Let Your Answering Service Dispatch Calls for You to Save Time and Improve Results
Full-service answering services not only answer your phone and take messages, but they can also make calls as a result of those messages. This is dispatching. Dispatching allows your answering service to provide you with a higher level of service and streamline your operations as a result.
Consider these applications and their outcome. 
Enhance Customer Service
The most common form of dispatching is to contact the on-call person to address the caller’s need. This is a common scenario for doctors’ offices, veterinarians, and contractors, as well as many other industries and types of businesses.
In each case the process is the same. The answering service gathers information from the caller. Based on the situation, the answering service follows their client’s protocol and reaches the on-call person.
Some companies are large enough that they have a primary on-call and a backup on-call in case the primary is busy or unreachable. An alternate scenario is dividing on-call responsibilities along business lines or staff specialties.
Boost Sales
In similar fashion many companies prefer to dispatch a sales inquiry as opposed to let it wait for the office on the next business day. These businesses prefer to interact with prospects as soon as possible and thereby keep them from going to the competition. Common examples include attorney offices, real estate agents, and funeral homes. Yes, funeral homes. A call from someone looking to make arrangements for a family member is a sale worth $20,000 and even more. Though it seems odd to refer to this as a sales inquiry, in effect that’s what it is.
Speed Service Delivery
Sometimes dispatching isn’t to a client’s own staff, but to their vendors’. Two common examples are hospice and property management. For example, a property management company may receive a call from a tenant about a burst pipe. If they outsource plumbing work, instead of handling it in-house, they wouldn’t reach their own on-call person but the on-call person of their plumber. Though the property management company could make this call, they can also empower their answering service to reach the plumber on their behalf, according to their guidelines. The result is increased efficiency and faster problem resolution.
Dispatching is a critical element for outsource answering services. However, many clients don’t realize this. They view an answering service as a company that takes messages and not one that can make phone calls on their behalf. But when you understand that an answering service can place calls, too, it changes everything.
With offices across the United States and decades of experience, outsource answering service from Endicott Communications can help enhance your communication with your customers and callers. Click here to learn more.