Confidential Testimonials

Many of our clients come to us as they are recommended or referred; part of our process is to ask clients if they would like to offer a testimonial.
Lots of clients, as you can see from our testimonials page, are pleased to oblige.  In fact most of our clients are more than happy to offer kind words and we get email in to say thank you and keep up the good work and other such kind words on a regular basis.
All advice I have read or heard about publishing testimonials means that the name of the person as well as the business should be published alongside it.  Otherwise how can it be possibly be deemed as genuine?  We have all seen quotes from Mr A of London or Mrs S of Brighton and let’s be honest it might raise and eyebrow or at least one question in your mind.
So although we have clients very willing to offer us a testimonial or a case study, the closing line of the email is sometimes ‘We’d prefer that this testimonial is kept anonymous.’  The reason is always the same.  Our discretion is valued by all our clients.  The seamless nature of our service is highly prized even our clients that call our other clients don’t realise they have reached us.

The following testimonial received yesterday really does say it all and we don’t even apologise that we cannot share who sent it in!

“We have recently started using answer–it for our law firm and we are very happy with the service.  Our concern was that it might restrict our service to our clients but it has in fact enhanced them as we are now “available” for longer. We get instant messages without any errors promptly and we can prioritise who we talk to and when much more effectively. We have the added flexibility of switching back to our old system whenever we want for urgent or time critical reasons or periods. The day end reports are very helpful and provide us with a useful piece of management information which we did not have before. We wish we had known about the service earlier.”

[Happy for you to post it if you want to but perhaps anonymous as the real benefit is that no-one realises that we outsource this function.]

A different law firm was interested in us putting together a case study, which we did, however again we are unable to tell you who supplied it.

The Law Firm Case Study

The head of a Law Firm called one afternoon and it is fair to say he was very unhappy and upset with the service that was being provided to their business by an alternative company and were keen to switch answering services.

We are always keen to know what the issue has been, for a number of reasons.  We want to make sure that our service is always great and learning what irritates some people means we can raise our service standard higher as well as tailor our service to each client.  The issues have ranged between clients and other suppliers from minor to major.  In this particular instance various issues had arisen, although these were across a few different suppliers.

Calls had been answered in the wrong company name.  Callers had been patched through to the company even though there was no instruction to do so.  Calls had been simply been left to go to an answer phone.  (We found that one really baffling!) The type of business means that callers are often quite distressed and upset when calling in to get help with their situation.  A short and curt receptionist who cannot be sympathetic in this situation was just not working out.  Some of the messages that the company were receiving were making no sense.  The hours of service did not really fit their business requirement and finally the billing method was unclear as it was worked out per minute.

Since trialling the Answer-it service, and signing up full time, callers to the business have given excellent feedback about ‘The friendly helpful receptionist.’ Messages have been expressed very well and accurately.  Callers in a difficult situation with regards to receiving a return phone call or distressed for whatever reason are always handled sensitively and the correct people are made aware of any issues.  Service has been reliable and professional.  Any help required has been given willingly and without delay.

He said ‘Finding a good and reliable telephone answering service is like finding a needle in a haystack!  The way you handle calls makes our job easier and helps us with responding to the calls.  We are really very happy with the service Answer-it provides and are happy to recommend the service far and wide. We want the freedom to get on with our work without being interrupted by the phone, but don’t want to have to employ a receptionist.  We get the best of both worlds using ‘Answer-it.’
No one knows we use an answering service and we want it to stay that way, so would ask you not to use our name in this case study.’

In actual fact I don’t think we have any better testimonials to share.

Similarly we answer calls for a number of high end businesses, I recently spoke to one such business owner.
She asked if we worked with similar high end businesses and what type of businesses they were, and who there were.  Of course I could only share the types of business not who they were for confidentiality reasons.  This of course was just what this prospective client wanted to hear.  She signed up for a trial immediately!

For some of our clients Answer-it Telephone Answering Service really is their best kept secret and asset!