Waiting on hold for your call to be answered is frustrating at the best of times, but chuck in a confusing tax system and demanding tax deadlines and callers can get more frustrated, more quickly.

According to the recent report, callers now have to wait THREE TIMES longer than usual to have their call answered. This can be highly irritating for the busy business person who wants to get their tax forms right, but cannot waste any more time on hold.

Gordon Young, the general manager of Katalyst at Datapoint for the survey, said, “What’s worrying here is that in the face of call-waiting times of up to four minutes, many callers have simply given up. If anything, through the mismanagement of its call centres, HMRC is actually demotivating people from paying their taxes properly. By any standards, these waiting times are unacceptable. A concerted effort will be needed to improve its call centres to ensure that information is as accessible as possible. Continually striving to do more with less – creating greater efficiency – is a basic practice in the private sector and one that public bodies are now having to learn during these more austere times…”

He went on to say, “It’s important that resources and staff are deployed efficiently and intelligently. Contact centres, which are often a customer’s first point of contact, play an integral role in this, but the fact is that most contact centres, and the staff that operate them, aren’t being managed as well as they should be. By deploying contact centre optimisation tools, managers are better able to control call and team distribution, monitor call traffic and ensure that operators are where they are most needed.”

Many companies with similar difficulties keeping customers satisfied on a call decide to outsource to well managed, professional telephone answering services in a call centre, like CallCare, who provide professional call handling services for one man businesses up to large national companies. With a well managed call centre, HMRC’s callers would not have to “find tax taxing!”

You may need a call centre outsourcing service if you:
• Find it hard to answer all calls
• Put calls on hold often
• Put calls through to voicemails often
• Forget to return messages
• Never get a message on time
• Call back to clients too late
• Are disorganised
• Have too much to do and answering calls disrupts your schedule

Call centre outsourcing can:
• Provide you with a stress free service for answering all your calls
• Conduct telemarketing on your behalf too
• Pass messages on in a timely way
• Pass coherent messages on through your choice of communication – text, email, etc.
• Provide virtual PA services so admin can also be conducted efficiently.

The benefits of a call centre are that not only do you receive a first class service which provides excellent customer service to your callers, but you also save time and money. Time and money is invaluable in this current business climate where there doesn’t seem to be a lot of it around! Any business, large or small, may benefit from call answering services through call centre outsourcing. Even freelancers who would from home may benefit from the professional image which call centre outsourcing can create – to make the business appear a lot larger and well established than it is.

The great thing about a call centre is that the package you receive is not fixed. It changes as your business needs develop, which can be often. This makes it very advantageous for all types of businesses across various industry sectors. One company said, “Outsourcing to a call centre was great – it saved me time from answering the phone all day and ensured I stayed more organised too. They have even helped me with my admin and website and set up a central booking system for me which has helped enormously with keeping track of orders!”

Companies should decide to plan for this eventuality and consider other options such as working at home for those people who will be disrupted by the traffic of the Summer months. This is a sensible option, as it means business can continue as smoothly as possible.

To help with the busy months surrounding the Olympics, businesses should now start considering the option to outsource call centres to manage their incoming calls. This means that wherever the staff happens to be and however busy it gets, operators will answer calls professionally and deal with enquiries, bookings or orders as required.

It is not just London that will be affected, as events will take place across the country. Our Manchester call centre can work with businesses who would like to invest in call centre outsourcing during the Olympics in anticipation of disruption, including staff holiday leave and absences.

By doing this, you can achieve and maintain excellent customer service for your customers which is all too important in this day and age, when no business opportunity or client can be ignored.

The statistics, released by the Office of National Statistics, show unemployment levels to be around the 1.027 million level.

It also shows the worrying fact that 1.1 million women are out of work and average earnings have only gone up by 1.8% since last year. Separate statistics show that public sector employment had dropped to its lowest level since 2003, falling to 5.987 million.

Graeme Leach, chief economist at the Institute of Directors, commented on the UK’s unemployment situation, “Young people are suffering the most, with more than one in five out of work…The ongoing failure to resolve the euro crisis is likely to mean that unemployment rises still further over the winter. Many businesses are still watching and waiting.”

Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said, “The millions of workers without jobs face a miserable Christmas and a bleak New Year…Instead of attacking pensions and employment rights and making it easier to sack people, the Government should be pursuing policies to create jobs, which is something it is failing to do.”

To tackle the issue of women not getting into work, the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) had called on the Government to improve childcare arrangements. It wants the Government to introduce universal childcare.

Nick Pearce, IPPR director, commented on this issue, “It is far better for our economy to have people in work and paying taxes than at home claiming benefits. Women will return to work if we can restart growth and give families access to free and high quality childcare.”

The conventional way that the majority of call centres London based companies achieve this would be to organise a sales campaign in an attempt to hit their sales targets.

A true customer service is measured in many extra ways. This would vary slightly between different companies offering this service but will more than likely include concentrating on precise target areas then putting all their focus on bringing that target group on board. This would also mean measuring for performance levels and allowing for constant interaction through varying media channels.

It may sound too good to be true but there are outsourced call centres out there that could supply this solution for you.

If your competitor uses the services of call centre A then it may not automatically fit into your work environment so you may need to use the services of call centre B. It is important to be clear as to what would work in your particular work environment as this is half the battle because no two call centres are the same.

‘To be clear’  is an easy statement to make but a little more difficult to put into practice so look at and identify those things that help you increase your productivity and those issues that impair your productivity.

What is sometimes seen as an irrelevant matter can be significant, such as the true cost of never reaching the correct party which is not often taken into account, but can be a considerable expense for you. When you calculate this cost then you are in a position to evaluate whether the services of a call centre is the ideal solution for your company to either reduce or eliminate that specific cost for you.

These are the types of cost issues that need to be analysed carefully and clearly, and will help when choosing the call centre partner that most fits to your company’s requirements to reducing cost and improving customer service levels.

In this modern age with the internet, more and more businesses are trading internationally. This means that they can do business with companies all across the world, with stronger communication channels and ease of travel this also encourages a healthy business.

However, it can be difficult in some cases to trade and do business with companies form different time zones. Sometimes, communicating via email is just not enough to secure a business deal, and talking in person face to face may prove costly. Therefore, the good old fashioned talking on the phone is something which many business managers like to do.

When trading with Canada, for instance, you know that when you go into work they are still in bed, and they don’t come to work until your working day is virtually finished. This can be disheartening, especially if you want to maintain strong relations with the oversees company.

Having a 24 hour telephone answering system may be an ideal solution. With a line open 24 hours a day, a call centre can take your calls at any time of the day or night and your oversees friend will welcome the friendly voice on the end of the phone, knowing that their message will be passed onto you or, if vitally important, the call operator can transfer the call to your mobile to interrupt your evening when out of the office. This means you get your important callers and will not miss out on business opportunities either. It also shows your oversees companies that you value their call, choosing to have it answered by an operator and not a cold answering machine where their message could be lost or unanswered for days.

A 24 hour telephone answering service wouldn’t just suit businesses needing to communicate between time zones. Many businesses that need to set up an emergency line will also find this beneficial, such as car or boiler repair hotlines which require immediate answering. Providing high levels of customer service helps to obtain and maintain custom for continued business success.

Make the most of all your business opportunities and never miss another sales lead by outsourcing to call centre services.  A call centre will be able to take all your business calls, leaving you to concentrate on your core business.

A call centre operates a 24 hour system and the fully trained operators will be on hand to answer all your telephone calls, take messages or transfer calls. Whatever service you require, a tailor made package can be arranged for you by your personal account Manager.

Telephone answering is such a basic customer service it’s usually the first point of contact for many customers. Some businesses have poor facilities that just are not able to handle large numbers of callers; with an office answering system in place you will never miss a call or potential customer again!

More and more companies are finding this is an extremely reliable and cost effective way of handling all your business calls.  Every call will be answered in a polite and professional manner by fully trained locally based staff, they will be available to answer your calls twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and, in the present economic climate, business companies cannot afford to miss any potential business by not being available to answer the phone.  Telephone answering is such a basic customer service after all!

Communicating with your customers is probably one of the most important areas of customer services, clients need to feel there is someone on the end of the line that will listen to them and answer any enquiries or queries they may have.

Customers like to speak to a real person, and have their enquiries, questions and queries answered straight away. By outsourcing to a call centre, all calls will be taken by real people immediately and no customer will have to leave a message on an automated telephone answering system.

This will promote a very professional image for your company and customers will feel happy with the service they have received which positively encourages them to return time after time.

Check out our London Call Centre page for more details about this service in the countries capital city.

Make the most of your business prospects and all your sales leads and allow an office answering service based in a call centre to supervise all your business calls.

By outsourcing to a telephone answering service, a specialised call centre will respond to all your business calls in an expert way, meaning you can focus all your resources on your business leaving you to concentrate on your core business.

The services provided by an office answering service are based on fully trained and friendly operators being able to take orders and bookings, answering your business enquiries or providing whatever service you require.

An additional more enhanced service, if needed, can be supplied with the operator being able to assist in a more in-depth technical knowledge for a more developed and professional service, or similarly redirect your call to someone in your business who would be more qualified in following it up. In truth an answering service can be customized to fit in with any of your requirements.

This can be on normal nine to five standard business hours basis or twenty four hour a day and, seven days a week, 365 days year basis depending on whatever you and your business needs. They will speak to a real person as there is plainly no way anyone can replace the comfort of hearing a real living person on the end of the line.

When you communicate with your customers, it is most probably one of the most important areas applicable to customer services as clients need to feel that there is someone on the end of the line that will listen to them, responding to any of their enquiries or queries.

Answering the telephone is a basic customer service and it is usually the first point of contact for many customers but some businesses have such poor facilities that they are just are not able to handle large numbers of callers; with an office answering system in place you will never need to miss a call or potential customer again!

Generally the services of a call centre will be able to handle the telephone calls of many different businesses, whether you are a one man operation moving up towards a medium sized business or even a large multinational company.

The call centres are based in the UK in various cities, call centres Manchester, call centres London, they  all provide many different services but their main service is answering you business telephone calls.

You might be finding you are having difficulty in answering all your business calls, you can’t be in the office 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so by outsourcing to a call centre it will mean you can focus your energy on your core business.

The call centre answering services provides a dedicated team that are based in large call centre offices. All of your business calls will be answered promptly by the friendly operators; they will answer in your company name and they will be fully briefed on you business so they will understand your company needs.

Each call will be answered by a real person; your calls will not be left for the answer phone to take, so your customers will be getting a first class service.

There might be times when your business needs change, so as your company changes you can change your requirements and you will have a dedicated account manager available to answer any questions about your service which can be amended as and when you require.

International business is becoming more popular as everyone now has access to the internet. A call centre works a 24 hour system; calls can be coming in from all different time zones. There will always be an operator ready to take their call; your company will never miss another business opportunity again.

More and more companies are finding that using the services of a call centre has become a necessity and has proven more cost effective than employing a receptionist or Personal Assistant (PA) with the extra salaries and extra equipment and office space needed.

Large multinational companies continuingly put a huge emphasis on improving their level of sales and after-care offered with their products and guarantees. There is a general responsibility undertaken to provide this sales assistance on a twenty four hours a day and seven day a week basis which is pretty demanding at the best of times.

By using a call centre based establishment you can offer this facility for your customers on an on-going basis. These call centres, if required, can provide a twenty four hour a day emergency hotline for those who need a direct and immediate response for all their queries, repairs or general maintenance requirements.

The 24/7 call centres are staffed by skilled and fully trained personnel who will take care of your customers tactfully, sympathetically but most of all professionally responding to any customer enquiry. They will either provide assistance whilst on the telephone or immediately make contact with one of your technical engineers to help resolve the issue swiftly and proficiently.

There are other options available to you like having a recorded answer phone message but very often calls are not connected or the right ‘on call’ people cannot be contacted promptly – leaving your customers disappointed.

Channeling your business calls through a call centre means your calls are managed and filtered into general calls and enquiries and varying degrees of emergencies that require a quicker and more direct follow up. These are escalated, depending on the degree of the situation to your company representative.

All calls are answered immediately with very low to no waiting times and no call is left unanswered with any messages being emailed or text to your own company representatives at whatever level you set and are comfortable with.

There are certain types of business companies that this particular type of service is very popular with like public service areas, property maintenance companies and the like who have a specific need for being contactable out of normal business hours – like during the night or weekends and bank holidays. There are many call centres in London currently offering this service so make sure you take the time to research the company who will ultimately be handling your customers.

Using this type of company would improve the professional image of your business, meaning that your customers are happy with the services you can provide. CallCare247 currently have call centres in Manchester, Cambridge and London and expanding rapidly.