Good communication is a fundamental aspect of any business-customer relationship. Good communication builds trust and customers who trust a company are 52% more likely to return after having an enjoyable experience. So, if business is booming and your phone is ringing off the hook, congratulations! You’re obviously doing something right.

However, with an increased call volume, it’s often difficult to maintain the same high quality care and service to your customers as you did before. Unfortunately, what’s sacrificed more often than not is how and when incoming phone calls are handled. The hold button can be a lifesaver at times, but if it’s used to often and for too long, you could be damaging your business’s reputation without knowing it. Over one-third of callers hang up annoyed and never call back if their hold time reaches two minutes and that’s a lot of missed opportunities that could have been positive experiences.

Outsourcing your calls is one way to ensure your customer service quality remains consistent during periods of business growth and development. It also allows you and your team to focus on more intricate and profitable aspects of your business, like strategizing a new sales approach or serving your customers in-person.

If you’ve decided that outsourcing your calls will benefit your company, you might have already done a little research and even asked around to find out what services other business are using. If you haven’t, you’ll quickly find that there are numerous answering service options out there offering many different packages. So, the real question is, how do you know which one to choose?

• Automated or live operators?
• National or local?
• Fixed rate or flexible pricing?

In this five-point checklist, we’ll answer these questions and explore the most important qualities every answering service should have to help you narrow down your options and decide which answering service is right for you.

Click here to download our checklist for free!