| By :
Mark Etinger
In your business you may have a specific answering machine, or you may have a secretary who answers the phone for you. Depending on the size of your business you may have a preferred way of addressing telephone calls. Here are the pros and cons of both a VoIP answering machine and a human answering machine. VoIP Answering Machine: Pros: When you have a VoIP answering machine, the service directs callers to specific people or departments in your company. A touchtone automated service eliminates the need for a secretary and streamlines the calls you receive. You can set the call waiting for a specific amount of time and play music. Hosting can be remote and applications can be hosted in a public network to accept greater call volume than one person can handle. When callers receive a touchtone automated service they are more likely to assume the professionalism of your business. With this is the fact that time is money and workers in your company are busy doing other things, that if your phone call is really important, then they will they answer it but otherwise phone calls are distracting. Cons: When you have customers with a specific question that doesn’t quite fit into one of your departments, or they really want to speak with someone immediately they may get frustrated and hang up. But if they really need to talk to someone they will call back. Hint: it may be a good idea to have as an option, perhaps the last, speak with an operator. Human Answering Machine: Pros: A secretary usually does much more than answer the phone; administrative procedure and the like follow under her duties. That being said, having a human handle your call volume usually means that they can offer more than a VoIP answering service. Cons: You have to pay an extra employee, whereas most of the time, an automated phone menu is included in your monthly VoIP service providers phone bill. So, it seems as if the pros for a VoIP answering machine are greater than the cons. If you have a business with more than five people, it is probably a good idea to invest in VoIP. If your company is still developing , wait until you have some more people before choosing a touchtone automated service. Allowing customers to talk to a live representative will help you build the customer base that you need to grow into a larger company. Plus when you use VoIP you can save a lot of money on other features. Long distance calling is a cinch because you pay through your internet service. You can have multiple party communication because VoIP compresses data packets so that more data can be handled, and more calls can be taken at once. Software and hardware is relatively cheap too so making the switch won’t cost an arm and a leg. It seems like a VoIP answering machine is the right choice.
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