Appointment scheduling and live answering

An answering service, like Zipcom.ai, can offer your business appointment scheduling. In doing so, our appointment scheduling services can take over call handling and schedule client appointments, conduct follow-ups, and even send out SMS reminders to clients. This frees your staff from regular call handling duties to focus on their specific job duties without having to worry about interrupting work to pick up the phone or book a consultation. Zipcom.ai’s virtual receptionists can even integrate with your calendar to accommodate your team’s busy schedule and allow for stress-free client interactions. Your team will be able to spend their time on important work and rest easy knowing clients are being well taken care of. With appointment scheduling services, your business can exude professionalism at all times and grow more successful by the hour.

By enabling appointment scheduling through an answering service, your business can:

• Minimize distractions & protect team’s time : Hand over the scheduling process to our virtual receptionist. With appointments being scheduled and follow-ups being conducted, your team will be able to focus on more important tasks and still provide clients with personalized accommodations.
• Reduce call handling times : Call handling and appointment scheduling services allow phone calls to be picked up immediately so callers won’t hang up, go unanswered, or be stuck waiting on hold. Workers can also be able to dedicate specific periods of time to book appointments, which leads to quicker response times.
• Improve productivity : Appointment scheduling services allow your staff the freedom to decide when they’re available to take appointments or call-backs, allowing for more work to get done and more sales to be made in less time.
• Boost client satisfaction & business reputation : With call handling and appointment scheduling services, your client will be immediately answered and their appointment immediately scheduled, displaying the illusion of a larger business. With callers feeling valued, your business will exude professionalism and your company’s reputation will be stronger than ever.
• Enhance lead conversions : By appointments scheduled at their discretion, your staff will have a clear daily schedule, allowing for clients to be given the full attention they deserve during appointment and enabling your team to convert leads at a faster rate.

A great appointment scheduling service can make all the difference for your business. It’s important for businesses to have control over their day to day tasks and not be constantly interrupted by random phone calls. Zipcom.ai can provide a professional frontline so that your clients will be properly cared for and your team will have more time to get their specialized work done. We are your phone call guardians and can deliver exceptional service so that even if you aren’t able to answer, callers can still have a great experience with your business and not your voicemail box, thanks to Zipcom.ai’s answering service.

Appointment scheduling is invaluable to your business’s success. Without having to deal with managing appointments, sending out reminders, or conducting follow-ups, you can improve your team’s responsiveness and productivity and put your business well ahead of your competitors. Whether your business needs appointment scheduling assistance, customer service support, or just help off-setting workload pressure on your team, an appointment scheduling service can transform your business into the best version of itself. We integrate with the top appointment scheduling software including Acuity, Calendly, and more!

As far as appointment scheduling is concerned, call centers and in-house staff can’t perform as well as an answering service. While they may be able to answer calls more frequently and consistently than employees with other duties, call centers and in-house receptionists tend to deliver sub-par quality in appointment scheduling.

Scheduling appointments and conducting follow-ups isn’t rocket science, yet still call centers and in-house staff often fail to perform in a manner that prioritizes your teams’ time and your callers’ satisfaction. Call centers and in-house staff are often unable to integrate with your team’s calendar or CRM, are unequipped to answer common questions callers have, and come with excessive background noise as well as basic call handling, leaving callers understandably annoyed.

Answering services like Zipcom.ai offer thoughtful accommodations, like scheduled call-backs to adhere to your team’s schedule. We even offer options such as our bilingual answering service so your callers can speak in the language they prefer. By paying attention to the details, Zipcom.ai’s answering service can relieve your busy team of call handling pressures, provide your callers with outstanding customer service, and help your business thrive. Hiring a call center or an in-house staff rather than outsourcing appointment scheduling to an answering service may risk your reputation, your productivity, and your customer satisfaction.

If you’re a small business owner, this rings especially true for you. Over 80% of consumers prefer to talk to a real person over the phone yet call center agents and in-house staff can sound rehearsed, impersonal, and unsettling. This can destroy any initial impression a caller may have and erode any trust they may have in your business, which is critical to establish in the initial conversation with a caller.

It’s well known that call centers customarily:

• Engage in poor phone etiquette
• Leave callers on hold for extended periods of time
• Fail to check your teams’ availability before scheduling appointments
• Have trouble integrating with your team’s calendar
• Are unable to conduct follow-ups or send out reminders
• Fail to set adequate expectations for callers

With over 82% of customers wanting their issues resolved quickly , call centers fall short of providing satisfactory service to callers. Incoming calls answered by call center agents take anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes , whereas calls answered by an answering service usually only take anywhere from 1 to 2 minutes. And with only 44% of callers reporting call centers to be helpful compared to nearly 76% of callers reporting non-call centers, like answering service, to be helpful, it’s clear to see that hiring a call center will result in longer call times and unsatisfactory customer service.

In-house staff also regularly:

• Come unequipped to address customer service concerns
• Have limited phone coverage availability
• Fail to consider your team’s availability
• Cost companies more than they bring in
• Staff phone lines instead of manning tasks where they can provide more value
• Have little to no ability to foster leads to successfully schedule consultations

Even with a full-time in-house receptionist, over 62% of calls go to voicemail or are left unanswered . Despite being their sole purpose, in-house staff still fail to answer phone calls, which can cost your business potential customers, as up to 50% of sales go to businesses that answer first . With many in-house staff having limited customer service knowledge, current clients are lost as well since over 71% of clients will end a business relationship due to poor phone etiquette. Hiring an in-house staff to answer calls and schedule appointments is arguably counterintuitive to your business’s success.

All of these common issues with call centers and in-house staff can lead to clients hanging up the phone and potential prospects taking their business elsewhere, resulting in your company losing leads, customer loyalty, money, and time. By hiring an answering service, such as Zipcom.ai, instead, your staff can avoid losing out on clients by having a knowledgeable and friendly virtual receptionist available around the clock to answer clients’ questions, conduct follow-ups, and schedule appointments.

If that isn’t enough, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that on average, answering services cost only about 20% of what an in-house staff or call center costs despite offering more features and better quality services.

As a matter of fact, Zipcom.ai’s virtual receptionists can:

• Make sure your team is available prior to scheduling appointments
• Integrate with your team’s calendar and CRM
• Foster leads with personal and friendly customer service
• Successfully book consultations with leads on the first call
• Conduct follow-ups and send out reminders to clients
• Prepare leads with information that allows for a smooth sales process

Outsourcing appointment scheduling to an answering service like Zipcom.ai instead of a call center or in-house staff can save your business from overextended budgets, embarrassing client interactions, missed lead-capturing opportunities, and frustrating workplace complications. Rather than risk your revenue and client relationships on inexperienced or ineffective call center agents or in-house staff, rely on Zipcom.ai’s reliable service to nurture callers, schedule appointments, and take the pressure off of your busy staff.

Cost is an important factor when deciding whether your business should sign up for an answering service or not. Many answering services often hide their true prices to trick you into signing up. Luckily, Zipcom.ai’s pricing is always clearly advertised upfront so that determining the cost for appointment scheduling can be simple and painless.

When signing up for Zipcom.ai, there are:

You shouldn’t have to go bankrupt to receive high-quality services that can set your business apart from the others. With Zipcom.ai, you’ll never be charged with random, unrecognizable, or hidden fees or stuck paying for something you didn’t sign up for. You can rest easy knowing what you see is always going to be exactly what you get.

Even better – Zipcom.ai’s appointment scheduling, among other features, are incredibly affordable. Monthly plans start at as little as $285/month or, if you prefer, you can create a customized plan that fits your business needs. No matter which plan you choose, you’ll never have to spend more than you should, since Zipcom.ai’s virtual receptionist pricing follows a per-call rather than per-minute pricing model. That way, you don’t have to pay for someone to sit around while your phone isn’t ringing as you would with an in-house staff member. You only ever pay for the plan you sign up for – nothing more.

To save you even more money, Zipcom.ai offers 10% off when you pay upfront annually. You’ll be able to save money and receive the exact same services as you normally would on a monthly payment plan. It’s a win-win.

If your business might benefit from bundling call handling with live website or text message answering, Zipcom.ai also offers a 5% bundled discount for receptionist and chat services. This’ll put money back in your pocket and give your business the opportunity to take advantage of unique services other answering services don’t offer, granting your business a leg up in your industry.

Whatever your business can afford, investing in an answering service that offers appointment scheduling will be well worth it. While other businesses may be stuck spending massive amounts of time and money on front desk support or call centers, you’ll be able to save both by utilizing an affordable and flexible service that provides you with scheduling how and when you want it. Customers will run to your business for your reliable customer service, quick answering, and well-prepared staff.

• Keeping a business up and running is no simple task. That’s why it’s easy to see how quickly businesses can run into problems they struggle to resolve themselves. Common problems that indicate your business may benefit from an appointment scheduling service are:

  My team can’t answer every call that comes in

  Clients don’t just call when your team is ready and available for them. For teams that already have enough on their plate, the amount of phone calls that need to be properly answered and appointments that need to be scheduled can be overwhelming to say the least. Answering calls consistently and providing reliable appointment scheduling is crucial for your business’s success, but team members might have to neglect more important work to do so, leaving your staff with a growing list of tasks they can’t seem to get done.

  I can’t afford to hire front desk support

  Front desk support, whether it’s in-house receptionists or call centers, can cost tens of thousands of dollars and with slimmer budgets set in place, business can often be left desperate for phone answering and appointment scheduling assistance. Paying more than you can afford for services you need can put your business in a dangerous position and trying out free services can be just as detrimental to a business as having nothing at all. Without call handling and appointment scheduling support in some way, shape, or form, your business can lose out on leads and dismantle client relationships. Businesses can benefit from utilizing a temporary answering service during the times they expect an uptick in call volume. 

  My leads aren’t converting from calls to clients

  When a business is unable to answer every call, leads can easily be missed. Teams often struggle to reconnect with leads who were left unanswered or didn’t respond to a call-back. Playing phone tag can be frustrating for staff that already have enough on their plate, but leads can be few and far between so capturing and converting every lead that comes in is vital for any business’s success. It is important that phone calls from leads are returned in a timely manner, which is why we also offer a call-back service to help drive more sales.

  Leads quickly lose interest in calling your business back after the first missed call and with inconsistent responses, they may feel less secure about entering into a relationship with your business, costing you not only your revenue, but your reputation as well. 

  Clients are frustrated with our slow response times

  The only way a business can succeed is when clients are happy so when clients inevitably have questions about their services or concerns about their products, businesses need to be prepared to answer them. Businesses often struggle to find the time to answer clients’ questions and schedule appointments in a quick and efficient manner. Whether staff members have limited availability and either can’t get to the phone in time or leave clients on hold, clients can get irritated and hang up, going to the next company they find in their search results.

  If your business is facing one or any of these challenges, an answering service that provides appointment scheduling can help you convert more leads and deliver excellent services to clients who call. An answering service, such as Zipcom.ai, can take the pressure off of your team and allow your business more flexibility in time and in budget without compromising your client relationships. Zipcom.ai’s virtual receptionists can assist your callers by scheduling them quickly and providing them with regular check-ins while helping your team convert more leads without the hassle of conducting follow-ups and sending out reminders themselves. Zipcom.ai’s answering service offers the fastest, easiest, and most affordable way to resolve your business’s issues and leave your callers with a smile on their face.

Businesses of every size can benefit from outsourcing call handling and enabling appointment scheduling, whether it helps to take the load off of a small, family owned business or to increase efficiency in a large corporation. For example:

For small businesses, appointment scheduling means a professional “big company” phone presence and not having to pick up every call

Small businesses are often up to their necks in tasks that need to be done. They don’t need to spend more of their restricted time scheduling appointments and conducting follow-ups or their narrow budget on hiring front desk support, which is why they can benefit from using appointment scheduling and answering service for small businesses. Appointment scheduling gives small businesses the opportunity to schedule appointments, send out reminders, and convert leads without any additional effort. This allows small businesses to maximize their productivity without sacrificing their much-needed time, money, or outreach towards current and potential clients. No more wasted days trying to balance important tasks with scheduling consultations.

With an endless amount of projects that need to be done, calls that come in to medium sized businesses are often left unanswered or mishandled, resulting in missed leads and frustrated clients. Balancing daily tasks with call handling and appointment scheduling is difficult for any company, let alone a company with limited staff, availability, and resources. Outsourcing call handling and permitting appointment scheduling enables medium sized businesses to place the responsibility of customer service and lead screening into the hands of a trustworthy agent so that their team can get back to running daily operations without worrying about neglecting callers.

For large businesses, appointment scheduling means personalized customer interactions and no team-led follow-ups need

Many larger businesses have staff that are far too busy to answer calls themselves. It can be tedious for sizable staff to focus on the smaller details, like providing personalized one-on-one customer service, when there are such vast operations to run. It’s also very costly to hire in-house staff and, for companies at the enterprise level, scaling at lower cost is a core objective. Appointment scheduling can make it easier for large businesses to function at a high volume without neglecting the details that can separate a good company from a great one. By allowing answering services like Zipcom.ai to answer calls, schedule appointments, and nurture leads for them, larger businesses no longer have to choose between interrupting work to answer calls or neglecting callers.

Having a well-informed team of virtual receptionists who are trained in customer service and who can represent your company when you’re busy can transform your business’s efficiency for the better, no matter what size your business is. Whether you want to improve your company’s customer service or increase your business’s lead conversion rate, an answering service that delivers appointment scheduling can help accomplish your company’s goals and get your team focused on their work once again.