Your company is staffed with talented, dedicated workers, but they get caught up in so much day-to-day minutia that it is difficult to get the most out of them. Sound familiar? For most companies, the problem is too well-known. The question becomes one of maximizing employees? time spent on more productive activities.

Some of the most common time-consuming tasks for employees, especially of small businesses, are handling incoming phone calls and voice and e-mail messages.

Companies which want to keep all incoming calls in-house must contemplate the troubles that occur when their employees have to listen to the previous night's messages in the morning. This cuts into employee productivity and callers are not as likely to leave ample information or explain their needs as fully as they would with a live person. Of course, that presupposes callers leave messages when they are prompted to do so. However, one-third of callers to your business will not leave a message if they are sent to voice mail or an answering machine. Even worse is the practice of instructing after-hours callers to call again during normal business hours. If one third of callers hang up at the prospect of a voice mail, how many callers told to call back during business hours ever dial your number again? I would call another business that was capable of handling my request right then.

Nothing is more of a turnoff to callers than when they are made to leave a message that they were not prepared to leave, informed to call back during regular hours or told to dial another number. With an operator answering service, however, they will feel their call is important and an accurate message will be left.

Aligning your company with a nationwide answering service is the solution. Clients expect to speak with a person no matter when they call, and anticipate a timely response to phone messages. A qualified operator answering service provides a live operator that will treat callers like he or she worked directly for your company. This way, your employees will receive precise, easy-to-read messages delivered to them in a timely manner. The messages your staff now obtains will be typed and more convenient to handle than imperfect voice messages callers submit. This means employees can get straight to work, rather than spending valuable time collecting and deciphering messages or returning voicemails to get more information from the caller.

Additionally, many call centers now offer e-mail read and respond services. This is one of the most important new offerings available to organizations. Imagine your employees simply forwarding standard e-mails to your answering service, where a trained agent can read the e-mail and respond according to specific directions. Depending on protocol, the answering service can then handle sending an e-mail reply, dispatching service personnel, mailing literature or alerting someone within your organization.

Imagine your best and brightest employees freed up to work on more pressing matters after simply forwarding routine e-mails to your service. Not only does this keep your employees focused on profitable activities, anyone who e-mails your company is guaranteed a prompt response.