Hurricanes come in a wide range of magnitudes, but regardless of their size or the extent of the damages, there’s no denying that even the smallest storms can cause a major disruption for businesses. Between power outages, flooding, and property destruction, hurricanes can put a serious dent in business productivity. Thankfully, emergency answering services can help your company during these emergency situations.
How do Power Outages Affect Businesses?
Most businesses rely on power to run, and when the power goes out, the productivity of these companies comes to a screeching halt. Industries such as manufacturing, retail, and healthcare are particularly vulnerable to power outages, and even a few hours off the grid can have devastating effects of profits and result in lost opportunities for customer interactions. When you lose power, you also lose access to your incoming calls, which means that your valuable customers are not getting the personalized customer service you want to give them. Failing to connect with those customers with emergency answering services decreases the chances of them returning in the future or lessens the chances that they’ll recommend your business to others. In short, even though a power outage is not a business’ fault, it can still deteriorate its relationship with its customers.
How Emergency Answering Services Work?
It’s no secret that emergency situations can be costly for businesses. However, an emergency answering service can relieve the burden of missed customer calls when disaster strikes. Generally speaking, emergency answering services work by connecting your incoming callers to a trained answering representative who has the tools and knowledge to adequately respond to the incoming caller. When an emergency occurs, a business only needs to forward their incoming calls to the answering service. It’s that simple! And you can rest assured that your clients’ calls will not be neglected.
How Planning Ahead for Business Continuity can Help
Planning ahead for unexpected disasters can be difficult because you’re planning for unknown outcomes. However, the more prepared you are for the unexpected, the more likely you’ll be able to maintain continuity within your business and maintain your stride even when devastating storms hit. Maintaining continuity with an emergency answering service benefits not only your customers and productivity but also helps avoid confusion and stress among your employees. Planning ahead also allows your business to bounce back when there are dips in productivity due to downtime or power outages, or if your business facilities are damaged. Perhaps most importantly, planning ahead helps manage your clients’ expectations, and ensures their needs are met during unique situations.
Why is having an Emergency Answering Service Better than Forwarding to a Cell Phone?
There are two big reasons why an emergency answering service is better than forwarding to a cell phone. The first is that presumably, the individual operating or maintaining the cell phone is understandably preoccupied with the outstanding emergency situation. However, this means that they are just as likely to miss calls from clients and won’t be able to manage their customers’ concerns as well as they might like. Secondly, cell phone services are just as susceptible to outages during a natural disaster as landlines. Increased cell phone use during a disaster can clog airwaves, or service may be spotty where cell phone towers have been damaged. Furthermore, cell phone batteries will eventually die where there are prolonged power outages. Emergency answering services avoid these hurdles and maintain your connectivity with your client calls.
Make Sure your Service Collects all the Call Information you Need
Emergency answering services work best when they have all of the available information about your business that will allow them to respond adequately to your clients. It’s best to work with your service before a hurricane or another natural disaster occurs to discuss the kinds of calls your business receives, and how you would like for those calls to be handled. If they are missing vital information, it may be difficult to obtain clarification in the midst of an emergency situation. Don’t hesitate to share all of your thoughts and concerns with your emergency call answering service – they’re there to help you and can better serve you when they have more information.
Choose Anserve for your Emergency Answering Service
Anserve is an experienced and professional answering service that has been serving customers since 1969. We handle over 15,000 calls a day and have been helping businesses grow for decades. We take pride in our emergency answering service and want to make sure your business continues to thrive, even during a natural disaster. Contact us today to learn how we personalize our emergency answering services to your unique business needs and will be ready to handle your calls when the unexpected occurs.
