When it comes to handling telephone calls from customers and clients, you have two main options. You can hire personnel to respond to calls in-house, or you can out-source the task to a professional call-handling service. There are a number of important differences between these two approaches and we earnestly believe that the second one is better for most small businesses and start-ups. However, you don’t need to take our word for it. We want you to be able to make an informed decision that will benefit your business in the long-term. That’s why we’ve dedicated this blog entry to discussing the main differences between in-house call handling and outsourced call-handling.

1. Experience

Hiring new personnel to take calls from your customers means that you’ll have to train them to handle calls properly. This might seem relatively straightforward, but it actually takes a lot of experience to handle a call in a way that is both professional and sensitive to a customer’s needs. In contrast, if you outsource to a call handling service, you can rest assured that the people taking your calls will already have years of relevant experience. Of course, hiring in-house personnel will allow them to build up experience that’s unique to your business so they can eventually become part of your team. However, your SME and start-up may not have the time or resources for this process, which is why it makes sense to outsource to a call-handling service, at least until your business has had time to grow.

2. Cost

Hiring personnel to handle calls in-house can be somewhat costly, particularly if they need to work full-time to field all your calls. After all, you have to pay their wages in their entirety. Because outsourced call-handling services have multiple clients and their own internal business models and payment systems, the cost to you is greatly reduced. Simply put, outsourcing to a call handling service can save you a lot of money.

3. Business-specific knowledge

It’s true that in-house personnel will have more knowledge that’s specific to your business than an outsourced service. However, there’s no need to worry that an outsourced service won’t have the information they need. It’s easy to provide your call handling service with the knowledge required to answer calls in an informed way.

As you can see, the benefits of outsourcing your call handling tasks are significant compared to those of hiring in-house personnel. Here at Front Line, we provide a top-rate telephone answering service to a wide range of business. Get in touch with us today for more information.