Why Even Use A Live Answering Service In The First Place?
The world today is quintessentially a global village. Whether you are a native of the United States of America or of a small nation in Africa, you have the opportunity to connect with people all over the world, a result of advanced technology that enables social networking.
In such a scenario, even businesses have had to go global and expand their reach to countries other than their home base. One of the most difficult things about expanding the client base for a business is reaching out to them in their language. English might be a universal language for conducting business but there are still millions of people who do not speak English or even if they do, they prefer their native language.
Therefore, it is significantly important for a business to be able to interact with such prospective customers in their preferred language to convert them into long-term clients. If you are thinking that this would need extra staff on board and training them in another language, think again.
A bilingual answering service is an answer to the above problem. A bilingual virtual receptionist not only saves your cost by being on the job round-the-clock but also opens doors to new opportunities for you as the second language attracts a whole new base of customers.
If you are running a client servicing business or sell a product that has a wide reach, getting a bilingual service might be one of the best decisions you’ll take for your business.
Benefits of a Bilingual Answering Service
Good businesses become great by eliminating all barriers between them and their customers. They adapt to their customers’ requirement, rather than the other way around.
A bilingual virtual receptionist is a substantial part of this journey. Hiring an answering service that can communicate with your clients in their language can serve multiple purposes all culminating to one point – satisfied customers for long term.
Let’s talk about why you need a bilingual answering service for your business.
- According to the recent census by the United States Census Bureau, about 18.1% of the U.S population consists of Hispanics, which translated to over 57 million Spanish-speaking households. In fact, the U.S is the second largest Spanish-speaking region after Mexico. Following the Spanish are Chinese, French and more languages. With such a vast diversity in the population, it’s only wise for your business to be able to communicate in more than one language to connect with a larger base of prospective customers.
- When a customer calls your business, they expect to be understood completely and quickly. They might not always be fluent in English. Therefore, you need to have customer support that makes sure your customers are treated in the most convenient way for them. A bilingual answering service enables you to solve a non-native English speaker’s problems with a lot more ease, at the same time providing them with a stellar customer service experience.
- Needless to say, a second language addition will open up considerably more opportunities for you to grow your business globally. The investment you make in a bilingual answering service can be easily recovered by the more clients you’ll onboard due to the service.
- Getting a bilingual virtual receptionist is far more convenient and flexible than hiring more staff to take the inbound calls. You don’t need to spend time on training the new members nor do you have to worry about them taking leaves on important days. A virtual receptionist is reliable and works round the clock.
- A bilingual answering service is more cost-effective than hiring in-house resources for the job. The virtual receptionist is available to answer the calls 24 x 7, which if you decide to do manually, you’ll need to recruit multiple people for day shifts as well as night shifts.
- Outsourcing the job of answering inbound calls from multiple locations leaves you and your staff to focus on more revenue generating tasks, increasing the overall efficiency and leading to a growth of your business.
- You don’t need to invest in new equipment or any new technology. The company you outsource to, like PATLive, takes care of everything from training their resources to effectively running your virtual call center.
Average Cost of a Good Bilingual Call Service
When you hire a good, reputed bilingual call service, you are not just getting a virtual call responder, but a full-fledged receptionist that does everything from taking the inbound calls, scheduling appointments, does data entry no matter what time of the day it is.
A good bilingual answering service can set you back on an average by $150-$300 a month, depending on the plan you take. The cost can go up to a $1,000 if you decide to go completely pro.
For instance, a leading provider of answering services, PATLive.com, offers a starter plan at $149 and the highest priced plan offered by the service provider is its Pro+ package which costs $999 a month. The Pro+ plan offers an incredible deal of 15 phone numbers, online reporting, message taking, scheduling appointments, lead collection, order processing and a lot more features.
For a basic bilingual call service, you get a virtual receptionist that answers your inbound calls, takes messages and collects leads as well.
Some service providers also offer a free trial period before buying their services which can give you a fair idea about how the entire process works and what’s being offered by the service provider in the package.
Will a Bilingual Receptionist Make You More Money Than the Service Costs in Your Particular Business?
A bilingual answering service is a wise investment for all types of businesses. Whether you are running a legal business, a medical clinic, a manufacturing enterprise, an e-commerce store… the types are unlimited.
The extent with which communities are integrated today has widened the scope of business transactions in a larger expanse. Also, other than English, languages like Mandarin, French, Spanish, German are also becoming truly global, finding their way in the business world rapidly as more and more people native to these regions leave their home ground.
This affects directly the profitability of your business. One missed call or a misinterpreted call from a non-English speaker customer could translate to a big loss in revenue for your business. Speaking the language of your customer should be of utmost importance to be able to service his needs.
An answering service will cost you a lot lesser than what one missed opportunity can cost your business. A 24 x 7 bilingual receptionist to take your business calls is only going to ensure you never miss any such opportunities.
What Does a Good Bilingual Call Service Offer?
A good bilingual answering service is your one-stop solution for everything you might need or want from a calling service. It’s a virtual call center without you having to invest in hiring multiple staff in-house and spend time and money in training them, offering them an annual compensation package with paid leaves, etc.
Here’s what to expect from a standard bilingual call service provider:
- 24×7 presence; the answering service should be able to respond to calls at any time of the day to cater to international customers.
- Lead collection to ensure that no business opportunity is missed.
- Keeping an online record of all calls with their summaries.
- Scheduling appointments with clients and vendors according to the daily tasks.
- Some answering services also take care of your orders, including processing and returns.
- Transfer the calls to you or your team members whenever required.
- Virtual receptionists that are trained to handle all your calls with an utmost professionalism and efficiency.
- Integration with other tools you use in your business administration like Google Calendar, Zoho, etc.
For instance, PATLive offers a multitude of features through its call answering service. It is a reputed and recommended bilingual answering service provider, with English and Spanish as its languages. The service provider has over 150 trained, professional U.S agents that work as your virtual receptionists 24×7. The agents follow a customized script while talking to the prospective clients on call which is provided by your business. Here are some of the features that PATLive offers as a bilingual call service provider:
- 24×7 and after hours call support so that your callers never have to go to voicemail.
- Integration with all your daily administrative tools for a convenient processing of information.
- Processing orders on your behalf.
- Taking messages in general and scheduling appointments.
- Spearheading the administration for any event you might be holding, from registrations to potential leads.
- Their software automatically forwards calls to other agents in case your line is busy so that the callers do not have to wait.
Conclusion
If you’re still wondering how much having a bilingual answering service for you business will increase sales and improve customer satisfaction, take a look at these numbers. Free Business Thinking regularly post stats that nearly (HALF!) 47% of small businesses don’t answer the phone on the first call. (r) To make matters worse, the stats go down even further when a customer asks for a Spanish speaking sales rep, which is almost non existent in many local businesses today.
While running a business, it is critical to remember that everything you do reflects on your reputation, no matter which industry you belong to. When you show your customers that you are sensitive enough to make them comfortable by speaking their own language, it can do wonders for your word-of-mouth reputation.
Apart from the branding, having a bilingual answering service in place can be that link between your business and that big client. It can provide a significant exposure to your business and bring in a lot more revenue. Not to mention that it frees you up from the tedious task of answering calls yourself to focus on the tasks that require your attention.
While choosing your answering service provider, make sure to test them before hiring them. In cases of portals like PATLive, it becomes easier since it offers a 14-day trial period for you to judge the service.
Get a bilingual answering service for your business and let in more opportunities for a fraction of cost of an in-house receptionist!
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