Food Freebies

1. Krispy Kreme is also providing free dozens of their famous Original Glazed® Doughnuts on Mondays through Nurses’ Week, which ends on May 12th.
2. How about some coffee with those donuts? Wawa is offering free coffee of any size for healthcare workers and first responders until this crisis is averted.
3. And they’re not the only ones! Through June 1st, head to a Sheetz near you and enjoy free coffee for frontline workers.
4. Starbucks is serving up free tall brewed (hot or iced) coffees to first responders and front-line healthcare workers through the end of May!
5. Free Snickers? Hangry, be gone! Nurses and other essential workers can get a Snickers bar, on the house. Just sign up for your e-gift card and redeem it at Walmart.
6. If you’re a hospital worker who lives near Nando’s, get yourself some free peri-peri chicken takeout. The chain is giving out 50 free meals daily at every Nando’s in North America through May 17th.
7. What’s Polar Pop? First responders and healthcare professionals can go to Circle K and find out. The chain is offering free coffee, tea and Polar Pop to frontline workers.

Shoes & Apparel Freebies

8. Crocs is giving out free shoes daily! If you’re a healthcare worker, check out their site and enter to snag a pair.
9. Comfy scrubs. Check. Frontline medical professionals can head to Barco Uniforms and submit a request for free scrubs for as long as the COVID-19 crisis lasts. They’re donating 10,000 per month!

Travel Industry Freebies

10. Driving around Southern California? Honda is giving away free gas for healthcare workers through May 12th! Find out more about where and when here.
11. Are you a medical volunteer and need to get to Georgia, Louisiana, or Michigan to offer your services to hospitals that need your help? Fly free on Delta Airlines.
12. If you have to travel, you might as well get free parking out of it. Thanks to The Parking Spot, essential healthcare workers will enjoy free airport parking at any of their facilities through May 12th.
13. And, Airbnb is offering free or subsidized housing for healthcare professionals, relief workers and first responders near where they are working.

Family & Mental Healthcare Resources

14. Who takes care of first responders’ families when they’re taking care of us? Care.com can help. You’ll be able to find, manage, and pay for caregivers for your children, seniors, and pets. Access their premium services free for 30 days.
15. Frontline professionals can’t get through this pandemic alone, and Talkspace is equal to the task. They are offering 1 free month of counseling via text, audio and video calls with a licensed therapist using their Unlimited Messaging Plus plan.
16. Maybe you know that it’s time to talk to someone, but you would rather remain anonymous. Through NurseGroups.org, you can “meet” with other nurses to talk about the challenges that you’re facing, and the best part is that it’s both free and confidential.

Techy Freebies

17. Newsflash. There’s a cell phone network specifically built for first responders. FirstNet, part of the AT&T network, is offering 3 months of free wireless service to COVID-19 first responders. Not only that but becoming a new FirstNet customer gets you a $200 activation credit on a Mobile-Responder plan!
18. The American Nurses Association’s free webinar is titled Be Confident Protecting Yourself and Providing the Best Care to Your Patients during this COVID-19 Pandemic.
19. A free course on COVID-19 Pulmonary, ARDS and Ventilator Resources is offered by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses.
20. Osmosis.org has a bunch of online resources. From What You Need to Know to Guided Meditation to Yoga, it’s worth checking out. And, if you sign their #Raisethline pledge, you’ll get 3 free weeks of Osmosis Prime.
21. Need some new nursing books? Amazon’s Kindle has you covered. Thousands of options, all free!

The post 21 First Responder Freebies During the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

One of the main things we’re learning by speaking to our customers and prospects is that the conversation around business communication is changing. For some businesses, answering services were the after hours dispatching team or the overflow receptionist team when you couldn’t answer the phone in your own office. Now, we’re becoming the 24 hour answering service. With so many businesses forced to do business from home, the main thing small businesses are concerned about now is continuity of communication.

Businesses are seeing customers trying to reach them more than ever. Inbound requests are spiking. Business communications are in flux as you don’t know which member of your team is going to be available to speak with a customer at any point through the day. You need your communication to be flexible, and an answering service allows that type of flexibility.

Answering services like Specialty are committed to supporting companies like yours. No matter what size your business or what industry you’re in, an answering service can act as a central point of contact and give you the flexibility to be there to receive a transfer, or take a message if you’re not available.

Here’s how to maintain solid communication through your answering service during a crisis:

1. Ensure messaging redundancy: In many cases, and especially during an emergency, there needs to be more than one point of contact to ensure messages are getting to someone as soon as possible. Whether it be through texts, emails or actual phone calls, you should include two or more contact numbers or addresses for each method of communication being used. That way if Contact Person A has stepped away, Contact Person B can step in without any disruption.
2. Maximize coverage: If you are in an emergency service industry or not, consider using the 24 hour live coverage answering services offer to make sure your business is available around the clock. Assign staff members who are available to take transfers around the clock by using a rotating on-call schedule or simply arm your answering service operators with a handful of the most important FAQs. That way they can help answer questions on your behalf which will help cut down on the amount of calls your team have to return. While we recommend 24 hour support, it’s a good idea to review your answering service pricing first to ensure there are no extra charges for 24 hour support. Most services do not charge extra and will just charge based on your usage alone.
3. Reassess contact points: Normally, there is a single person from your company who takes your teams needs and communicates them to the answering service to program into a script. Make sure there are at least 2 individuals in your company who knows how to contact the service and who understand your protocols in general in case one contact person is unavailable.
4. Ensure phone reliability: If you manually transfer your calls to the service, make sure you have another way to transfer calls if something prevents you from accessing your office phone. For example, a power outage will make it difficult for you to manually forward calls. However, your phone provide may be able to do it remotely from their own headquarters. It’s important to make sure your provider has a plan in place specifically for emergencies and that they are compatible with your own business protocols.

Even if your answering service is performing perfectly, we understand that your staff may be experiencing a high level of stress because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Answering services are here to help you through the stressful times so maintaining continuity in communication isn’t even on your radar. We understand the role communication plays during an emergency and now more than ever, communication is critical to maintaining your business.

The post Keep Your Answering Service Performing Over a Crisis appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

Let’s take a look at the best practices for using an answering service to tackle your traffic and communication challenges.

1. Offer 24/7 Customer Service

As a result of customers working and living out of their homes, new ways of reaching out to businesses may arise. As our new normal sets in, customers could start to contact you outside of normal business hours, or expect you to be available when their schedule allows a call to your company. Companies can be prepared for this new normal by making sure their answering service is available 24 hours, and by providing time dependent call handling. For instance, where during office hours you may want your answering service to transfer every call, after hours you may only want to have important or urgent calls transferred to you.

If your provider doesn’t offer 24-hour answering, here are other ways to cope with traffic outside of office hours:

• Add an IVR on your line which routes calls to your answering service during the hours when the service is available, then to your staff when your virtual receptionists are not
• Use an IVR after hours to help answer basic questions and provide information for callers, like when your team can be reached live as well as any urgent information
• If you’re trying to minimize contact for your employees after hours, program your IVR with an after hours announcement letting the callers know the office is closed and to can leave a voicemail message

2. Update Your Scripts

With social distancing and stay-at-home orders, physical business interactions may not be returning for quite sometime. Now is the time to re-imagine how you do business and make sure those changes are part of your customer service experience.

For example, many doctors are offering telemedicine appointments as an alternative to physical, in-person appointments in an effort to limit unnecessary contact. Brick and mortar stores are offering free delivery or curbside pickup. Whatever your new business model, make sure your answering service knows about it and your script is adjusted accordingly.

If you aren’t looking for a total overhaul of your script for something that may be temporary, here are some quick fixes:

• Update the FAQs your answering service uses with your new offerings
• To keep your script simple, add your new offerings to a ‘what services are you interested in’ dropdown
• Include a transfer protocol for important or urgent calls so your customers know you’re still there for them

3. Love The Phone Again

With new quarantine rules, all small businesses have the opportunity to fall in love with telephone communication again. With limited opportunities for face to face interactions with businesses, phone contact is more vital than ever to develop long lasting relationships with clients. Customers are looking to feel connected to the brands they love again, and telephone communication is the perfect answer.

Depending on the type of business you run and what your answering service offers, you may also want to utilize text or SMS response for those customers who’d rather not call, but still want the prompt response of speaking to someone in real time.

The businesses that continue to thrive when this pandemic is over will be the ones who stay close to their customers.

The post How Businesses Can Stay Connected with Customers appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

An answering service is a powerful communication tool that allows companies to handle an insane amount of call volume without you having to hire more employees to do it. Answering services can answer basic questions your customers may have to protect your internal support resources, schedule call backs for later, or transfer important calls to your staff if required. So, what can you do to ensure your answering service is making a meaningful impact, especially during this crisis? We’ve put together 3 things you can do in 1 hour.

1. Arm Your Receptionists With Information

Take a minute to analyze your helpdesk tickets or connect with your team to see what types of questions they’re being asked, and assess if those answers can be offloaded to the answering service agents.

• Send a quick email to your staff to ask them the top questions they’re being asked by customers
• Log all of their questions on a shared document and have them add any new questions there
• Decide which of those questions are good candidates for the answering service to handle
• Send updates to your answering service from the list, or if you have online access to your answering service system, update your FAQs on your own

If you find you’re getting a lot of crisis related questions, like questions related to COVID-19, it may be a good idea to create a separate FAQ with your answering service specifically for those requests. That way, when life eventually gets back to normal, you’ll just have to make one FAQ change instead of editing through several.

2. Make Simple Messaging Script Updates

Reviewing and updating your messaging protocols and script will help make sure that information gets transmitted as quickly as possible from the callers to the answering service to your own staff.

• If you’re dealing with several requests about the same issue, like rescheduling appointments or cancelling reservations, consider adding a new path (or screen) to your script. That will ensure the operators can log the reason for the call quickly and collect the relevant information without having to guess – which can cause chaos later when you’re already dealing with too much on your plate.
• If you have employees working from home, make sure the messages the answering service is sending are reaching everyone they should. See what messages have been sent over the last week and poll your employees to see if anyone who should have received those messages didn’t – and vice versa.
• If your business model means you are responding to customer requests 24/7, your 24 hour answering service should have the ability to send messages one way during office hours, and another during after hours. Check to make sure which employees or groups of employees have been receiving messages both during and after hours and make adjustments accordingly.

3. Streamline Your Workflows

Simple is always better. Consider temporarily simplifying your answering service protocols to get customers on and off the phone as quickly as possible. If you’re getting a high volume of calls, this will free up answering service agents to handle more requests and lower your hold time.

• Decide what the most important requests are and have those calls transferred to your staff
• For all other calls, instruct the operators to take a message with the most basic information (name, phone number, reason for contact)

With a just a few tweaks, you can make sure your answering service is able to effectively handle a higher call volume during this most difficult time.

The post What You Can Do in One Hour To Improve Your Answering Service appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

Over the past week, our staff has been speaking to many small businesses whose teams are feeling overwhelmed by inbound calls dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies are short staffed or working remotely for the first time, and the volume of calls companies are getting is not going down. Customers are calling with questions and business staff is not equipped to handle the calls alone. At SAS, we have our own protocols to make sure your business is able to stay open and receive calls. If you’re using an answering service or virtual receptionist service as part of your crisis communication plan, we’re here to help.

Create your plan

A good outsourcing plan involves the following:

• What: What types of calls will the answering service receive?
• Who: When a message is received, who needs to be notified? Will the message go to an individual or a group? Based on the types of calls you feel the service will be receiving, should different people or departments be notified about different types of calls?
• How: How will your staff get notified? Will they receive an email? A text message? Would you prefer calls be transferred to your staff?
• When: Should your crisis communication plan be on paper until a crisis hits or should you look for an answering service now as a precaution? Even if you don’t contract with an answering service right away, research and know who can get you setup quickly in the event of an emergency.
• Where: If a disaster should happen, where will your business operate from? What should the receptionist tell callers?

Align your communication

Communication is essential during any crisis. For your plan to be effective, you’ll need clear communication channels for your customers, employees, and even vendors. To make sure the answering service is representing you during a crisis, we recommend the following:

• Designate someone in your company to control the setup of the answering service and have that staff member be the main point of contact from the answering service in case they have questions about protocol or changes. This way, there is a continuity of setup.
• Depending on what method you are using to transmit messages (email, text, transfers, etc.), make sure you’ve setup forwarders, distribution groups, or ring to groups on your end through your own software.
• If you’ve already activated an answering service, run through mock emergency scenarios at least every quarter to make sure the systems are still working on the answering service side, and to verify you’ve set up your distribution channels correctly on your end.
• Don’t forget to update the plan to align with changes in your staff

After a crisis

After your business has returned to normal operations, be sure to touch base with your staff to evaluate how your crisis communication plan worked and what can be improved.

No matter the disruption, your business is never in it alone. Answering services and virtual receptionist services like SAS are always available for your business.

The post It’s not too late for a business contingency plan appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

We are actively monitoring the Coronavirus (COVID-19) situation and wanted to take a moment to share our Business Continuity plan with you.

As a telephone answering service and call center leader, we are honored to partner with thousands of businesses throughout the US and the world, providing reliable 24/7 customer service and sales support to power your growth. Despite the uncertainty of COVID-19, we are expecting to deliver the same level of amazing 24 hour customer service our clients have come to expect. We have the following measures in place to ensure your continued success with Specialty Answering Service:

Availability of our call center staff

Specialty Answering Service’s call centers and call center partners have employees in all departments who work remotely, as well as on-premise employees at the call center and answering service locations. Call center agents are equipped with technology that allows them to interact with your customers in a secure environment while working remotely. Through VPN technology and cloud based call center systems, our agents are able to represent your business 24/7, regardless of their location or the status of their physical work environment. We feel confident in our ability to provide you the level of continuity you would expect from a top answering service provider.

Availability of our software

For those customers that rely on our answering service mobile app or our online portal to monitor your account activity, our technical platforms are cloud based and built on enterprise level platforms like AWS, Twilio, Asterisk, and others. If there are failures in our systems, we have DevOps engineers available 24/7 to remotely troubleshoot.  For other technical service providers, such as the platforms our customer service team uses to track tickets, we partner with organizations that have always been forward thinking.

Thank you for entrusting your business to Specialty Answering Service. We are grateful for the role we play in your business and are as committed as we’ve always been to ensuring your success. We wish you safety and wellness during this challenge.

The post Our Commitment to Your Business During COVID-19 appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

While the v3 release is still weeks away, you’ll see some changes starting tomorrow (2/4/2020) in your portal that will work in tandem with future updates. Here’s a list of what’s been adjusted:

Renamed Components:

• Campaigns are Scripts and Locations are Profiles: You’ll see Script and Profiles in place of Campaigns and Locations throughout the site.
• Call Status is Tag and Call Result is Outcome: Along with Script and Profile, Tag and Outcome will complete your new filters. They will be visible at the top of the call table, and the toolbar at the bottom will allow you to “change tag(s)” instead of “change status.”
• Status Update is now Agent Alert: Adding last-minute changes just got easier! Alerts will automatically display on every page, and the “Operator note” is where you’ll indicate the information you want our operators to be aware of – e.g., closure due to inclement weather.

Access Temporarily Disabled

• Adding Users: While we’re working on the v3 release, the ability to add users in your portal has been temporarily disabled. Don’t worry, you can still contact customer service if you need to add a user and we’ll do it for you.
• User Access Permissions: Adjusting user permissions as they relate to Scripts and Profiles has been temporarily disabled, as well. Again, if you need to adjust user permissions, please contact customer service. You can still adjust permissions as they relate to which parts of the SAS portal your users can access.

Deprecated Components Removed

• Messenger: Access to the Messenger feature has been removed from the left panel.
• Calendar: Access to the calendar has been removed from profiles, and settings have been removed from profiles. If you are using the SAS calendar and need to adjust your settings for any reason, please contact customer service. Please also note that this feature will be officially retired shortly after the v3 release.

As we get closer to the v3 release, we’ll post details here about what to expect to make sure your company has ample time to adjust to any changes.

The post Changes To Your SAS Portal To Prepare For Our Upcoming Software Release appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

If it was up to us, we’d say all of them! But if you’re looking for the most dynamic and informative content on our website, we’ve boiled it down to the seven most exceptional posts. All of the following feature valuable tips, useful insights, and authentic recommendations from some of our most valued employees – and none have fluff we’d consider useless.

1. 3 Inexpensive Marketing Ideas to Get Your Small Business Phone to Ring

Why you should bookmark it: As any small business owner knows, an effective marketing strategy is key in getting customers to recognize your brand. However, if you’re just starting out, a solid marketing plan may not be in the budget just yet. Lucky for you, we’ve already done the research and found 3 Inexpensive Marketing Ideas to Get Your Small Business Phone to Ring. Whether you incorporate 1, 2 or all 3 ideas, your small business will soon be ready for lift off!

2. 5 Tips Every Small Business Owner Should Read

Why you should bookmark it: Whether you’re just starting out as a business owner or you’ve been around for a while, there’s always something new to learn. For example, a social media presence may not have had a huge impact on businesses 5 years ago, but today is a whole different story. To learn some more trick of the trade, check out these 5 Tips Every Small Business Owner Should Read.

3. 7 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Dispatching Service

Why you should bookmark it: Most, if not all, medical practices and HVAC companies requires staff to be on-call after hours in case of emergency. However, small businesses usually don’t have the same kind of budget a larger business does, which means they may struggle in this department. While small business owners may think that outsourcing is out of their budget, they can actually be a great asset and can help keep your business connected 24/7 at an affordable price. If you’re looking to outsource your after hours business communications, here are 7 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Dispatching Service.

4. How an Answering Service Can Help Your Seasonal Business

Why you should bookmark it: If you run a landscaping company or a pop-up holiday shop, then chances are your business isn’t busy all year round. However, that doesn’t mean you need to completely shut down. After all, you still need to make money, right? If you’re trying to figure out how to keep the operation going without breaking the bank, you’ll want to check out How an Answering Service Can Help Your Seasonal Business.

5. 5 Tips on Setting up a Virtual Receptionist to Make Your Small Business Look Big

Why you should bookmark it: All businesses need to start somewhere, but it can be difficult to attract a customer base as a small business. Many people look to fellow customer experiences before they decide to purchase an item or hire a company’s services, and some are hesitant to trust a small business due to the lack of expertise. However, if you’re a small business owner trying to gain a larger following, you’ll want to check out these 5 Tips on Setting up a Virtual Receptionist to Make Your Small Business Look Big.

6. 18 Tips for Creating the Best Answering Service from SAS Employees

Why you should bookmark it: If you’re looking for solid advice on how to set up a successful outsourcing experience for your small business, then you need to go right to the source. Check out these 18 Tips for Creating the Best Answering Service from SAS Employees and learn everything from how to structure your greeting to creating the most efficient call script directly from our own employees here at SAS.

7. Improve Lead Response Time with a 24 Hour Answering Service

Why you should bookmark it: In the world of business, leads are an important factor in gaining new customers and growing your brand. However, many small businesses struggle to contact leads in a timely manner, which winds up hurting their efforts instead of helping. If you don’t have the funds to hire more employees to add to your team, learn how you can Improve Lead Response Time with a 24 Hour Answering Service instead.

The post 7 Answering Service Posts Every Small Business Owner Should Read appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

Start improving your concentration today with the best telephone themed tile game available anywhere. Seriously. Simply print the downloadable PDF and follow the instructions! Want a preview? Check out the game below.

</a

The post A Free Printable Phone Themed Matching Pairs Memory Game appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

• Dead air call: What – Operator answers the call and no one is on the line. Length – 1 second.
• Record message: What – Caller calls a business and leaves a message on the voicemail. Length – 6 seconds.
• Wrong number with no recording: What – Operator answers the call but the caller has the wrong number. There was no prerecorded greeting on the line prior to the call being answered. Length – 10 seconds.
• Wrong number with recording: What – Operator answers the call but the caller has the wrong number. There was a prerecorded greeting on the line prior to the call being answered. Length – 15 seconds.
• Gather caller’s name and immediately transfer: What – Operator documents the caller’s name and immediately transfers the call. Length – 30 seconds.
• Question about business location: What – Operator answers questions regarding the business’s location. Length – 45 seconds.
• Question about business hours: What – Operator answers questions regarding the business’s office hours. Length – 1 minute.
• Question about prices: What – Operator answers questions regarding the business’s pricing. Length – 1 minute and 15 seconds.
• Question about services: What – Operator answers questions regarding the services the business provides. Length – 1 minute and 30 seconds.
• Question about insurance: What – Operator answers questions regarding if the business accepts insurance, and what types. Length – 1 minute and 45 seconds.
• Take message with Name, Number and Regarding: What – The operator documents the caller’s name, phone number and reason for call. Length – 2 minutes.
• Take message with Name, Number, Email and Regarding: What – The operator documents the caller’s name, phone number, email and reason for call. Length – 2 minutes and 15 seconds.
• Take message with Name, Number, Email, How Heard and Regarding: What – The operator documents the caller’s name, phone number, email, how they heard about the company and reason for call. Length – 2 minutes and 30 seconds.
• Take message and reach out to on-call: What – The operator documents the caller’s message and reaches out to the on-call staff. Length – 2 minutes and 45 seconds.
• Employee call out: What – The operator takes a call for an employee calling out of work and documents the reason. Length – 3 minutes.
• Event registration: What – The operator registers the caller for a specific event and reserves their spot. Length – 3 minutes and 15 seconds.
• Process telethon donation: What – The operator processes a donation for a telethon by taking payment from the caller over the phone. Length – 3 minutes and 30 seconds.
• Cancel appointment: What – The operator cancels an appointment made by a caller. Length – 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
• Prescription refill: What – The operator documents the name and number of the prescription and submits the form to the office. Length – 4 minutes.
• Request lab results: What – The operator requests lab results on behalf of the patient by documenting their name, number and date of appointment then sending the message through. Length – 4 minutes and 15 seconds.
• Schedule appointment: What – The operator schedules an appointment for the caller directly on the business’s calendar software. Length – 4 minutes and 30 seconds.
• Reschedule appointment: What – The operator cancels the original appointment and reschedules a new one on behalf of the caller. Length – 5 minutes.
• Product recall: What – The operator talks to the caller regarding a product recall, helps answer questions and escalates their message. Length – 5 minutes and 30 seconds.
• Access outside website to submit a support ticket: What – The operator goes out to the business’s own website to submit a support ticket on behalf of the caller. Length – 6 minutes.
• Seminar registration: What – The operator registers the caller for a specific seminar and reserves their spot by processing payment on behalf of the business. Length – 7 minutes.
• Employment screening: What – The operator follows a scripted workflow to screen potential employees for the business to follow up with. Length – 8 minutes.
• Access online catalog to answer questions: What – The operator goes out to the business’s online catalog to help answer caller questions regarding products. Length – 10 minutes.
• Access online catalog to process order: What – The operator goes out to the business’s online catalog to help callers process orders. Length – 12 minutes.
• Access outside website to process refund: What – The operator goes out to the business’s website to assist the caller with processing a refund. Length – 15 minutes.
• Basic help desk call:  What – The operator follows a scripted workflow to troubleshoot a basic help desk issue. Length – 20 minutes.
• Conduct a survey: What – The operator conducts a survey with the caller on behalf of the business. Length – 25 minutes.
• Process loan application: What – The operator assists a caller with processing a loan application on behalf of the business. Length – 27 minutes.
• Advanced help desk call: What – The operator follows a complex scripted workflow to troubleshoot an advanced help desk issue. Length – 60 minutes.

The post How Long Should A Telephone Call Last? appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.