Answering Services

The Impact of Robocalls on Business Phone Communication

  • Jul 17, 2019
  • Riley Panko
  • , Survey

Americans received nearly 48 billion robocalls in 2018, according to robocall blocking service YouMail. That number is likely to increase unless the government follows through on significant regulatory changes such as a promised caller ID authentication network

Recent survey reports found:

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How Businesses Should Set Up Their IVR Menu

  • Apr 11, 2019
  • Riley Panko
  • , Survey

Interactive voice response (IVR) menus route incoming callers through options, which they can select by pressing buttons or speaking certain words. 

Often referred to simply as “phone menus,” IVR systems connect callers to a business’ appropriate resources without a human operator.

Clutch surveyed 501 people who called a business at least three times in the past six months to understand consumer opinions of phone menus.

We found that many customers find phone menus frustrating, especially if they aren’t formatted to best meet customers’ needs. Despite saving businesses money, phone menus can waste customers’ time if they result in an endless maze of options or if they lack personalization.

We use our data and expert insight to offer tips about when it’s appropriate for a business to set up a phone menu and how it should be organized to minimize frustration.

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5 Ways Businesses Can Improve Telephone Customer Service

  • Feb 5, 2019
  • Riley Panko
  • , Survey

With the rise of texting and online communication such as chatbots, it may feel like people don’t use their phones to actually make calls anymore. Yet, data shows that people most frequently use their smartphones to make calls.

Communication by phone isn’t going away, and your businesses needs to know how to provide effective and efficient telephone customer service.

Clutch surveyed 501 people who called a business more than three times in the past six months to learn what they expect from telephone customer service.

The data shows that consumers value efficient service and knowledgeable staff when they call a business. They find being kept on hold, rude service, and automated phone menus frustrating. 

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How Do People React to Robocalls?

  • Jan 8, 2019
  • Riley Panko
  • , Survey

In the first installment of our series on robocalls, we discovered that more than half of people receive a robocall at least once per day.

Robocalls are automated calls conducted for marketing or scamming purposes, and they’re a major issue in the United States due to how easy and inexpensive it is to make them. Authorities also struggle to identify robocallers, making punishing them difficult.

For our second report, we surveyed 687 phone owners who receive robocalls to analyze their reactions to robocalls.

We learned that robocalls erode people’s trust in phone communication. This impacts phone-based communication with both peers and businesses.

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How Common Are Robocalls?

  • Nov 27, 2018
  • Riley Panko
  • , Survey

Robocalls are a widespread scourge, annoying most people daily.

Data shows that Americans received nearly 38.1 billion robocalls from January to October 2018. Many of these calls pester people with unwanted marketing pitches or worse, try to scam them to share personal information or money.

Clutch surveyed 687 people who own phones and have received robocalls to analyze how many and what types of robocalls people receive.

This report offers insight into how dire the robocall situation currently is, and how it got to this point. Use this report to better understand the impact of robocalls on individuals and relationships between businesses and customers.

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Guide to Choosing a Voice Services Provider

When customers call a business, it’s usually not to complain. Over half (54%) of customers want to schedule an appointment, while 16% want to ask about a product and 14% have billing issues, according to our recent survey on voice services.

Customers have many reasons to communicate with a business via phone, but not all businesses have the time or resources to handle those calls. That’s where voice services come in.

Voice services save businesses both money and time. However, few reliable guides to voice services exist, which can make it hard to understand the value of an answering service or virtual receptionist.

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What Callers Want from Answering Services: 2017 Survey

  • Oct 18, 2017
  • Elizabeth Ballou
  • , Survey

Phone calls remain an indispensable part of most businesses’ communication with customers.

Whether people call a business to schedule an appointment, settle a billing issue, or ask about their Internet connection, they expect the person on the other end of the line to help them solve a problem.

That’s where voice services come in. When companies hire a provider to answer and handle their calls, they make a decision that affects how customers perceive them – whether the customers know they’re speaking with a voice services provider or not.

Despite a growth in demand for voice services, there’s little hard data about this segment of business process outsourcing (BPO).

To gather more information on the industry, Clutch investigated customers’ opinions of inbound voice services. We surveyed 468 people who called a business or medical organization with a question within the past month.

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Answering Services: Analyzing Customer Retention Issues

  • Dec 12, 2016
  • Grayson Kemper
  • , Survey

In 2015, Synchrony Financial, a commercial financing firm, authored an article that claimed: “Your value proposition is key to customer loyalty.” This seems like sound business logic: the more value a service provides for your business, the more likely you are to be loyal to that service provider. Right?

Businesses’ behavior toward their answering services providers seriously combats this claim. By analyzing findings from our 2016 Answering Services Survey, it is apparent that while a service's value proposition may be key to customer loyalty, it is most definitely not elemental or deciding when it comes to answering services. 

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