Best Connections Answering Services

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the owner of a company called Brooklyn Robot Foundry. We teach robot building and basic engineering classes to kids and adults.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Best Connections Answering Services?

We needed someone to take calls outside of our working hours.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Best Connections is our answering service. They’re our after-hours phone line for when our in-house customer service representatives are not working. We direct calls to them, and then they basically answer our customers. After they take the calls for us, they then email us the content of the correspondences.

We have a tiered escalation process for important messages where they can contact us if something urgent is needed. To prepare, they started by learning about our business in detail. They read our website, took note of our addresses, and so on. Throughout the engagement, they’ve compiled a list of FAQs based on the trends of the questions.

What is the team composition?

Our main point of contact is Jacquelyn (President). There are 4–5 teammates who are in charge of taking our calls. 

How did you come to work with Best Connections Answering Services?

I sent an email asking for after-hours answering service suggestions to a LISTSERV group for local small businesses. A doctor recommended Best Connections. 

How much have you invested with them?

We spend about $3,300 per year.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in August 2015, and it’s ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

We were expecting them to take messages and pass them along, but they’ve actually been more like backup customer support. Best Connections can pass along information that we didn’t expect them to know. Sometimes they don’t even have to send us the message because they’ve already answered the question for us. 

How did Best Connections Answering Services perform from a project management standpoint?

Best Connects is a highly proactive team — if they begin to see a trend within the questions, they add to a document containing FAQs. They use this when answering calls, and it’s so effective because even if they have a new person in their team, they have a resource to refer to.

They’re very good at communication, which we primarily do over email. If the team receives an urgent call, they call me immediately. Sometimes we have upset customers; they recognize this and reach out to me immediately. They understand when things need to be escalated, which is fantastic for a small business like us. I feel like they’re really looking out for us, and I appreciate that. Overall, it’s very easy to work with them. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

The level of customization and professionalism they provide is just so outstanding. Since the team did such an in-depth learning process, they’ve been able to answer most questions on their own. They have such an excellent system for training, which ascertains that the team can answer questions in a really intelligent way. They’re an extraordinary team — I expected them to answer calls, take messages, and pass them to us. Instead, they feel more like an extension of our business because they know us so well. 

They’re also very honest. When we decided to hire Best Connections, they showed us several payment tiers depending on how many minutes we’ll use them. When we didn’t use them all up, they were very transparent and rolled those minutes over to our next billing year. They’re a true partner.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Not at all. We’ve been doing business with them for years, and they’re fantastic.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should definitely hire them. Best Connections is very trustworthy.