Can Competitors Help Business?

Competition exists in every business, no matter what industry you are in. This fact may make you feel uncomfortable but believe it or not, having competitors can actually help you grow as a business owner.

Here are some five reasons competitors can actually help your business:

1. It motivates you to innovate.
   It’s too easy to be complacent if you’re the only player in the field. Hence, being in a healthy competition is a good thing. It motivates you to constantly seek improvement and/or change – be it in your product design or customer service.

2. It develops awareness.
   Your competitors will force you to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses both in your business and in you as a person. This is actually a good thing as it helps you come up with a unique value proposition to your customers.

3. It fosters learning.
   In studying your competitors’ strategies, you’ll learn a thing or two in running a business in your industry. It may be different from what you’re doing in your business but looking into them can help you come up with ways to better serve your clients.

4. It forces you to narrow down your niche.
   Being in a competition will make you realize that there’s always someone who is better than you at something. And that is a good thing. You can use that fact in running a business, to come up with strategies to serve better a smaller segment of your overall market.

5. It makes you plan for long-term.
   Without competitors, it would be harder to have that drive to have a long-term plan for your business. Being in a competition constantly challenges you to do more and better things.

Customer Service Skills Every Agent Should Have

Call center agents have invaluable roles in businesses that they work with. They are the frontlines of customer service, doing the challenging role of pleasing customers and finding solutions to their problems. To deliver exemplary customer service, every agent should work on these skills:

• Communication
  Gone are the days when conversations are solely restricted to the script being provided. Most call centers these days are giving their agents more flexibility when it comes to customer interaction. However, this comes with an added responsibility – to make sure that every conversation is relevant. This simply means not overdoing the small talk and learning to ask the right questions.

• Patience
  Being a call center agent is not easy especially when you’re dealing with irate customers. It takes a lot of patience to deal with upset customers without losing your cool.

• Empathy
  Considered as one of the most important skills in customer service, empathy is about learning to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. An agent who masters this skill will acknowledge the customer’s concerns (no matter what it is) and offering solutions instead of bombarding him/her with marketing messages.

• Listening
  To be an effective call center agent, you need to develop an active listening skill. When you develop this skill, you listen first before you talk. This isn’t an easy skill to master but it’ll definitely make a difference in customer experience.

• Willingness to go an extra mile
  This skill is what turns good customer experience to exemplary. This what delights customers and earn loyalty on the brand/company. Going an extra mile can be through directing customers to a different department for better service,  offering vouchers for an issue, or simply asking the right questions and providing solutions in a timely manner.

How a Medical Answering Service Can Benefit Your Practice

Many of us used to believe that the doctor-patient relationship is only fostered within business hours. However, through the years we realize that it’s not always the case. Most doctor-patient relationships are built over time, often outside the normal business hours.

How a Medical Answering Service Can Benefit Your Practice

Compared to other industries, healthcare can be quite challenging especially that you don’t really know when emergencies happen. And it is in these situations when your patients need you most.

Patient calls can easily eat up your time. If you don’t have an effective system to handle these, you may miss plenty of opportunities for actual patient care.

If you don’t want to miss your patients’ calls and at the same time, don’t want to compromise your productivity, then a medical answering service may help you.

Here are some benefits of a medical answering service:

• Every patient call is answered promptly and professionally.

Unless you’re willing to shell out over $30,000+ in employee salary and benefits, the options you have for making this happen are answer the calls yourself or hire the services of a medical answering service.

With a live medical answering service, you will no longer be missing even a single call from your patients. Whether it’s for scheduling appointments, a medical complaint, or a call for a medical emergency, someone will be handling and directing the most important (i.e. emergency cases) calls to you.

• You can have more time to do your practice.

With a medical answering service, you will find yourself having more time to actually do your practice.

The people who will take your patients’ calls are well-trained to do the job. They will take your patients’ calls even if it’s beyond your clinic hours. They’re available 24/7 even during holidays.

• It helps you save money.

Unlike hiring a full-time receptionist, a medical answering service doesn’t cost that much. You only have to pay for call time, which means only the time when the agents are on the phone with your callers.

If you’re tired of doing things on your own and if you want to improve patient care, a medical answering service can help you.

Take Your Small Business to the Next Level

There are thousands of businesses being built each day but only a handful actually succeed. Why? Because only a few businesses fully recognize the reality that they just can’t do it all.

Delegation is one essential key to succeeding in any venture. Even if your business is still a startup, there are things you can outsource so you can focus on other areas of your business. These areas include phone calls and customer service.

How a Call Center Can Help

Call centers are often viewed as a place where customers vent about the dissatisfaction. But did you know that they can do more than just customer service?

A lot of call centers these days are catering to more than just customer service. At Contact One they can schedule appointments, direct important calls, take orders, etc.

If you’re thinking of growing your business, outsourcing your business calls is one of the best things you can do. Here are some of the reasons why:

• Free up your time.

How many hours do you spend in taking your clients’ calls? One, two, or four hours?

Your time is precious and by outsourcing, you can allocate these hours to marketing or other areas of your business.

• They help build brand awareness and rapport.

Having a dedicated team who will take your clients’ calls creates a positive brand image.

Customers usually have better and more positive perception of companies that takes their calls promptly, even if they don’t have the perfect solution for them.

Call center agents are trained to take clients’ calls professionally. And they can do it even beyond your normal business hours.

• They can handle higher call volume.

If you hire the services of a reliable call center, you will be assured that calls are handled promptly and professionally even during your peak season/hours.

The ‘I can do it all’ is a myth. If calls are taking a huge chunk of your time and keeping you from growing your business, we can help.

Outsource Business Calls

Why outsource?

You may have heard of outsourcing, but aren’t sure if it’s the right move for your business. By outsourcing, you can make your business operations run more smoothly. It can have a significant impact on your productivity, efficiency, and consequently, on profit as well.

Other benefits of outsourcing include:

1. Customer satisfaction

Consistency is needed if you want to create a positive customer experience. This can be a challenge especially when you’re dealing with client calls at your peak times.

A reliable call center employs professionally-trained agents who take your client calls promptly. They represent your business professionally and get back to your customers when there’s a need to. This can create a positive experience for your clients. Satisfied customers are important in any industry.

2. Freeing up manpower

This is one of the best advantages of getting the services of a call center. Hiring help from a call center allows your employees to focus on their jobs without worrying about answering phones.

When you have a dedicated team to handle your business calls, your employees can take on more important tasks of your business.

3. Global reach

If you are planning to reach a wider audience, getting the services of a call center with bi-lingual agents is the way to go. Studies show that customers had better and more positive experience when they are able to work with agents who can speak their language.

Getting the services of a call center that provides multi-lingual call agents saves you the time of finding bi-lingual employees on your own. They can provide you with the right person for the job!

Outsourcing your business calls will help you attain the work-life balance you’ve been aspiring for. It brings a more positive experience to your customers without compromising your productivity and company resources.

If you are looking for a reliable 24/7 answering service, we can help.

Why a HIPAA Compliant Answering Service is Important

As your practice grows, you may realize that there is a need to outsource some of your routine tasks in order to be more productive and efficient at work.

Phone call management is one of the most commonly outsourced tasks in the healthcare industry. As you may know, handling phone calls in your field is not the same as with other industries.

First, you are dealing with calls from patients whose information must be securely protected at all times. Second, these calls have to be handled by a well-trained person who is familiar with the urgency of the medical field. So, when looking for a medical answering service, it’s important to find one that is HIPAA compliant.

What is HIPAA?

HIPAA or Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is a law that aims to protect the privacy of patient information. It establishes national standards for processing electronic healthcare transactions and requires healthcare organizations to implement these.

Why opt for HIPAA-compliant?

Non-compliant of HIPAA regulations can cause hefty fines on both the medical institutions and the medical answering service company. HIPAA violations can cost thousands of dollars and put your company and your employees in a bad position.

When you hire an answering service that is HIPAA-compliant, you are not just making a huge step in preventing these hefty penalties; you are also giving your patients peace of mind, knowing that you, their trusted healthcare provider, is doing all they can to properly protect their information.