Three Things An Answering Service Can Do For Your Real Estate Office

The real estate industry is a dynamic one, particularly when you're juggling multiple listings and working with several potential buyers. With so much going on all the time, you might find yourself feeling tethered to your phone. If you're struggling to catch all of those incoming phone calls amidst the other appointments, showings and inspections, an answering service may be what you need. Here's a look at what an answering service could do for your real estate business.

Screening Calls and Making Appointments

If you're one of those people who has always thought of answering services as just there to take messages, you may be in for a surprise. Answering services can provide many things, from messages to call screening services. If you provide a standard set of questions and a call routing map, most answering services will pre-qualify all of your calls and direct them to the appropriate place, all without you having to intervene.

You can even save yourself the time spent making appointments if you use a cloud-based calendar because the answering service can make appointments for you based on the available time in the calendar. This may save you hours of phone calls without sacrificing the service provided to your clients.

If the incoming caller needs to speak directly to you after passing through the rest of the pre-qualification steps, the answering service representative can then forward the call to whichever number you prefer based on the time of day or other information you've provided. With these services, you'll be able to ease the strain of a lot of the inbound calls, focusing only on priority calls and your daily appointments.

Maintaining Customer Service Standards

Since real estate agents have to work around the work schedules of buyers and homeowners, you probably find that you're frequently working outside of standard business hours. This has led many consumers to expect real estate agents to be accessible at all hours. By signing a contract with an answering service, you'll have someone there to answer incoming calls at all times, no matter what time of day it is. This ensures that your customers reach someone directly every time they call you, which can help to improve customer satisfaction. This may even help to reduce the chances of lost clients due to missed calls.

You may be able to hire an office assistant to deal with your incoming calls during business hours, but an answering service can provide you with phone coverage during the evening and overnight hours, which are times when many prospective buyers and homeowners will be out of work and ready to deal with their personal business needs.

Dealing With Rental Property Needs

If you deal with rental properties as well as home sales, you can understand the upheaval of tenant calls around the clock, particularly when something is malfunctioning or not working as planned. If you want to be able to focus on property sales or have some time to do personal errands, an answering service can screen your tenant calls for you.

In fact, if you have specific vendors that you use for certain repairs and services, you can provide the list to the answering service and they can then dispatch these service providers for you if a tenant calls with a need, whether it's a broken pipe or a faulty air conditioner.

As you can see from the information here, answering services offer more features and benefits that you might have thought. The real estate industry is ever-changing, and the fast pace can leave you feeling overwhelmed sometimes. If you're trying to provide the best possible service to your clients while still having the freedom to pursue new business, working with an answering service may be the solution that you need. Visit a site like http://atc-service.com to learn about other aspects a live answering service might be able to offer you.