The foundation of any successful business is great customer service, and that all begins with a ring of the telephone. No matter what anyone tells you or how advanced technology may get, there will never be a better way to interact with your customers than with an old-fashioned phone call.

Generally speaking, nobody has time to wait around by their phone all night for customers to call with questions. This is where a 24 hour live answering service comes in. All calls to your business will be professionally answered by waiting customer service representatives who can use the information you provide them to best serve the caller. Here are three reasons you should be considering a 24 hour live answering service for your business:

• The trust factor

  Trust is a crucial part of any seller/buyer relationship and it can only be built through sincere interpersonal communication. It’s no surprise that about 80% of people will immediately hang up on a business if they hear a voicemail. Heavily scripted calls are frowned upon as they can eliminate two elements essential to the customer service experience: empathy and emotion. Without these two important factors, your business is nothing more than another phone number in the yellow pages to a potential customer.

• Quick and easy resolutions

  The number one thing customers are looking for when they call a business is to have their problems resolved quickly. If you have an automated answering service that requires callers to press dozens of buttons, they’ll probably hang up before they ever get the answer they were looking for. A 24 hour live answering service gives you round-the-clock coverage for any and all inquiries that may come your way, and your callers will get the answers they need without becoming impatient.

• Where Are the Operators Based?

  You want to make sure that your calls will be handled by operators based in the U.S., not overseas. Language and cultural barriers often increase customer frustration.

• Get problems solved correctly the first time

  When you leave customer service in the hands of an automated robot, it’s truly a roll of the dice. You never really know what specific issues or concerns a person could be calling in with until you speak with them directly. By failing to have a 24 hour live answering service, you’re spending more time and money speaking with the customer a second time the following day as opposed to rectifying the situation during the initial call.

24 hour telephone answering services can revolutionize your company and put you head and shoulders above the competition. There is simply no replacement for talking with a real person, and there probably never will be.