Despite what they always said about Johnny-Five—no, he wasn’t really alive.  Machines are not alive!  Herein lies the flaw of the answering machine (aka the voice mail service).  It is impersonal.  It makes a new customer feel three feet-tall.  After all, what does it say to a person to hear, “We’re sorry…due to so many new people calling us we are unwilling to answer the phone right now.”  If you had that attitude in dating, you might not get very far in the game of life!  Now enter the option a live answering service.

This system works because in order to sell your services and products you need to connect with your audience.  You need to let them see the real side of you, the human side.  It makes buyers feel better about their purchases and about the dealer or merchant they use.  When customers are happy, they come back for additional services.  They refer friends and acquaintances.  When they are unhappy, you will probably never know—because they never come back!

A live answering service provides this human interaction.  It lets your callers converse with someone while you take care of other business.  It’s not very reasonable to say, “I personally am available 24-7.”  Yet, that is what some merchants do, and unfortunately for them, they get calls at 3 AM in the morning that they have to take.  A live answering service gives your customers that much needed human voice, an actual person that responds to important phone calls.  At the same time, this telecommuting technology gives you a much needed rest.  

You can get your new messages instantly via text messaging, voice mail, email, pager or phone.  Your customer will probably never realize that you have “outsourced” your calls.  For all they know, you have someone working in the office all day long.  What matters is that you made the personal connection.  This is what a live answering service offers today’s entrepreneur.