One of the biggest challenges small businesses face is that they’re small! Where being small is great for eliminating red tape decision making processes and staying nimble, it can be a detriment if you’re trying to land a behemoth account looking for a long term relationship with a stable vendor. No offense to your small business, but potential customers want to know they can trust your brand. And if you’re working out of a basement, have a few people at your office wearing many hats, or don’t have the resources to dazzle, it can be tough for potential clients to green light the relationship.

One of the most valuable tools entrepreneurs and small businesses have to make them look like titans is call centers. Here are 7 ways call center services can make your small business look like it has it’s act together, big time.

#1. 24 Hour Customer Service Ticketing

Nothing says small business more than reaching a voicemail after hours. Customers understand that you may not be able to keep your staff in the office around the clock, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t expect to be helped. Outsourcing customer service to a 24/7 call center will allow your callers to speak to a live voice and get the assurance they need that someone is going to help them.

While the call center operators may not be able to solve every issue thrown their way, they can get the ball rolling by entering in support tickets for your staff to get back to. When your customers know they can call any time and reach a real human being instead of your voicemail, they are more likely to contact your business when things go awry instead of throwing in the towel and looking for other options. Additionally, they’re also less likely to be upset when you contact them back than they would be if they had to leave a voicemail message.

#2. 24 Hour Lead Capture

All small businesses want to be big businesses, and the only way to do that is through on-boarding new customers (as well as keeping those customers happy). However, if you’re only answering calls for 8 hours a day, you’re only capturing a small percentage of leads, which means your business could be suffering.

Opening up your lead capture to a 24/7 call center means you don’t have to stress about trying to answer every call all the time yourself, your staff doesn’t have to stress about working over time again, and your bank account doesn’t have to stress about trying to stretch funds. Call center agents can answer caller’s questions, schedule appointments to get potential customers through your doors, and may even be able to close the deal themselves if given the right tools. If 7 out of 10 callers are hanging up when reaching voicemail, it’s obvious that voicemail is not the solution to a better business, a live voice is.

#3. Professional Receptionist Staff

We have no doubt that your in-house receptionist is great, if you have one. However, your receptionist is just one person, with only two hands (probably)  and a typical schedule of 9am-5pm. What happens when your receptionist gets sick or takes on too many jobs at once? What about when they  need to go to the bathroom, eat lunch, or go home? No matter how great your receptionist is at their job, they can’t do it all, all the time. But a call center can.

A call center can provide professional receptionist services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. No vacations, no bathroom breaks, and no calling out sick. With hundreds of available agents at any given time, your business will always have someone to triage calls, take messages, schedule appointments, answer questions, and ultimately provide a warm, friendly greeting no matter what.

#4. CRM Integrations

A great way your small business can seem bigger is by offering organized, streamlined support. A small business that is just starting out probably won’t have all their ducks in a row when it comes to customer service, as they are still figuring out what works and what doesn’t. However, when you enlist the help of a call center that can access and utilize your CRM, you can avoid a lot of the headache that comes with trial and error.

When your call center agents pull up your account, they would be able to access your CRM software and see your customers’ history, eliminating the need for callers to repeat the same information each time they call in. Your customers will be so impressed with their experience that they’ll think your business has been around for years!

#5. Front End IVR

IVR, or Interactive Voice Response, is something that many businesses utilize to help direct callers to the appropriate person or department, and it’s a feature that many call centers use. Even if your departments consist of 1 or 2 people each, having your callers go through an automated system instead of routing calls yourself can help make your small business look bigger, and can help streamline the process as well. Not only do callers feel like they’re in control of their service by being able to route themselves to the appropriate person, but it takes the need out of having someone transfer the call for them. As someone who is calling in for help, nothing is more annoying than being passed around from person to person.

Automated support is also great for callers who don’t necessarily need to talk to a live person. Maybe they want to check an account balance, activate a new credit card, or update a PIN number. Many of these tasks can be done through automated systems that have been programmed accordingly, and eliminates the need for your customers to connect to a live person if they don’t need, or want to.

#6. Spanish Language Support

Showing off that you offer multilingual support makes you look huge. With a call center, you can have access to dozens of bilingual support agents for a fraction of the price you would have paid if you hired them yourself. Your bilingual agents can be used for inbound and/or outbound support, which can help get and keep more Spanish speaking customers through your pipeline.

#7. Hold Times

While hold times are less than desirable, they can make your small business look bigger simply by giving off the impression that you have a lot of customers. And, when a business has a lot of customers, it means they’re doing something right.

Of course you don’t want to keep your customers waiting each time they call, but a short hold time here and there doesn’t typically drive away the masses. As long as your call center has a proper set up, including a custom greeting that states your company name, some upbeat hold music and perhaps an estimated wait time, your customers most likely won’t jump ship and hang up if they know someone will be with them soon.