Small businesses need to cut costs where ever they can, but the simple fact is that many small businesses will need an answering service of some kind. If you are in the service industry for instance, such as plumbing or heating, then you need to provide the ability for your customers to reach a live person 24 hours a day in the case of emergencies. The inability to respond to those emergencies will mean losing customers and Revenue.

Use an Automated Upfront Greeting With Your Answering Service

One way to provide 24 hour a day service and still save money is to use an automated upfront greeting as a part of your answering service. This greeting will play afterhours but will also give your customers the opportunity to stay on the line or to push a particular button if they have an emergency. This action will transfer them to a live operator that will assess the situation and contact whoever is on-call for further action.