In a tough economy, call center outsourcing is gaining popularity. While a variety of options are available, outsourcing calls to a live answering service is one way to enhance your service deliverables.

According to industry research, consumers still prefer a live answering service when calling a company. No matter the size of the organization, people still want to talk to people. If you are seeking ways to implement such a service in your business, it is important to understand what you need and how to proceed in making the right selection.

A recent Vendorseek.com article: "Dial Up Customer Satisfaction: Use a Live Answering Service to Gain a Competitive Advantage", demonstrates that selecting the right live answering service does not have to be a complicated task and can deliver significant benefits.

What You Should Expect
Sure, you should expect that a live answering service offers a live operator. But, there is really more to this function than just greeting and transferring callers or taking messages. Many services also allow client companies to forward existing numbers; offer national toll-free and local numbers; provide vanity numbers; play custom on-hold messages or music; answer phones 24x7 or at specified times; enter caller information into systems; or place orders for callers.

A Testing Ground
A live answering service can also enable a company to implement additional marketing tools that allow for testing of advertising messages and media. A print ad may offer a different phone number for each publication in which it is featured. The number is then captured when a caller responds to measure the effectiveness of each publication. The same can be implemented for different types of advertising through different channels.

Standard Reporting
The client can direct how live calls into the answering service should be handled. Attendants not only provide information, they also capture leads, sales orders, route calls to extensions or forward to mobile phones. In each of these activities, there is an opportunity to capture the action and the reason for the action to generate a report and deliver back to the client.

How You Benefit
A live answering service gives a human voice to your company as people do business with people, not companies; it is generally less expensive than a dedicated receptionist; it provides assurance to callers that the business is legitimate; it enhances the perception of the size of your company; it keeps customers out of complicated phone trees; and it serves callers in a moment when they are most primed to take action.

How to Pick
Just like any technology implementation, you need to do a full needs assessment internally before even looking at available options. Once that is complete, short-list those services that meet all of your requirements. Ask for references from those providers and then actually call those references to gauge how the service performs in the real world.

Maximize Your Investment
Once you have selected the right answering service to fit your needs, be sure the scripts you provide are short, positive and unambiguous. The time spent developing the proper scripts for each time of call will pay significant dividends in customer satisfaction and cost.

For help with making the right choice when it comes to call center outsourcing, VendorSeek.com offers a business-to-business match-making service that connects business purchasers with pre-qualified vendors by matching the dynamics of the purchaser's needs and the specific nature of the services that the seller provides.