What is a telephone answering service?

A telephone answering service is a company that answers incoming calls for other businesses. These calls may be transferred to an employee's phone, or a message recorded in their absence. For many small and medium businesses this is a cost effective alternative to hiring a dedicated receptionist.

All call answering companies can:

Answer your calls during office hours

Calls are answered throughout the day (including the lunch hour) from 8.30-9am in the morning until 5.30pm-6pm in the evening, Monday to Friday. Some services can also answer your calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Bank holidays etc will vary from company to company.

Answer your calls in your company's name

Call answering services use software that identifies the source of each incoming call, and enables them to answer calls with the appropriate greeting, e.g. "Good morning, Widget & Co?". If you require a different greeting (such as "Kangaroo Website, G'Day" or "You're through to Sandra at The Watering Hole, how can I help?") your chosen call answering company will be more than happy to oblige.

Transfer calls to a landline or mobile number

Calls can be easily transferred (or 'patched') through to any standard telephone number (VOIP numbers may be a different matter). Mobile calls will probably cost more. You can specify who you want transferred, e.g. by providing a 'whitelist' of approved callers, a 'blacklist' of callers to screen, or a criteria for judging callers on a call-by-call basis. Either way, the caller is announced first, and you have the option of declining the call discreetly.

Store your messages and calls on a database

Names, telephone numbers, calls etc are generally either recorded on a caller database, or a more sophisticated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system. You can call your telephone answering service and ask them for information about old calls, and in some cases you can even access the database yourself using your web browser. Some systems can generate reports and graphs, e.g. to display the number of calls for each month.

Send your messages via SMS, email or fax

Messages can be emailed or SMS texted as soon as the call ends. Faxes may be sent less frequently. This allows you to take a call at your desk and almost immediately bring up the caller's details (e.g. name and address) on your screen. Emails can be sent to any device capable of receiving them, such as an iPhone or Blackberry. Different types of message can be sent to separate email addresses,

Assist with typing, book-keeping, dictation etc

Some live call answering services are part of secretarial businesses and can assist with other administrative tasks, ranging from basic typing to marketing consultancy or Search Engine Optimization (SEO).