Starting a new business or running a business from home can be more time consuming than you could ever expect and sometimes the greatest help could simply be some peace and quiet to get on with work. Whilst having your phones ringing with new or existing business is great, having them ringing off the hook could mean missed orders, poor first impressions and possibly even handing some easy business to a competitor.

The hiring of a secretary in a lot of start-ups could be too expensive at first and for a home-based business it’s usually out of the question, but there is an alternative. With the explosion of mobile technology and growth of the internet, many look to outsource their incoming calls and use a call handling service.

Many small businesses and especially sole-traders like the flexibility that employing a call handling service gives them, for many in trades it means that they can actually be out servicing their clients whilst at the same time be safe in the knowledge that their calls are being answered professionally, quickly and politely. A good plumber may not always be the most communicative person to speak to, especially if he has just taken his head out from under a sink to answer a call but by using a call handling service the plumber can get on with what he knows best and service his clients.

Operators at call handling services usually work in small teams of 4 or 5 so that they become familiar with each client. Upon answering a call they follow on screen instructions on what details to collect ranging from name, contact numbers, business names, reference numbers- whatever the client requires to manage his or her business effectively. The operators can then either send the message to the client or act as a front desk receptionist and transfer the call through. In the case of the plumber with his head under a sink, he may have requested that new clients be sent as a txt message to him and told that a call back will be as soon as he is available.

What a call handling service offers clients is the ability to communicate with their customers without being bound by the telephone. A businesses that misses a phonecall because they were to busy to answer it is effectively falling at the last hurdle- they’ve done all the hard work marketing, they’ve convinced someone that their business is worth the phonecall to find out more, they’ve done everything except answer the phone when is mattered most.

Whilst some can get by quite happily answering their own calls many businesses that want to expand need not only the time to think but the security of knowing that their clients are being well looked after, even if their head is under a sink when they call!

So AIG is looking to pay $165 million in bonuses and compensation.  There is a good PR move!  Have the government bail you out and then pay millions in bonuses.  Talk about a ready made public relations nightmare.  Perhaps the company figures that it is mitigating some of the well deserved national outcry by identifying banks that received chunks of the company’s billions in federal bailout funds last year.  But what does that accomplish?  That’s not so much transparency as it is sharing the blame.  AIG was recipient of at least $170 billion in federal bailout money (that’s billion with a B) and received an $85 billion loan from the Federal Reserve. 

 If there had been no bailout and no loan, there would be no company and thus no bonuses.  The bailout and bonuses should have come with that caveat – no bonuses.  Bonuses are incentives that are paid out for jobs well done.  Or at least they should be.  No small business would exist or function under this type of framework.  That’s why I’m more convinced than ever that small businesses are what can, and hopefully will, turn the economy around and set the country back on course.  Because there is not a huge bureaucracy in which to hide, small businesses, by their very nature, are forced to be much more transparent.  Because there is little or no fat to absorb poor decisions, small businesses must function properly and turn a profit in order to survive, much less thrive.  We have seen that big is not always better.  In fact if recent history is to be our guide, it seems to be a ready made recipe for failure.  This is not always the case, but seemingly more often than not.  So, if the small business community takes the lead and makes its voice heard, perhaps we’ll look back at this economic mess we find ourselves in and see that it served a purpose.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2009