The Right Way to Handle Death Calls

By Azalea M. Lynn

Death calls are made by people who want to arrange funeral arrangements. Such calls are made right after the caller is notified about his or her loved one's death. Answering death calls are difficult as the person you will be talking to is still very emotional. You should sympathize but still acquire the information you need to push through with the funeral arrangements.

There is a huge difference between death calls and regular calls. If you have outsourced an answering service provider to answer your death calls, you must make sure the agents are trained to handle these special calls. These agents should realize that callers do not want to spend a long time on the phone but still, they need to retrieve accurate information in just a short time. How can answering service agents answer death calls the right way?

The First Call- What is the first call? The first call is literally the first call made to a funeral home after the death of a loved one. First calls are made to make arrangements with the funeral home. The first thing to be done is to transport the deceased to the funeral home facility. When answering death calls, the answering service agent should introduce the business first and give assurance to the caller that transportation will be on route right after the agent get the information she needs.

Get All the Information- When answering death calls, the total duration of the call should last around two minutes. Agents should be able to get all the information within this time frame. What information is needed? You will need to get the caller's name and location. If the person died in the hospital, ask for the phone number of the hospital. Get the name of the deceased and the location. If in the hospital, ask the room number. Ask if Is the patient ready for release? Know the time of death, the doctor who signed the death certificate, the deceased's Social Security Number and the next of kin, address and contact number. Ask if there is family member waiting in the hospital?

Double-checking- Before transferring information to the funeral home, the agent should verify the information. The agent can double-check the information for every answer like spelling out names and contact numbers just to be sure.

Assurance- When the agent has all the information needed, she should end the call by giving an assurance that transportation will be on their way. This will give the caller peace of mind that things will be prepared already.

After putting down the phone, all information will be transferred to the on-call personal of the funeral home. Answering service companies can transfer the information through SMS, email or through the funeral home's website account. All information will be stored there.

Answering death calls the right way will benefit your business in the long run. Your customers will more likely to support your business as they see your genuine concern in handling their concerns and needs.

About the Author:

Azalea M. Lynn works in the funeral industry as a consultant. She recommends a funeral home answering service for funeral directors looking to improve their bottom line. A answering service for funeral homes can help to reduce cost while improving customer experience.

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What are the Top Qualities of a Good Answering Service Agent?

By Azalea M. Lynn

Hiring an answering service company is a smart decision for your funeral home business. But, are you ready to start the selection process? Choosing one company to work with will be tough. These companies will try to get your business by making irresistible promises. You should know better than to believe them immediately.

The Right Answering Service Company

With every answering service company, the customer service agents are the most important component. Answering service companies must have trained and professional agents to get the job done right. These companies are aware that they are hired because their clients want to save resources but still, high quality services are expected of them. Hiring an answering service company to answer your business phone calls can be a risky move. The best way to deal with this matter is to be smart when choosing your service provider.

How do you go about choosing the answering service company? Knowing the company's background is necessary. Know how long the business has been running to gauge its experience. Who are their clients and how many agents do they have? Do some research on the company's reputation and credibility too.

Qualities of an Answering Service Agent

Now that you know more about the service provider, you should know more about their agents. How competent are their answering service agents? Will they be trained to answer phone calls from grieving callers? Here are the top qualities to look for in a good answering service agent:

1. Good Listening Skills- Let's face it, not every caller will be patient enough when asked to repeat their answers. In fact, many callers can get annoyed by this. You need an agent with good listening skills to get accurate information without asking the caller to repeat themselves. Bear in mind that your callers want to talk to someone who is listening to them and not just someone who wants to get off the line as soon as they can.

2. Knowledgeable- A good answering service agent should be knowledgeable about the company and their callers. The agent acts like a representative for the client's company in a sense. Callers can sense if an agent really knows what she is talking about and if she knows the steps to take. When an answering service agent is knowledgeable, her confidence will show. Customers prefer speaking to a confident agent rather than someone who doesn't know what she is doing. Give your callers peace of mind that their concerns will be attended to properly.

3. Calm and Collected- Being calm and collected is an important quality of a good answering service agent. Sometimes, callers will voice out their disappointment with the services and are very frustrated. Agents who stay calm appear more professional. For funeral home business callers, agents should learn how to sympathize with their emotional callers.

Listening to a call demo or giving the agents a test call might be the best way to see the qualities of the answering service agent you are about to hire. Test the agent by showing our frustration or being in a hurry to see how the agent will handle the call.

About the Author:

Azalea M. Lynn works in the funeral industry as a consultant. She recommends a funeral answering service for funeral directors looking to improve their bottom line. A funeral home answering service can help to reduce cost while improving customer experience.

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Five Benefits of Hiring A Telephone Answering Service for A Growing Funeral Business

By Azalea M. Lynn

Your business is doing very well and you are ecstatic about it. However, you are having a hard time keeping up with the customer calls. You're not complaining but, you want to find a more efficient way to answer phone calls without distracting you from your work. A telephone answering service might just be the solution for you. Why should you consider hiring an answering service company? Here are five benefits of telephone answering services:

1. Quality Customer Service- With everyone so busy, why not let someone else answer the phone calls? Telephone answering service companies offer quality customer service. Their agents are trained to answer phone calls from different types of callers. Customers appreciate talking to someone who will listen to their needs without having the need to put down the phone quickly. With everything you need to do, you will rush through calls and might not have a thorough conversation with your customer.

2. Around-the-Clock Calls- Unless you have an all robot staff, you and your staff need rest too. You cannot work 24 hours a day anticipating phone calls at late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. Death is unpredictable. You are better off hiring answering services. Telephone answering services offering customer service 24/7. The customer support agents can handle calls anytime and forward the information to you.

3. No Missed Calls- For a business owner like you, it can be tough to get a good night's rest knowing that you might miss a phone call from a customer. If you hire a telephone answering service provider, you won't have to worry about this anymore. As mentioned, agents answer calls 24/7 so you can be rest-assured that you won't miss any sales opportunity even when you are sleeping.

4. No Frustrated Customers- Since the business is doing really well and your phone is ringing off the hook. But if you don't have plenty of phone lines, there are likely to be plenty of frustrated customers waiting to get through. You can avoid this by hiring a telephone answering service. You don't need to spend money maintaining several phone lines either. Your customer calls can be answered within one try making them feel happier about your services.

5. Highly Qualified Agents- Most of your callers are grieving and distressed customers who have just suffered a death of a loved one. They don't want to spend a lot of time on the phone. The highly qualified agents from the telephone answering service company knows how to handle such calls. They will be able to get the needed information in a short time.

Utilizing a telephone answering service is a great benefit to any successful business. More and more businesses understand the need of hiring a telephone answering service. It's about time that you make this decision to help your business continue to thrive.

About the Author:

Azalea M. Lynn works in the funeral industry as a consultant. She recommends a funeral answering service for funeral directors looking to improve their bottom line. A customer service for funeral homes can help to reduce cost while improving customer experience.

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Why Should You Try A Funeral Home Program Software?

By Azalea M. Lynn

Do you want your funeral home business to run more efficiently and serve customers better? Using technology will help you achieve both of those things. Even if you only own a small funeral home business, using the right technology will be a big help. And with the availability of computer programs today, finding one to suit your needs won't be a daunting task.

When it comes to caring for your customers, you have to do what it takes. Your customers are going through a rough time. The last thing they'd want is slow service. Using technology to your advantage is actually a no-brainer. This is an investment that will guarantee you great returns for many years to come.

A funeral home business can invest in a funeral program software to assist with the completion of tasks as well as serving customers. How can your funeral home business benefit from such a program?

It saves you money in the long run. Switching to a funeral program software makes you go paperless. Not only will this cut back on office expenses, you will also notice the increase in efficiency in performing tasks. Using a software actually returns your investment threefold.

Specific purposes. Every funeral home business needs help in each department. Computer software can help with bookkeeping, organizing calendars and even with program creation. Programs usually given to guests before funeral service starts. With this program, you can customize each program to the requests of customers. Also, you don't need to print it out since guests can download it from your site and print it themselves.

Customized services. Show your appreciation to your customers by offering them customized services. As you may know already, every grieving family wants a different way of going through the funeral service. Why not customize their funeral programs? Ask them to pick a template they want or even build one from scratch. Ask them if they have a special message to include as well.

Save you money. You can offer clients the option to print the programs themselves so they can save on your services. The advantage for you is that you save on printing costs.

The funeral home business is about providing quality services to customers when a loved one passes away. It is a time of distraught, sadness and woes. Even though your business can handle doing things manually right now, don't you wish to improve the services you can offer customers? These people put their trust in you during the hardest time in their lives. You can return the favor by offering them excellent customer services that will allow them to enjoy their last moments with their dead loved ones.

Investing in a funeral home business program software doesn't mean that you will be losing your personal touch on the business. Your personal touch is very important when consoling grieving clients. However, if computer programs can help you and your staff complete tasks faster and efficiently, then it is worth the money. If you think about it, if customers are highly satisfied with your services, more and more customers will be calling on you for funeral services.

About the Author:

Azalea M. Lynn works in the funeral industry as a consultant. She recommends a funeral answering service for funeral directors looking to improve their bottom line. A answering service for funeral homes can help to reduce cost while improving customer experience.

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Six Funeral Home Services That You May Not Know About

By Azalea M. Lynn

Businesses are always competing with one another to get more customers. Each business has a different way of doing so. For funeral home business, it is about offering customers a more convenient and hassle-free experience. How do they do this? They offer extra services that you won't normally see in the list of services of funeral homes before. Customer satisfaction is very important for funeral homes and through these services, more customers will patronize their business.

Extra Services Offered

1. Grief Counseling- The funeral home is where people grieve for their deceased loved ones. Are you aware that the funeral home might have grief counseling services? There are funeral home directors that are certified grief counselors. Their knowledge in the grieving process helps them run the funeral home business.

2. Obituary Writing Services- During this tough time, the family of the deceased is having a hard time coping with the passing of a loved one; let alone write an obituary. There are funeral homes that offer obituary writing services. This should provide you with a professionally-written obituary that will honor the memory of your loved one properly.

3. Customer Care- Not many people know that funeral homes have to hire a funeral home answering service provider to be able to provide round-the-clock customer care. The funeral home answering service is there to handle the customers' needs and concerns. Anyone can call he funeral home any time of the day. No busy lines, just prompt answering of calls thanks to funeral home answering services.

4. Flower Services- The funeral home flower services take care of all flower arrangements from buying the flowers and getting them delivered. The funeral home is very experienced with picking the right flowers so customers need not worry anymore. The funeral home can present a list of florists or the customer can choose one.

5. Paperwork Services- Arranging paperwork is such a hassle especially if a grieving person just wants to spend his time with his loved ones. However, paperworks are needed to be processed to push through the funeral and burial. Funeral homes go out of their way to help customers by handling the paperwork themselves. This service is very convenient as time is better spent on grieving rather than preparing documents.

6. Concierge Services- When grieving families have visitors flying in just to attend the wake, they feel obliged to pick them up and reserve accommodations for them. But, they shouldn't spend their time doing all these during this difficult time. Rather, they can let the funeral home take care of concierge services for their visiting guests.

There is peace of mind when you call funeral homes today. Before, grieving family members are rattled with everything they need to do. They cannot even grieve properly. Today, funeral homes are aiming to provide the best customer experience. It is the least they can do for people who patronize their business during these difficult times.

Funeral homes are thinking ahead and with the competition, no funeral home business wants to get left behind. Thanks to the funeral home answering service, you can ask more information 24/7. This should help you choose the right funeral home.

About the Author:

Azalea M. Lynn works in the funeral industry as a consultant. She recommends a funeral answering service for funeral directors looking to improve their bottom line. A funeral home answering service can help to reduce cost while improving customer experience.

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The Benefits of Using an Answering Service

By Justin Ranger

Today, web secretaries and also front desk staffs provide a variety of superb advantages to companies, featuring the potential to process credit cards, answer concerns from customers, provide specialised help and book consultations. Here's a look at three fabulous reasons your business really should think about contracting out a telephone call responding to business to manage your business calls.

Enhanced Consumer Retention & Acquiring New Customers

One of the most important perks to an answering service is the strengthened customer retention and the ability to maintain from losing consumers. When a potential consumer calls your business and is welcomed with an answering machine there's a great opportunity they may simply hang up as well as try an individual else.

This is specifically correct if a client is trying to reach your business from a listing in an on-line directory site or a telephone publication. The majority of clients may merely dangle up on an answering machine as well as call the next listing instead than leave a message and also stand by for a reaction. A telephone call responding to provider may also aid you keep your existing clients by delivering outstanding customer and also technological support, which is crucial to the development of any type of business.

Better Reputation with Customers

Having a live agent answer your phone calls also enhances your picture with callers. Answering your own phone or having consumers leave information on an answering machine sends the information that you're a modest business with restricted sources. If your business doesn't have the funds for a clerk, an outsourced assistant can cost simply a fraction of the cost and enhance your photo substantially.

A lot more Time Away from Job

At long last, small business owners will definitely discover they invest less time at work as well as more time with their loved ones when they delegate a provider to answer telephone calls and also relay messages. As an alternative of answering your very own phone day as well as night time, you may outsource an agent and pay under $ 1 each telephone call, leaving you even more time to invest savoring your life and reduced time devoted stressing relating to work.

About the Author:

If you would like to uncover the finest outbound call center then I really advocate you pay a visit to Soaring Contact Centers right now.

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Answering Service Company

An answering service company is one that takes calls on behalf of businesses and professionals. Though a voicemail can also serve the purpose there is nothing like getting across to a human voice on the other end. Due to this reason many organizations and professionals are opting for answering service companies.

Answering services not only take down messages for you but also respond appropriately to the caller as per the situation. This is a million times better than an automated voice repeating a recorded message time and again.

Selecting an answering service company

Numerous answering service providing organizations have sprung up and all of them aim to cater to various clients. When selecting one for yourself or for your business, it is good to do a bit of research and inquiry. After all, the person taking calls on your behalf will be representing the image of your organization.

��Purpose: Identify the purpose for which you require an answering service. It could be for a whole day or for only after-work hours. You could be having specific requirements based on your business. The professionals taking calls for you should be aware of the technical jargons of your field and have a basic knowledge of the business as well. There are organizations that specialize in answering services specific to a profession. This can be in fields like medical, legal and the like.

��Facilities: There are different levels of benefits that a client can avail from an answering service provider. It can be a very basic service where only calls are taken to give an appropriate answer. Going a bit further, it can involve taking calls, recording messages and conveying them to the concerned person. If it is related to specific professions like the medical field, the person taking the call should be well versed with medical jargons and be capable of providing adequate responses.

��Experience: Experience brings about expertise in any field. The same can be said here as well. When selecting an answering service, try to go for one that has had considerable experience in the field. Being experienced means having the capability to foresee possible trouble spots and at the same time, have solutions to tackle them.

��Reviews: There may be varied reviews for every organization depending upon their relationship with clients. However, there is always a majority that can be counted on. The more satisfied customers a particular service provider has had, the better it is supposed to be. Try to get a review of possible service providers and go for the one that best suits you.

��Budget: This is a very important aspect of the entire selection procedure. Having decided upon your needs and requirements you may come up with a list of possible ��candidates’. The only thing that you would be required to do is to pinpoint one particular answering service provider. This part is mostly decided upon by keeping the budget in mind.

Selecting an answering service company is not a very tough process but needs some considerations. You need people to take calls on your behalf and they should be able to match your expectations and requirements. Take a little time out and select the best for your purpose.

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