirect from phone reception duties toward activities that increase revenues and grow their business.

Telephone answering services from Office Evolution Charlotte (University Research Park) are available throughout the Charlotte area. We offer live answering for businesses in Charlotte, University, Mallard Creek, Concord, Concord Mills, Highland Creek, and Harrisburg, NC.

Call 877-475-6300 today for more information on our telephone answering services in Charlotte.