How can an outsourced call answering service improve your face to face customer service?
The Oval Pet Centre was “struggling to cope with the volume of calls” and “in attempting to deal with this were falling down in terms of interaction with clients face to face.”
Their solution was Vetsec, an outsourced telephone answering and secretarial support service dedicated to the sector, which works alongside your existing veterinary reception team. But how can a call answering service make a positive impact on the level of customer service delivered face to face?
Tracy Lee, the Practice Manager, talks about the effect Vetsec has made on the business.
“By outsourcing our appointment calls we were able to free up our frontline reception staff to give exceptional face to face service to our clients.”
“We are able to give much better service to clients coming into the practice. Vetsec enhances the day-to-day running of the practice, allowing us to do the things we do best in the practice and freeing up our team to excel with clients.”
Oval Pet Centre is a family run veterinary practice originally established in Sidcup in 2002 and is now home to six vets operating from three centres in Sidcup, Welling and Eltham. The practice has been working with Vetsec’s Virtual Veterinary Receptionists for almost two years.
“Vetsec answers all of our appointment calls and have started to deal with query calls as well. Having the calls dealt with frees up the reception staff to make the face to face client experience better and to prioritise practice workload.”
The front of house staff are now free to focus 100% on dealing with clients at the desk, but how did they feel about working alongside an outsourced service?
“As always with something new there were slight teething problems, but nothing that wasn’t easily overcome. We made sure there was open communication with the Vetsec team.
“Vetsec staff undertook training in our protocols and procedures to ensure seamless operation. We are now all one big team.”
According to Tracy there is no one standout example of how Vetsec has helped the business, not that this diminishes its effect, “It helps in many ways, it helps the overall business model, in streamlining the running of the practice. It also helps our clients get the best telephone service immediately because their lines are never engaged.”
“We would recommend the service. It allows us to give that 100% commitment to clients who are in the practice at the time.”