Whether You Won the Award or Not, There’s Still More to Do

The ATSI Convention is over; the Award of Excellence Winners, announced. Hopefully you returned to the office to celebrate. Or maybe you returned dejected. Regardless of the outcome and your attitude toward it, there’s still more to do. It’s the most important part of the whole program.

The call recordings and judges’ scores are gold. This is the most valuable, comprehensive, and unbiased feedback you’ll get for your answering service’s quality. Don’t dismiss it. Instead mine the ore to find the gold. Here’s how:

Look at Average Scores

Start with the judges scores. Look at the average score for each category. Items with high averages provide a reason to celebrate. You excel in those areas. Make sure you maintain that strength.

Items with low averages suggest areas needing improvement. Pick the lowest area and develop a plan to turn that weakness into a strength. Once completed, repeat the process with the next lowest item. Continue until you’ve addressed them all. As you do this, don’t be discouraged. Every answering service has areas needing improvement.

When you seek to uphold your strengths and correct your weaknesses, you position yourself for a better result next year.

Evaluate Consistency

Looking at statistical averages is a great place to start, but there’s more. Evaluate the consistency of each category. (If you’re into math, this is called standard deviation.) Your clients will subconsciously judge you based on consistency. When you’re consistent they know what to expect, and you meet their expectations every time. However, if you’re inconsistent they have no idea what to expect, and you’ll fall short. Tomorrow’s poor call will negate today’s great one. That’s why consistency is so important.

For example, assume you have an average score of three for a category. If all your scores in that category are three, that means you’re highly consistent. However, if half your scores are fives and the other half are ones, your average is still three, but you’re highly inconsistent. This is bad. Being inconsistent will drive clients away and make extra work for your customer service staff.

Just as with averages, look for categories where you’re inconsistent. Pick the least consistent one, and develop a plan to become consistent. Then repeat the process for the second least consistent category.

Listen to the Recordings

Next, all management and support staff should listen to all recordings. The goal isn’t to critique the judges’ scores or form opinions about individual operators. The intent is to look for trends. If you repeatedly hear a good characteristic, celebrate it. Then make sure it’s reinforced through training and coaching.

Conversely, if you see a less-than-ideal trait repeat itself, look for ways to correct it. Start with coaching for existing operators. Then integrate the correction into training for new employees.

Have a Staff Meeting

Schedule an operator meeting to discuss the results. Celebrate categories where your averages and consistencies are high. Then share areas needing improvement and the steps you’re taking to fix them.

Last, play the recordings of all the good calls, the calls that met or exceeded expectations. Don’t play the other calls that pulled your score down. That will irreparably harm those operators. Seek to help them improve, not hurt them.

Provide Individual Operator Feedback

For each employee who took an Award of Excellence call, meet with them privately to go over their call. Play the recording, and share the judges’ scores. This isn’t a time for the operator to justify themselves or dispute the results. This is a time to celebrate successes and provide encouragement for one key area for the operator to work on. Make this a positive time, and your operators will respond well.

Conclusion

When you get home from the ATSI convention, don’t cast aside your Award of Excellence recordings and scores. They contain valuable information but only if you take time to follow these steps to get the most out of them.

1. Look at average scores
2. Evaluate consistency
3. Listen to recordings
4. Have a staff meeting
5. Provide individual operator feedback

If you do this, you’re sure to have better results in next year’s Award of Excellence program. Even more importantly, the quality of your service will increase, and cancellations will decrease. But this will only happen if you take time to analyze the results and act upon them.

You and your answering service have been in summer mode for a few months now. Exactly what that means depends on your management style, operation, and geographic location. Regardless of what summer mode looks like for you, there’s a different vibe in your answering service during the summer months than the rest of the year.

Though technically summer lasts for another month, effectively it ends soon, marked by Labor Day in the United States. Plan now to make the next season a good one.

Adjust Staffing Levels

Most answering services staff differently in the summer than they do in the spring and fall. Usually summer requires a higher level of staffing to make up for clients who are on vacation. This means you’ll need to scale back your schedule in a few weeks.

Cutting back on your schedule too soon or too much will result in being understaffed and not serving your clients to the best of your ability. This hurts your service level. However, not scaling back soon enough will result in being overstaffed and a bloated payroll. This hurts your bottom line. You want to avoid both scenarios.

If you’re not sure how soon to adjust and how much to adjust, look at last year’s numbers to get started.

Say Goodbye to Vacation Mode

Just as clients tend to take vacations in the summer, so does your management team and answering service staff. It seems like someone’s always on vacation, getting ready for vacation, or just coming back. This creates a vacation atmosphere in your office, and though the needed work gets done, extra work faces delays despite your best efforts to avoid holdups.

Once your office gets past a vacation mindset, attention to special projects and important initiatives can resume. Strive to make this mental switch as quickly as possible to capitalize on the opportunities before you.

Establish Key Goals

Because of summer mode and a vacation atmosphere, many leaders scale back on summertime goals and others don’t even pursue them. Whether this is acceptable or not, it usually occurs. But don’t let this mindset languish. Establish key goals for the fall now. Then embrace them with renewed energy right away. Don’t wait until September to consider setting fall goals. Do it now.

Seek A Big Win

Just because you’re in summer mode doesn’t mean you can coast for another couple of weeks. What big project or important initiative can you accomplish now, before summer’s over? Seek a big win to end summer and ride that momentum into the fall. It will make a huge difference.

Conclusion

Most people like summer, and though they continue to work, their work is usually a bit different. It’s not so deliberate or quite as intense. Plan now to slip out of summer mode and re-claim a more intentional focus for the fall. This will set you up well for the upcoming fall season and help move you successfully into the new year.

If you take part in the ATSI Award of Excellence each year, here’s a reminder of just how valuable it is. And if you haven’t yet taken advantage of this amazing tool or tried it before and dismissed it, here are six reasons why you should dive in this year.

1. Obtain a Third-Party Assessment

Everyone in the answering service industry talks about quality. Maybe you think your answering service provides high quality. Perhaps you aren’t there yet but are striving to get there. Or it could be you doubt that you provide quality service, even though you claim otherwise. But who knows for sure?

Self-evaluation can only take us so far, and too often we only see what we want to see. That’s why an independent, third-party quality evaluation is so critical. When the ATSI Award of Excellence program confirms the high quality of your work, that means something—to you, your employees, and especially your clients.

2. Discover Areas Needing Improvement

The statistical results of the ATSI Award of Excellence program will identify areas where your answering service can do better. This happens with every answering service that participates in the program. No one is perfect. Knowing where you fall short in providing quality service, will allow you to address and improve these areas. But without being part of the program, you’ll never know what you need to work on.

3. Realize Areas of Excellence

Conversely, the ATSI Award of Excellence program will confirm many skills your answering service excels at. It’s good to know these things, as well. By identifying your areas of excellence, you can affirm them with your staff and your trainers. Then you can take steps to make sure you maintain, and even build upon, these areas of excellence.

4. Rally Around a Common Goal

Taking part in the program provides a shared objective your whole staff can unite under. Having a main goal of improving quality through the Award of Excellence program can become the focal point that drives your efforts. When your staff pulls together around a common purpose, it draws them closer to each other and unifies them in better serving clients.

5. Set Your Answering Service Apart

Though not every answering service that takes part in the ATSI Award of Excellence program will achieve a high enough quality score to qualify for recognition, when yours does, it sets you apart in the industry. Some answering services try and fall short—and that’s okay—but too many of them don’t even dare to try. They know they don’t measure up and their quality is subpar, even though they claim something quite different.

6. Have a Reason to Celebrate

Last is having a party. Most answering services love to throw a party and look for any excuse to do so. But winning the ATSI Award of Excellence is one of the best reasons to celebrate. You’ve always said you provide high quality service, and now you can prove it. This is worthy of a party. Don’t miss this opportunity to remind your staff how good your answering service is and to thank them for their critical role in making it happen.

Conclusion

With all these reasons to take part in the ATSI Award of Excellence program, it’s shortsighted not to sign up and foolhardy not to try to receive recognition. Registration is now open. Enroll now to be included in this industry-leading program. Your participation could change everything.

In our earlier post about evaluating your ATSI Award of Excellence results, we talked about the importance of consistency. Although the average of your total scores and the averages of each component of the calls is important, be sure to balance this with consistency.

Why Consistency Matters

Here’s what we said about consistency, “Your clients will subconsciously judge you based on consistency. When you’re consistent they know what to expect, and you meet their expectations every time.

“However, if you’re inconsistent, they have no idea what to expect, and you’ll fall short. Tomorrow’s poor call will negate today’s great one.”

An Example of Inconsistency

Let’s look at how fast your staff answers calls. We’ll consider this category because it’s easy to quantify and therefore easy to see why consistency is critical.

Let’s assume your goal is to answer all calls by the third ring. That’s a good and admirable goal. (Though your actual target maybe a bit faster or not quite as fast, we’re using this, not as a standard to shoot for but, as an example for our illustration.)

Next, let’s assume you achieve your goal. Congratulations! Your average speed to answer is three rings, exactly what your staff strives for and precisely what you promised your clients.

But before we get too excited, let’s look at the consistency element. (If you’re into math, this is called standard deviation. And if you’re not into math, forget we mentioned it.) Again, for the sake of illustration, let’s assume you answered five calls on the first ring and five calls on the fifth. This averages out to three rings, exactly aligned with your goal.

However, your clients’ callers will never experience you answering on the third ring. Half of the time you’ll answer really fast, which will delight them. The other half of the time you’ll take way too long, which will really frustrate them. They won’t know what to expect when they call. Will you answer quickly or slowly? What they will remember, however, is each time you took five rings to answer.

This becomes their perception of your work. Never mind that your average is three rings, which you far exceed half the time by answering in one. All they remember is five rings. And when that happens too often, they’re likely to cancel service because they don’t perceive you as answering quickly enough.

An Example of Consistency

Let’s make up another example. This answering service has a goal to answer every call within four rings. This isn’t as lofty as the first answering service, but their clients may perceive their quality as being better. Here’s why.

Let’s assume they hit their four-rings-per-call goal precisely. But, in addition, when looking at each individual call, let’s say they answered everyone on four rings. Whenever a client or their customers call, this service answers their call on the fourth ring, not sooner and not later. Four rings. Every time.

In this way, everyone expects a four-ring answer. And the answering service meets this expectation every single time. No one’s ever disappointed by a call ringing longer. Because of this consistency, clients perceive the quality to be higher than they would for the first answering service, even though the first service has a better average speed to answer.

The Next Step

Look again at the individual scores on each element of your calls from the ATSI Award of Excellence program. Look for categories where the rating deviates. This signals inconsistency. The higher the variation—such as half ones and half fives—signal highly inconsistent service. This hurts your clients’ perception of your quality. This is what you need to address to improve your quality in their minds.

When you do this, don’t simply look at improving your average. Instead strive to make your scores more consistent. In our example of ring counts, don’t work to move your average from three rings to 2.5. Instead look to eliminate all the five-ring-count calls. When you do this your average speed answer will decrease, but more importantly your consistency will increase.

Apply this example to whatever category has the most inconsistency on your ATSI Award of Excellence scoresheet. Then, once you’ve made that element more consistent, turn your attention to the next most inconsistent category.

Doing this will improve the quality of your service from the perspective of your clients and their callers. It will increase client satisfaction and decrease cancellations.

As the year winds down, our focus and drive often do too. There are seasonal activities and parties to distract us. And two major holidays, Christmas and New Year’s Day, interrupt our work routine. All this combines to tempt us to slow down and relax. Then we can hit next year full on and fresh.

Yet how we finish one year establishes the foundation for the next. Be diligent to finish this year strong. Then you’ll be ready to make the most of next year. Here are some tips to wrap up this year wisely.

Optimize Staffing

Look at your staffing situation. If you need to make changes, don’t delay. Make them now. Hire new staff and promote qualified employees. What a great Christmas gift to give them.

This optimization, however, also includes letting people go. Yes, December is a bad time to end someone’s employment, but is there ever a good time? If you wait until January second, they’ll complain just as loudly and think just as poorly of you. But if it’s time to say goodbye to an employee, don’t be heartless, either. Do whatever you can to soften the blow. Do it now so it’s not hanging over your head for the next month.

Complete Pending Projects

You certainly have some projects nearing completion but that aren’t done. You have a decision to make. You can put them on hold until next year and complete them then or you can double down and take care of them now. Finishing them now opens January for new projects. Isn’t that the right way to start a new year?

Fix One More Problem

Every answering service has a pain point or two. Some process isn’t working, or some department struggles. Maybe a piece of technology isn’t working correctly. Don’t carry this over to a new year. Pick this one problem and strive to resolve it now. Just imagine how much nicer work will be once this concern is no longer an issue.

Seek to Minimize Tax Liabilities

Now is the time to take a preliminary look at what your tax situation might be. What can you do in December to lessen the taxes you pay next year? Maybe you need to move some planned expenditures for next year into this, or perhaps you should delay some spending until January. Check with your accountant now to see what you can do this year to make next year financially better.

Set Goals for Next Year

Some people are big into goal setting and others not so much. Wherever you fit on the goal-setting spectrum, plan for next year. What major initiatives do you want to accomplish? How do you want to make your answering service better? How much do you want to grow? Reduce expenses? Increase profitability?

These are all areas that suggest major goals for you to have for next year. And if goalsetting isn’t your thing, figure out a way to let these major initiatives guide what you do for the next twelve months. Then a year from now, you can look at all you’ve accomplished.

Conclusion

Does this list overwhelm you? Don’t let it.

Pick what you can reasonably do and then do it, while still taking time to enjoy the season with family, friends, and staff. The key is to not cease all nonessential work in December and coast your way into the new year. All this accomplishes is pushing more work into January and delaying your start at embracing the opportunities a new year brings.

Spring is that time of year we usually associate with doing a thorough cleaning of our house, called spring cleaning. Whether we actually get around to doing it, of course, is another story. Let’s move the concept of spring cleaning from our home to our business. Here are some spring-cleaning projects we might want to consider for our answering service.

Get Rid of What We Don’t Need

Most businesses, including answering services, have items they don’t need and will never use. Get rid of them. Sell, recycle, or donate. Don’t overlook things that are broken or obsolete. Ditch them too. The point is to get rid of clutter. This will have a freeing, empowering impact.

Reorganize What We Keep

With a little extra space to work with by getting rid of things we don’t need, we now have the capacity to reorganize what we have left. This includes our equipment room, storage areas, and files—both the paper kind and the electronic kind. And as we go through our reorganization, we’ll probably stumble on more things we don’t need. We can get rid of them too. Bonus!

Make Room for More

We’ve cleaned up and reorganized, what do we do with the extra space? Make room for more. Not more stuff, but more revenue-generating, efficiency-enhancing resources. Perhaps the net result of this effort is opening up an office or at least providing space for an employee who needs a better place to work. Or maybe this effort will produce a work area for that new employee you want to hire but don’t know where to put.

Update What’s Outdated

There seems to be a never-ending supply of things that are outdated. Update them so they can actually be useful. The areas to consider are numerous. Look at paperwork and forms. Most answering services thrive on these, but outdated paperwork will hamper productivity.

What about policies and procedures? These things evolve over time and existing staff tends to adjust with them, but what about a new employee or person new to a position? These outdated resources will cause them to take the wrong action or make ill-informed decisions.

Next look at sales and marketing collateral. Does it promote services you no longer offer? Does it not include new services that you do offer? Make sure pricing and feature information is current.

And don’t forget your website. Does it look old and tired? Many answering service websites do. Does it still meet your needs or is it a bit clunky to use? Perhaps a few strategic tweaks will fix it, or maybe it needs a complete overhaul.

Make Staffing Changes

When it comes to spring cleaning, the most challenging consideration is often staffing. Most answering services have at least one less-than-ideal staffing situation. It might be someone who’s in the wrong position, a once-valued employee who is now dragging down the company, or a person who never should have been hired in the first place.

It’s easy to put off making needed staffing changes until next week. We hope things will get better. We want to believe the situation will fix itself. It seldom does. Take a deep breath and resolve to make the staffing changes necessary for your answering service to thrive. It might result in short-term pain, but when done right it will produce long-term gain.

Next Step

In reviewing this list, there’s a lot to do. But don’t let the number of options paralyze you into taking no action. Instead pick the one spring cleaning project that will accomplish the most and do it. When it’s done pick the next significant one and do it too. Keep going until you’ve checked off every item on your list, even if it takes all year.

Last month we talked about the importance of finishing the year strong to best prepare for the new year. Hopefully you followed some of the recommended steps and did indeed finish last year strong. Now you’re prepared to make the best of this year for your telephone answering service.

However, this won’t automatically happen on its own. To find success this year, you must plan for it. Here are some things to plan for if you expect good outcomes to happen with any amount of success.

Plan for Growth

Have you ever heard of an answering service wanting to get smaller? No. Instead answering services want to grow. With growth comes greater economy of scale, more opportunities, and increased revenue. Greater revenue is a prerequisite for realizing greater profits. So, plan now to grow your answering service this year.

You might want to grow through making a strategic acquisition. Or you might opt to grow through sales and marketing. Both approaches are viable, yet neither is bound to happen accidentally. Start the year by planning the steps you’ll take to grow your answering service this year.

Plan for Staffing Needs

In the answering service business, it seems there’s always people the hire. Usually this is for your front-line operations staff, but there are also other positions in your company you need to fill. Sometimes you can promote people from within, and other times you need to go out and find the right person.

Look at where you are today with your staffing levels, and look at where you want to be at the end of the year. Don’t forget to factor in staffing to meet your planned growth from the previous step. Now plan on how you will get there.

Plan for Technology Needs

Technology changes fast in the answering service industry. Yesterday’s leading-edge technology is today’s must-have solution. If you’re hoping to get by this year using the same technology you had last year, you risk the rest of the industry passing you by. If your competition has more technology available to them to serve their accounts, it will be hard for you to win new business from them.

However, if you’re the first to implement new technology, this gives you a competitive advantage and the ability to grow your answering service. This ties in with the first item, planning for growth.

Plan for Profitability

We’re in business to make a profit, right? Again, if we don’t plan for profitability, there’s a slim chance of it happening on its own. Although some people may opt to grow their answering service merely to hit some target number, most do it to increase revenue and therefore drive greater profits.

Conclusion

Maybe you’ve already planned for this year, but perhaps you only have some partially developed ideas in your head. Now is the time to finalize those thoughts and write them down. Share those plans with your key staff. Make sure they’re aware of what you hope to accomplish this year. This way they’ll be more likely to help you implement your plans and achieve your goals.

If you’re all playing from the same playbook, you’re much more likely to chalk up a win for this year. But it all starts with having a plan.

Hopefully you had the opportunity to attend this year’s ATSI conference.

At the ATSI convention, we attended sessions, networked, and met with vendors. Brimming with ideas and inspiration, we left feeling energized, reinvigorated, and ready to make our answering service even better. Then we arrived at our office and had a hundred things confront us, urgent things that distracted us from doing what we wanted to do.

But don’t let that dissuade you from what’s important. Before you file and forget everything you learned, be intentional and take time to pursue a strategic approach to make things happen.

Here’s a four-step process to help you turn good intentions into valuable results.

Review Your Notes and the Information You Collected

Block out time to look at your notes and the business cards and literature you picked up at the convention. Divide them into two categories: things that will make a difference for your answering service and things you’ll never get around to. Set aside those things you’ll never get around to and focus on the rest.

Prioritize Activities

Look at the items that will make a difference in your answering service and are realistic to do. Prioritize them.

Ask, what is my answering service’s biggest need? This could be generating more revenue, decreasing expenses, or improving processes. Other things may relate to staffing, billing, or technical initiatives. Now with this greatest need in mind, which item—or items—on your list will best address it?

Now identify the second greatest need your answering service faces. What item—or items—will best correct that need? Continue in this way until you identified your top needs and assigned activities to help you fix them.

And for those activities that don’t align with your answering service’s top needs, set them aside. No matter how good those ideas are, they’re not going to address your big picture issues.

Make an Action Plan

Next, develop in action plan to address each one of these top needs your answering service faces, using the ideas that the convention spawned. Resist the urge to tackle all your top needs at once. Spread them out so you can focus on one thing at a time. Only when the first item is under way and moving towards completion should you consider the second initiative.

Get Staff Involved

Just because you attended the conference and have all these great ideas for improvement, doesn’t mean you need to do them alone. Get your staff involved, but resist the urge to dump the whole project on them. Instead, work with them, delegating some items and taking the lead on others. If you don’t take part in making things happen, little will happen.

Conclusion

Attending a telephone answering service industry conference or convention is a great way to connect with people and spawn ideas. But what you do with these ideas when you get home is what matters most. Follow this four-step process to turn your ideas into results:

1. Review your notes and information.
2. Prioritize activities.
3. Make an action plan.
4. Get staff involved.

If you do this, you’ll return to next year’s convention with a more profitable and better-run answering service to your credit. Then you can come up with new initiatives to make it even better.

As individuals and businesses, we purchase insurance policies to protect us from loss. Personally, we insure our home and cars, our life and our health, along with other things. For our answering service, we insure our building and its contents, to start with. Then we add a general liability policy. But for a telephone answering service, especially in this litigious society, a general liability policy isn’t enough. We also need an errors and omissions insurance policy, E&O for short.

What is E&O Insurance?

As the name implies, E&O insurance provides a degree of financial protection from mistakes that happen when we serve our clients. Most notably this includes errors that our staff may make. That’s the E part of E&O. The O stands for omissions, which provides a degree of financial protection for acts of omission, that is, failing to do what we should have done.

Some people divide this into “errors of commission” and “errors of omission.” That is, doing the wrong thing, as well as not doing the right thing. Both types of errors can cause problems for our clients and may entice them to sue us—or threaten to sue us—for an error or omission.

People Make Mistakes

Answering services are staffed by people, and people are human. They make mistakes. True, our staff does the right thing on most every call, but it’s not the 99 percent that we do correctly that earns our clients’ respect. It’s that 1 percent where we might fall short that garners their ire.

Of course, we can minimize this with good training and mitigate it with good customer service. But even good training and good customer service can’t eliminate the reality that errors do occur. It’s part of being in the answering service industry.

Don’t Risk Not Having Coverage

Some answering service owners have decided to go bare and skip the E&O insurance policy. They’ve made a business, or a financial, decision to forgo coverage; they hope an angry client who wants reimbursement or revenge will never sue them. Or if someone does sue them, they hope it’s something they can deal with.

Making this decision to not buy E&O insurance coverage may save them a little bit of money each year, but it also puts their entire business at risk, along with their future financial well-being and that of all their employees. One small E&O incident could capsize an answering service, and one large one would sink it. From this there is no recovery.

Include HIPAA Coverage

Though the items included in an E&O policy vary, common elements include defense costs, errors made by temporary workers and subcontractors, and personal injury, such as libel or slander. Policies can also cover both actual and alleged negligence, as well as address both claims and associated damages. (Not covered are things such as HR issues, fraud, injury, and property damage; these require a different type of policy.)

As an answering service, it’s also important to make sure the E&O policy includes protection from HIPAA violations. HIPAA regulations are a growing concern for answering services that handle healthcare clients, but even those who don’t take on medical accounts, may still dip into an area covered by HIPAA. Fines for HIPAA violations are expensive, ranging from $100 to $50,000 per violation (or breached record) with a maximum penalty of $1.5 million per year.

Few answering services could survive that type of financial hit on their own. Make sure your E&O insurance policy includes a HIPAA provision.

Conclusion

Not having E&O insurance may save some money for the short-term, but it opens uninsured answering services to a huge liability that could cripple their operation. Even one small E&O claim could more than pay for itself, while one large incident will mean the difference between shutting down and staying in business.

Most everyone talks about quality service, but too often they can’t back it up

Telephone answering services typically compete in one of two ways. One is by the quality of their service and the other is by price. Let’s set aside competing on price, because there will always be an answering service out there willing to charge less. Besides, competing on price is a race to the bottom, which no one can win for the long-term.

Quality is Key

Instead let’s focus on competing on quality. When it comes to providing quality service, there are no limits as to how far an answering service can go. When you compete on quality it’s a race to the top, the exact opposite of competing on price.

However, quality is subjective. Most answering services claim to offer quality communication, but most of the time such assertions come without proof. So, the question becomes, how can an answering service prove to prospects they provide quality service?

The best way to do this is to present verification from an independent third-party. The ATSI Award of Excellence and the ATSI Call Center Award of Distinction programs are two ways an answering service or call center can provide verified, third-party validation that they do indeed offer quality service to their clients. Here’s how it works.

The Evaluation Process

The concept of testing and evaluating answering service quality is simple. However, just because the procedure is simple, doesn’t mean it’s easy. This process is time-consuming and labor-intensive, but the results are worth it.

Place Test Calls: The first step of the quality evaluation process is to place test calls. This requires a trained communicator who knows how to effectively pose as a prospective caller to contact an answering service’s clients. They pose as a mystery shopper over the telephone.

The first goal when placing evaluation calls is to be prepared and not let the person at the answering service who answers the phone know it’s a test. The second requirement is to know how to act to elicit the responses that are required to do a thorough evaluation. The third item is to avoid making the transaction too simple or unreasonably complex. Skill in placing test calls is essential to producing effective results.

Record Test Calls: In addition to meeting all the above objectives, the mystery shopper will also record the phone call. This is critical because the initial shopper is not the one who will evaluate the call. Someone else will. In fact, two other people will, maybe three.

The recordings are accumulated and saved for the next phase of the quality evaluation process. This step has the added benefit of creating a permanent record of the transaction for additional verification and subsequent follow-up by the answering service. This allows them to make additional quality improvements.

Score the Calls: The third step is to rate the calls. Again, this requires extensive training to ensure calls are consistently evaluated from one call to the next, and by one evaluator to the next. It takes practice and requires time to converge on this level of consistency, but it’s essential for the success of the program.

Two people will separately listen to and evaluate each recorded call against a 20-point quality checklist. These address the key issues that relate to answering service quality.

Compile the Results:Yet another person will take the quality valuations and compile a summary for each answering service being tested. The result is a numeric score that quantifiably indicates quality.

The Outcome

Some answering services, while good, may fall short of the quality threshold established by the testing agency. However, these answering services will still benefit, for they will now know the areas they fall short in. Then they can work to improve their quality and do better in next year’s evaluation. These answering services are to be commended for striving to improve the quality of their work.

Answering services that surpass the quality expectations of the testing agency are highly commended. They win official confirmation of providing quality service. They earn the ATSI Award of Excellence or the ATSI Call Center Award of Distinction.

Telephone answering services that earn the ATSI Award of Excellence, as well as call centers that achieve the ATSI Call Center Award of Distinction, are now armed with a valuable credential, the most valuable in the industry. They can verify to their prospects that they provide quality service. They can prove that they are among the best of the best.

Last month we looked at the impact of TAS industry consolidation on answering services. After analyzing the causes and the results produced, we discovered many positive outcomes as a result of our industry consolidation.

However, as the number of answering services decrease because of mergers and acquisitions, this puts pressure on vendors who now have fewer customers. This requires vendors to continue to find ways to profitably serve a shrinking customer base.

Think about our list of industry vendors over the past two decades or so. Some have gone out of business, others have been acquired, and a few have moved away from the industry. We’ve also seen vendors diversify into other lines of business. And a few have grown through mergers and acquisitions.

Everyone in the telephone answering service industry wants our vendors to succeed. We want our vendors to remain strong, to be there to support us for the long-term. While their future may seem like it’s up to them, as their customers we play a part in their future success. Here’s what we can do to help them:

Buy from Them

The most tangible way to help our vendors is to buy from them. Not only does this provide us with a better system that will allow us to do more for our clients and earn more revenue, but it also helps our vendors continue to support us and invest in our future.

Seek Fair Transactions

No one wants to be taken advantage of when they buy a product or service. Yet trying to negotiate the lowest possible deal may leave the vendor wounded and bleeding. Sometimes the special pricing that customers seek, lowers the profit margin for vendors so much as to make the deal not worth pursuing.

The answering service may feel like they chalked up a win, but the vendor feels like they lost. This is a win/lose outcome.

Instead seek to negotiate what is fair. Fair for us and fair for them. Pursue a supportive, long-term relationship, not one that hinges on how good the next deal is. If we want our vendors around for a long time, we must do our part to make this possible.

Be Active in User Groups

Most all vendors have some sort of a user group. This ranges from formal to informal, as well as vendor led to vendor independent. In the past some users banded together to complain about their vendor or put pressure on them to do things differently. While the driving force behind this is understandable, taking in adversarial approach tends to not be too helpful. Hopefully the need for this negative approach is all in the past.

How much better to be a positive presence in user groups. Be part of the solution, not part of the problem. This doesn’t mean that vendors are always without fault in all their actions and business dealings, but it does mean we should work towards resolution in a positive, “we’re all in this together” attitude.

Be active in user groups, seek to give more than we receive, and help both our members and our vendor to succeed at the same time. Let us serve as their advocate.

Appreciate What They Do

Remember to thank our vendors. If they sponsor an industry event or dinner, let them know we appreciate it. Better yet, help them get the most out of their contribution. When it comes to providing funds to make our associations and meetings work, we should view our vendors as more than someone who writes a check. In many cases, they are who makes our networking and education possible. They deserve our gratitude and our encouragement.

Taking proactive steps to support our vendors is a step towards protecting our future as answering services. If we want to be around for a long time, we need our vendors to be there with us.

In the last two posts we looked at the impact of TAS industry consolidation, first on the answering services themselves and then on the vendors that serve our industry. While most people shudder at the thought of industry contraction, we noted several positive aspects of consolidation on those answering services that remain. When it comes to TAS vendors, however, there is more pressure on them, with fewer answering services left to buy their products and services. Yet, when we support our vendors, we support ourselves and prepare for the future.

The third segment of industry stakeholders is TAS user groups and associations. Like vendors, these organizations feel the pressure from industry consolidation. In general, they end up with fewer members and fewer volunteers. This puts stress on already lean organizations, who now need to make limited resources stretch even further.

Though this is the reality our industry organizations face, there is likewise hope for them for today and a more vibrant existence for tomorrow. But this all hinges on the answering services. Quite simply, the involvement of answering services in industry organizations will shape their future.

In considering this, we must first look at the purpose and mission of these organizations. This will guide us in what we need to do.

TAS User Groups

First, let’s consider user groups. User groups form around a vendor and serve the vendor’s customers. With good leadership and an active membership, the future of user groups will track with their vendor. There is generally a direct connection between the strength of a vendor and the viability of the associated user group.

This doesn’t matter if the user group is under vendor control, receives some vendor support, or is independent from the vendor. Each of these arrangements will work fine if there is a positive relationship between the vendor and the user group.

Having a positive relationship is key. Although the impetus for some user groups was born out of frustration over a lack of vendor responsiveness, most groups have moved beyond this and realize they can help each other.

In addition to supporting your vendor, another way to aid your user group is to be involved and contribute to it. This will help ensure its long-term sustainability.

TAS Associations

Unlike user groups, general TAS industry associations aren’t aligned with a vendor. They have a more generic purpose. Historically, some associations focused on certain geographic regions, while others sought to provide services and support to the overall industry.

These groups are perhaps more at risk because of industry consolidation. They more acutely feel the pressure of reduced membership and reduced member involvement. Good leadership and dedicated staff can only take these groups so far. They need to have a purpose that will attract answering services and staff to their programs and offerings.

In recent years, most all TAS associations have sought to pivot their purpose to meet changing industry needs. Some have done this well, and others have struggled. But in large part, how this unfolds is up to you.

How to Respond

For user groups, and to a larger extent TAS associations, their future is in your hands.

If an industry organization is important to you and your company, then take steps to ensure its ongoing survival. This means becoming a member, attending events, and providing volunteer assistance.

Last month we discussed the impact of industry consolidation on TAS user groups and trade associations. Though there’s reason for concern over this trend, there are also solutions. It’s important we don’t lose sight of that. There’s no room for panic. Intentional action is required, now more than ever.

This month we’ll explore what you can do to support your favorite TAS industry organizations. This will help ensure their ongoing success and even spark growth. If you’ve been sitting on the sidelines, now’s the time to act. And if you’re already involved, now’s the time to examine your degree of involvement. But don’t worry. It doesn’t take much to make a difference. If everyone does their part, these individual efforts will add up to have a huge impact.

1. Join

The first step is to show your support by joining the TAS associations that are important to you and your answering service. Joining demonstrates a commitment, and your commitment will inspire others to follow your example.

Most associations and groups have a small membership fee. So, by joining, you show your financial support. Membership fees provide the financial foundation for most associations, either in part or in full.

Now that you’ve joined, don’t be a passive member. Be active. Get engaged with the association’s plans, products, and initiatives.

But this doesn’t just mean you. Get your staff involved, too. They’ll view it as a huge perk, one which will help them be a better employee and contribute more to your TAS’s success and profitability. Plus, the association will benefit from their enthusiastic participation and fresh input.

2. Attend

Be sure to show your support for your associations by attending their annual conferences or meetings. It takes a lot of work to put on these events, and organizers strive to make them as valuable as possible for attendees. Show your appreciation by going to their events or sending your staff.

The benefits of attendance for both you and the association are numerous.

For you and your company, the immediate benefit is increased industry knowledge gained from attending the sessions. Equally valuable are the ideas sparked by the presenters and from other attendees in informal settings. These would never be realized without being present. One good idea could cover the entire cost of the meeting.

Additionally, sending staff to industry events shows that you value them as employees and want to support them in their job and help them advance within your organization. This instills a sense of pride in them and helps increase their value to your TAS.

For the association, they benefit from the registration fees. But more important is the positive impact that a well-attended conference will have on the energy and outlook of the group. This can have a positive snowball effect.

3. Volunteer

The first two steps are joining and attending. The next one is volunteering.

The 80-20 rule applies to our industry associations and groups, just as much as it does for everything else. This off-stated adage suggests that 20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the organization’s work.

Though this is often true, it’s not healthy. Not for the organization and not for the volunteers. These overworked people run the risk of burning out or dropping out. We don’t want that to happen.

If every person volunteered to do one thing, no matter how small, the impact to the group would be huge. As the saying goes, “Many hands make light work.”

There are multiple ways to help. People can work behind the scenes, help at meetings, and serve on committees. They can work on projects, prepare presentations, and support leadership. And what if you’re not sure what needs to be done? Just ask. You’ll receive many helpful suggestions.

4. Buy

The final and fourth step is to buy the association’s products or services. This is another way of financially supporting the group and benefiting your TAS in the process. This is also a privilege of membership, as most groups price things lower for their members.

When you buy from your association you also provide the indirect benefit of thanking the volunteers for their work and encouraging more similar activities in the future.

Conclusion

Do these four things to support industry associations and groups now, and they’ll be around to support you and your company, both now and in the future. Everyone wins.

In a prior post we discussed what you can do to support your favorite TAS industry associations.  We gave four tips: become a member, attend their events, volunteer your time, and buy their products. Let’s look specifically at industry events and what you can do to make them more valuable.

Yes, each attendee can do their part to help make a convention, conference, or meeting a success. And if each one does their part, the results add up to a significant outcome. Though a few of our associations have already had their events for the year, most dates are in the spring and fall. This means that now is the time to prepare to make the next TAS industry event you attend be a successful one.

Here are six practical tips you—and everyone else—can apply to produce a winning convention, conference, or meeting.

1. Go to the Complete Event

The first step is easy. You need to be there. This doesn’t just apply to some of the conference but the whole thing. Don’t arrive late or leave early. And certainly don’t duck out in the middle for some personal sightseeing or side trip. Restrict non-work-related activities to before or after the event. Give the convention your complete focus.

2. Establish an Objective

Decide what you want to accomplish at the meeting. There is no right answer that applies to everyone, but there is a right answer for you. You need to determine what it is and plan to accomplish it. Your objective might be to learn industry trends, find out the latest technology tools and developments, or network for possible strategic alliances. Of course, these are just three ideas to get you started in determining your objective for the convention. The key is to know why you’re going and be intentional about fulfilling that why.

3. Commit to Meeting New People

We often talk about the importance of networking at industry events. While this is good, too many people “network” with their friends and acquaintances. Though this is comfortable and easy to do, a more valuable form of networking is to introduce yourself to new people and make new friendships. The goal isn’t to replace your existing network but to supplement it with fresh ideas and newfound enthusiasm. And you can only do this when you become intentional about meeting new people.

4. Focus on the Positive

Great effort goes into planning a convention, conference, or meeting. The goal is always to provide value and make your participation worthwhile. The event planners strive hard to produce a positive environment, but the attendees can either build upon or destroy all that hard work.

First, examine your own attitude. If you’re brimming with expectation for what will happen, this will overflow with a positive vibe and influence how you act and talk. However, if you’re braced for a bad experience, you essentially guarantee it will happen.

Next, look at those you interact with. Gravitate to people who are positive, and steer away from those who are negative. Sadly, some people are negative by nature, and you want to make sure they don’t drag you down to their level of disappointment.

5. Attend Every Session

Yes, the ideal is that every attendee goes to every session. This maximizes your learning opportunities, encourages the presenters (who often feed off their audience), and facilitates the exchange of ideas and the formation of new insights.

Yet sometimes this isn’t feasible. You may have already heard a presentation, or you need to take a bit of a break to pace yourself for the rest of the event. Possibly an important meeting, as prompted by tips two or three, will cause you to preempt a session. If you must miss a session, make sure you miss it for the right reason.

6. Support Vendors

Many industry events have vendor participation. They pay a fee to be present—often a significant one—and look for a quantifiable return on their investment. Ideally, they hope to sell you something, either at the event or in the future.

Even if you don’t buy something from them, be sure to thank them for their participation and for the various sessions and outings they sponsor. A heartfelt “thank you” can go a long way. And don’t just thank the vendors who support your answering service. Thank them all. It’s the right thing to do.

And while you’re at it, thank the event planners and the conference chair.

Conclusion

Go to your next industry event armed with these six tips. Put them into practice, and encourage others to do the same. It might just be one of the best events you ever attend.

HIPAA Compliance Is More Than a Best Practice, It’s the Law

Over twenty years ago, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) was born. Even now, two decades later, we’re still grappling to understand the ramifications of this wide-ranging act that continues to evolve.

Here’s a quick and basic overview as it relates to the answering service industry. First, HIPAA applies to healthcare providers. The act calls these covered entities (CE). It also addresses organizations that work for CEs. They’re called business associates (BA). A telephone answering service with an account in the healthcare industry is a BA of that account. That means the answering service falls under the requirements of HIPAA regulations. A failure to comply can result in fines and a loss of standing in the medical community.

The key element of HIPAA, as it relates to answering services, is protected health information (PHI). Answering services with medical accounts must properly handle protected health information. This includes data storage and transmission, that is, at rest and in motion. This likely means secure computer centers, encrypted archives, HIPAA-trained staff, and secure messaging apps.

Let’s take a brief look at each one.

Secure Computer Centers

There are varying degrees of security, but an open or unlocked door to an equipment room is not one of them. At a most basic level, security requires locked doors and limited access. If your equipment is on premise, then these security measures fall to you to provide and maintain. If your system is off-site, such as hosted, SaaS, or cloud-based, you must make sure your vendor provides adequate facility security on your behalf. If they fail to do so, you’re on the hook.

Encrypted Archives

Most answering services store messages on their main platform for a short time. Then they move older messages off the system and into a storage facility. In addition to securing physical and remote access to this facility is to limit the data’s usability should it fall into the wrong hands. Though not an absolute requirement of HIPAA, it’s a best practice to encrypt all archives.

HIPAA-Trained Staff

The HIPAA act also requires compliance training of new hires and regular, ongoing training of all staff. Though the regulations don’t specify how frequently training must occur or what it must cover, it’s critical to document that HIPAA training took place and what information it covered. Most organizations opt for annual training and more frequently as needed. Usually, a HIPAA instructor provides the training. This could occur onsite, remotely with a live presenter, or by recorded video. Don’t skip this step.

Secure Messaging Apps

Perhaps the best-known requirements of HIPAA in the answering service industry is the use of secure messaging apps. Most all major TAS vendors provide this capability. If your system doesn’t allow for secure messaging, it’s up to you to figure out how to effectively communicate with your clients and still maintain compliance. This is a difficult goal to achieve without secure messaging apps.

Conclusion

Although most medical answering services take HIPAA compliance seriously, not all do. A few take shortcuts, and some others ignore it, hoping they’ll never get caught. But this is risky, as it puts the future of the entire answering service, its employees, and its clients in jeopardy, not to mention the protected health information of the clients’ patients.

Many organizations, including ATSI, help with HIPAA compliancy. These include employee training, compliance consulting, and a business associate contract, among other things.

Don’t leave HIPAA compliance to chance. Review your current practices, and then correct any shortcomings. Do it today.

The telephone answering service industry is consolidating, and it has been for quite some time. Though we don’t have precise numbers to support this trend, the empirical evidence is all around us. Acquiring organizations grow larger, while the number of industry players gets smaller.

The idea of being part of a shrinking industry repels some people and scares others. But the reality of industry consolidation is not one of despair, but of opportunity. It becomes a matter of perspective. Is your glass half-full or half-empty?

Here are the positive considerations of industry consolidation that we should keep in mind, celebrate, and capitalize upon.

Right-Sizing

When a company lays off people, they sometimes call it rightsizing. While this may be a euphemism for reducing payroll, other times it’s an acknowledgment that the organization has too many employees and needs to scale back to reach its ideal size, the right size, the size that its revenues can support.

In many ways the answering service industry is rightsizing. In effect, this is the industry realizing there are too many players as it seeks to achieve its ideal size. It’s self-correcting to reach a sustainable level of capacity to meet client needs.

This will result in stronger answering services who are prepared to offer quality service and collectively elevate the standing of the industry. This stands as good news, and we are part of it.

Strong Prospects

Why has the answering service industry experienced this long season of consolidation? Although the answers are many, the underlying reality is that buyers of answering services are bullish about our future. If they had concerns they wouldn’t be buying; they’d be selling.

The fact that there are buyers out there looking to acquire answering services confirm these enterprise-minded, entrepreneurial-focused businesspeople see value in our industry. And since some buyers are from the industry and others come from the outside, this suggests a universal attraction to the answering service industry as a viable business model with long-term, profitable prospects. Again, this represents good news for our industry.

Less Competition

When we buy a product or service, we see competition as a good thing. It provides options and offers lower prices. However, when we’re selling a product or service, competition can serve to lessen the number of sales we make, decrease client loyalty, and place downward pressure on pricing, which threatens already low margins. These everyday realities challenge every answering service.

However, each time one answering service is bought by another, the net result is one less competitor. In the past ten or so years, many competitors have been removed from the industry. This doesn’t mean there’s a lack of competition, just that there’s not as much as there once was.

This decrease in competition is good news for every answering service. This makes it slightly easier to close sales, a bit less likely for a client to change services, and a smidge less focused on low prices.

As far as the number of answering services go, the industry still has the depth to provide for more acquisition targets in the future.

Niche Opportunities

As answering services grow by acquisition, their bigger scale often means that they will become generalists. They will provide a generic level of service that is flexible and adaptable to fit each market segment and meet virtually any client expectation. 

This means that other answering services are freer to pursue niche markets. They can specialize in a horizontal market or a vertical market, depending on their expertise, vision, and long-term goals. And since they have less competition overall, they will also encounter less competition in their selected niches.

Seller’s Market

With the interest of many industry players in making acquisitions, it remains a sellers’ market. This means that those who opt to sell their answering services to larger players are going to command a higher selling price. This is great news when an owner wants to retire or shift directions to move into a different industry.

Of course a sellers’ market isn’t good news for buyers. It means they need to pay more for the services they acquire. But the reality is, most of them are still looking to make acquisitions. This wave of buying will likely continue as long as there are owners wanting to sell.

Let’s look at the answering service industry with excitement for all the potential it holds. Don’t fret that our consolidation may be foretelling our demise. Instead, celebrate these events as good developments for your answering service business and the overall industry. We are rightsizing and have strong prospects, less competition, more niche opportunities, and higher selling prices.

What’s not to love? It’s a great time to be in the answering service industry.

Rising minimum wages throughout the United States will definitely have a tremendous impact on small business owners. With a $15 minimum wage gaining momentum, it will be necessary for owners to course correct in order to minimize the impact. The sensible solution is to leverage the support of an answering service.

The reality is, owners will have to pay more to hire new people and by default, pay more for existing employees. A higher minimum wage also means that it will be a challenge for employers to increase wages of high performers. Simply put, there will be less money available for payroll.

Last year, more than 81.9 million workers aged 16 and older in the United States were paid hourly. This represents 58.5% of all wage and salary workers. Among those paid by the hour, 434,000 workers earned a minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

The Impact Cost For One Employee As It Pertains To Answering Services

In the realm of telephone answering and call center services, the situation is about to change and, in many cases, already has. As an example, if a TAS needs to hire more agents, a reasonable average wage would be about $21,008 per year or slightly over $10/hour. By the time we get to the year 2025, the same employee will cost close to $31,200, which is about a 50% increase. 

Knowing that answering services are person dependent, each additional employee puts pressure on the payroll line. Other small business owners are experiencing the same pressure. This is the perfect opportunity for TAS owners to start marketing their answering services as a solution to reduce labor costs for small businesses.

Something To Share With Your Prospects

Begin educating your prospects and leads on the value of outsourcing their telephone answering to you. Don’t forget to highlight live virtual receptionist services either. Ensure your marketing messaging discusses how your TAS is the solution they need to offset employment costs. Start creating your marketing plan as soon as possible so you can turn the impact of increasing minimum wages into an opportunity for you to capitalize on.

You’ll want to highlight the benefits your service offers such as:

• 100% U.S. Based
• 24/7 Live Answering
• Bilingual Answering Services
• Substantial ROI
• Eliminates training costs
• Reduces burdened payroll costs

In addition, as a TAS owner, be sure to include in your marketing messaging the fact that your answering service assists prospects with “appearing” bigger than they are and helps them to project a higher level of professionalism while increasing their overall credibility. If you are an ATSI Award of Excellence winner, you’ll definitely want to make sure you highlight that fact as well, since it’s third party validation of the value of your service.

Even though all of these benefits are somewhat intangible, they all contribute to increasing the tangible aspects which are more leads, more sales, loyal customers and greater profits.

More Benefits And Reasons For Small Business Owners To Outsource to Your TAS

If a business owner is considering using your answering service as a method to reduce the impact of increasing minimum wages, be sure your sales person is mentioning that instead of hiring more people, they now have the opportunity to work with professional trained/certified call agents that can best represent their business for significantly less money.

Outsourcing to an answering service or call center enables your prospects to be efficient, flexible and productive. Your services, enables them to now be virtually open 24/7/365, giving them a wider competitive edge over their competition. With this edge, your prospects and leads will increase their odds for achieving their sales and profit targets. Your TAS service will deliver a higher ROI to them, while enhancing their business reputation and customer experience.

Final Words

At the end of the day, it makes good business sense for business owners to outsource to a live answering service versus hiring more staff because their overhead cost drops immediately.

Documented, recorded and delivered, there isn’t a better or more effective alternative for small businesses to reduce the impact of rising minimum wages. Begin marketing this message sooner than later.

Rising payroll costs impact every business and regardless if your TAS primarily supports small businesses or more corporate enterprise, your service is the solution that every business should leverage.

Expand Your TAS by Acquiring Accounts Instead of through Sales and Marketing

When you think of the future of your telephone answering service, what will it look like? What strategy do you need to use to get there? There is no one right answer that works for everyone, but there might be one right answer that works for you.

Some answering services pursue a growth-through-sales-and-marketing strategy. For services that excel at this, it provides slow, controlled growth. However, not every TAS does well at sales and marketing. An alternate solution is growth through acquisition. Other answering services excel with this approach.

Here are some considerations:

Buy an Existing Answering Service

A common way to pursue growth through acquisition is to buy a complete answering service. It’s an existing operation that you leave in place with existing staff who continue to serve clients and run the business. All you need to change is administration and financial oversight.

Some TASs who pursue this strategy leaves the acquired service as a standalone operation for the long-term. Others leave it standalone for the short-term, gradually integrating it into one of their other existing operations. They may or may not keep the acquired location. Similarly, they may or may not retain key staff.

The third approach for buying an existing answering service is to immediately integrate it into an existing operation. Though this may seem like buying the client base only, it differs in that you acquire all the infrastructure and TAS systems, rendering them unavailable to entrepreneurial-minded and displaced employees who want to launch a competing service.

Buy the Client Base

Acquiring the customer list costs less than buying an entire answering service. This may be an ideal solution if you plan to integrate the operations and accounts into your existing service. This allows for better management, tighter controls, and more consistent service than running two separate services, as you would if you bought an entire answering service.

There are risks when pursuing this strategy, however. We’ve already alluded to them. What happens to the TAS system that will sit idle once you acquire the accounts? Some entrepreneurial-minded TAS manager—who is now unemployed—could easily open new answering service using that equipment. It’s already installed, and they know plenty of unemployed but otherwise qualified employees to work it. In addition, they know the client base you’ve just acquired. Assume they have the client list too. This has happened. Don’t let it happen to you.

Buy Niche Accounts

As we’ve already covered in “Pursue a Boutique or Niche Market Strategy for Your Telephone Answering Service,” one TAS strategy is to pursue niche markets. The largest and most common niche is healthcare: a medical answering service. Of course, many other niches also exist, limited only by imagination.

Whatever niche you pursue, you can grow it the usual way through a targeted sales and marketing program. Or you can seek to buy accounts from existing answering services that align with your niche.

By way of example, let’s assume you're pursuing the healthcare TAS niche. Look for another answering service that is mostly commercial and has few medical accounts. They may struggle to service those accounts or conclude they’re more bother than they’re worth. Regardless of how they feel about their medical accounts, for the right price they may jump at the chance to sell them to you.

The Next Step

If you feel a growth-through-acquisition strategy is right for you, the next step is to decide how to move forward. You can go through a business broker who specializes in answering service sales. They’ll offer you a wider selection and produce faster results. Though the seller pays the commission to the broker, be aware that the fee could inflate the purchase price.

The other method to move forward is to pursue acquisition targets through networking and by making subtle inquiries. This gives you fewer options and may take longer to find an acquisition target, but this may be the best way to get an ideal property for a fair price or a bargain property at a nice discount.

Driving agent engagement is a priority in every call center, regardless of size. The truth is, engagement is what drives motivation, increases performance and decreases turnover, making it a key factor for you and your Operation Manager’s sanity. 

When it comes to answering services and call centers, increased engagement has two main benefits: high performance and high retention.

In the section below, we are talking about agent engagement in more detail.

Centralizing Agents Needs To Increase Their Engagement?

Every agent is unique and motivated by different things. However, if you “group” their needs and wants into a centralized behavior management strategy that inspires engagement, here are some good practices to follow.

• Purpose: The purpose of your TAS should be evident to every agent. When an agent connects with purpose, this is the driving force that inspires them to show their best work. Don’t promote “what” you do, promote “why” you do it — then watch the magic happen.
• Potential: Make sure that agents receive something out of doing a good job such as a rewards or recognition program, private Facebook group recognition and holding a Spirit Week.
• Play: Make sure that your team of agents has the opportunity to contribute, express their views, experiment, be creative and have fun.

When consistently implemented, these three factors are what every agent needs in order to increase their engagement with your call center.

Top 5 Ways To Improve Agent Engagement?

Call centers owners and operation managers should understand many aspects of their employees in order to create a better work environment — which include . . .

1. Hiring The Right People
   Even though it may seem like a no-brainer, hiring the right people is the main prerequisite for success in the call center industry. Find out who your best call agents spend time with. Remember, “birds of a feather, flock together”.
   
   
2. Know The Pressure Agents Feel
   There’s a lot of pressure being a call agent. These may include pressure to show up on time, especially when they don’t have transportation, the pressure to reduce abandonment rates, and pressure to reduce call wrap time, just to name a few. If you create an environment where purpose, potential, and play coupled with accountability (yes, people like to be accountable), as a part of your company culture — these factors begin to fade away.
   
   
3. Create A Sense Of Purpose
   Committed agents are always ready to go the extra mile. Show them where their contribution makes a difference to your clients and your TAS.
   
   Share “WOW” calls and any customer recognition with your team. Post great customer feedback in your private Employee Facebook Group so as to highlight the desired employee behavior and how it aligns with your company’s purpose.
   
   
4. Manage The Development Process Systematically
   Another important factor when it comes to driving higher agent engagement is the focus on the agent’s progression. In order for them to grow, your agents need to be trained systematically.
   
   The best way to do that is to build a culture of learning that focuses on questions such as:
   “Why are we doing what we do?”
   “What do our customers value?”
   “How does our work benefit the company and the callers?”
   “What new skills, behaviors, and tools are required?”
   “What does success look like?”
   
   This will allow them to see the bigger picture — enabling your agents to grow on many levels.
   
   
5. Team-Based Learning
   To engage agents, it is important to give them a voice. So, get them together and listen as they identify things that could be improved on and have them take responsibility for sharing their learning with their supervisors. It’s a great way to positively impact your operational efficiencies.

In the end, every TAS owner should be constantly around, getting involved and supporting their agents, paying attention to what they are saying and making a difference while focusing on the company’s purpose. This leadership style will deliver a huge ROI

Creating a culture that is based on purpose and inclusion will help your call center thrive. Driven on potential, purpose, and play, agent engagement will increase. This will motivate your employees to do their best — especially during every call they take.

If you’re in the answering service or call center industry, joining a professional association can provide you with many benefits. By becoming a member of the Association of TeleServices International (ATSI), it’s a win-win scenario for call centers and similar organizations because while they receive opportunities to network with other industry professionals, they will also get the training and education needed to learn more about growing a profitable TAS business.

Here at ATSI, we take pride in holding the umbrella for hundreds of professional call centers, answering services and contact centers. Here we are listing the top five (5) benefits of being an ATSI member.

1. A Community of Peers — Not Competitors

Members are bonded together as they share and advocate for each other. Joining ATSI means that every member gets a competitive advantage while becoming informed about our industry, legislative initiatives and other issues that impact our industry.

The networking opportunities provided by ATSI are unparalleled compared to other associations. We give our members a chance to connect with their peers, mentors and other industry leaders to learn from one another. Members are able to attend conventions, seminars, webinars and other related events with like-minded professionals. Together we Learn by Association.

Attending our annual conference is an incredible opportunity for every TAS owner and key management members to meet, network and learn from their peers. This gives everyone a broader perspective of the marketplace and the teleservices industry in general.

2. Education

As part of ATSI, TAS owners can keep up with the newest developments through the association's ListServ, courses, newsletters and other educational opportunities that are provided to them.

Through our exclusive online resources available for members only within the ATSI University, we give TAS owners access to exclusive courses and certification programs that enhance their technical expertise.

Additionally, ATSI conveniently offers all of the certification courses that owners, operations managers, and call agents need to demonstrate success. For ATSI, new members are a mutual benefit as they add tremendous value as to how to improve the industry as a whole and have a positive influence on our existing members.

3.   Professional Development

At ATSI, we pride ourselves on offering the best courses to our members — establishing a viable pathway of continuing education. 
Our professional development materials give an opportunity for each member to polish their communication skills and learn about new trends and advancements in the field. Access to research material and industry information is another great reason to join our professional association.

Our HIPAA Compliance tools and training offer the best methods to reduce risk and a great way to ensure your TAS is compliant by implementing our effective HIPAA agent training, certifications and access to our industry-standard Business Associate Agreements.

4.   Protection

It is amazing how legislation impacts our industry. ATSI advocates on the federal level to protect our industry and our members. We’re committed to providing the very best advocacy tools. ATSI members come to Capitol Hill on a regular basis to meet directly with federal agencies and decision-makers to discuss industry challenges and educate them on our needs.

ATSI is proud to offer our members the skills and techniques to help them advocate for themselves and to keep our members up to date on challenges and opportunities facing the profession.

5.   Promotion

ATSI is proud of having hundreds of members who continuously innovate, create new trends and promote best practices with each other. We are here to support each one of our members and strive to give everyone an opportunity to promote both their successes and their needs, and to collaborate with key vendors and other service providers. Being a member of ATSI means that you are always in a good position to innovate, set new standards and take your success to another level — with each other

If We Aim for Nothing, We’ll Hit It Every Time

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? How does that work for you? Some people mistakenly place annual goals in the same category as New Year’s resolutions: ideas that sound good but that we quickly forget and that accomplish nothing.

We need to disassociate the two. Annual goals, specifically for your job and for your answering service are essential. Without them you will flounder in your work, going from day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year.

And if it’s past January 1 and you haven’t set your annual goals, don’t worry. Just set goals for the remainder of the year and move forward. It’s that simple.

Have a Plan

In its most basic form, setting goals is establishing a plan. It provides a roadmap to move you forward. It looks at where you are and envisions where you want to end up. Setting goals not only helps you reach your destination, but they guide you to get there in the best and fastest way possible.

As the saying goes, “People who fail to plan, plan to fail.” The quickest way to fail in your employment or in the leadership of your answering service is to not plan, to not set goals.

Make SMART Goals

It’s important to make SMART goals. SMART is an acronym to guide us in our goal setting. If you’re not familiar with SMART goals, an online search will give you millions of pages of information.

If you are familiar with SMART goals, here’s a quick review. Effective and achievable goals should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Realistic
• Timely
  
  

Hold Reasonable Expectations

A common goal-setting adage is that we overestimate what we can accomplish in one year and underestimate what we can accomplish in five. Keep this in mind when setting annual goals. Yes, we want goals that will stretch us, but we also want to avoid goals that will overwhelm us.

Sometimes it’s helpful to start with envisioning where you want to be several years into the future. Then break that endpoint into multiple milestones that will move you toward it. Then use that first milestone (or two) to inform your goals for this year.

Adjust as Needed

Things change. It’s a given. Just because you set annual goals, doesn’t mean you can’t change them. As the year progresses, unexpected events occur. These often require adjusting your goals. This can take on multiple forms. In the most extreme instances, your goal may no longer be relevant. If this happens, cross it off your list with a clear conscience and remove its distraction.

Other times the unexpected may mean you need to change the timeframe of a goal. Usually this means extending the end date because the goal has now become more complex or because you now have less time to devote to it. However, the opposite may occur where the goal suddenly becomes more urgent. What you planned to do in twelve months, you should now do in six.

Last, you may need to tweak your goal. This can include increasing the scope of the goal, changing the steps to achieve it, or decreasing your expectations.

To be of use, don’t view your goals as unalterable. Allow yourself some flexibility. You will be happier and more successful if you do.

The Next Step

Whether you’re a seasoned goal setter, have never set annual goals, or fall somewhere in between, the key is to act. Put your goals on paper and post them in a prominent place so you’ll see them every day. This will keep your goals in the forefront of your mind and guide your actions every day. Then watch where the year takes you. If you persist, you and your answering service will end up in a much better position by the end of the year compared to where you started.

Losing Clients Each Month Is Inevitable but You Can Minimize How Many

A great characteristic of running a telephone answering service is having monthly recurring revenue. But no client remains on service forever. They’ll eventually cancel their service with you. Then you need to find new clients to replace them just to stay even. This is client churn. And to grow you must add clients faster than you lose them.

Losing some clients is inevitable: they close their doors, merge with another company, or experience different business needs. However, often cancellations are avoidable. Here are some ideas to reduce the number of clients you lose each month.

Sales and Marketing 
Better retainment of clients starts at the beginning. It starts before they become clients. It starts with sales and marketing. Do your marketing practices accurately portray your answering service and the outcomes your clients can expect? Overpromising and underdelivering is a sure way to lose clients fast.

Do your salespeople say anything to close a sale? That’s bound to set the basis for client disillusionment. If sales promise one thing but you deliver something else, clients will be quick to leave. And it will be hard to stop.

Onboarding 
Once you close the sale the next step is to set up their account and begin service. Some answering services rush through this process, expecting to fix things later. This is understandable given that most clients want to begin service right away once they decide to hire your company. However, the impression you make in the early days of your business relationship with them will be the impression that lasts. And if it’s not a good impression they’ll be quick to leave.

Service Provision 
Though everyone talks about providing quality service, quality isn’t as important as consistency. It’s better to be consistently average, then to bounce between excellence and failure from one call to the next. Yes, do your best to provide quality on every phone call, but strive even more to be consistent. When you provide consistent service, your clients know what to expect and you’ll deliver every time. Consistency combats churn.

Problem Resolution 
Service issues are bound to occur at any answering service. It’s how you respond that sets you apart from your competition. Many customer service people don’t realize that there are two aspects to resolving service issues. One is correcting the problem, and the other is leaving the client with a positive impression of the interaction. Fixing the issue but neglecting to deal with the human aspect is customer service failure— and a quick way to lose a client.

Billing 
Look at your invoices. Are they easy to understand? If your bills confuse—or even worse, frustrate—your clients, this is another negative factor that will tip the balance toward leaving versus staying. Next, are the fees, what did marketing and sales promise? Third, are the charges accurate? And just as important as accuracy is your clients’ perception of accuracy. There is also a customer service aspect of billing, accounts receivable, and collections. Don’t let this be your downfall. Make sure accounting isn’t driving clients away.

Cancellations 
When clients have enough, they’ll call to cancel service. By then is usually too late to salvage the business relationship. They already have another service lined up and may have already been using them to make sure they’re not going from an unacceptable situation to an even worse one. Though you can save a cancellation or two at this point, it’s usually too late.

And whatever you do don’t offer a concession to save the client. Giving them a free month of service or discount on their bill will encourage them to complain more often. And when you’ve had enough of their freeloading and say no, they’ll leave anyway.

Summary 
Successful customer retention begins with sales and marketing. It continues with the onboarding process. And the consistent provision of service is key. Another crucial factor is billing accuracy.

Every business and organization, including our members, should have an effective business continuity plan in place; and who would have thought we all would have to prepare and pivot for a pandemic such as COVID-19.

With the global emergence of a new strain of a virus named COVID-19, now is the time to revisit your ability to shift your TAS business and continue to thrive without interruptions to operations and service delivery. At ATSI, we continue to closely monitor the fluid situation daily and are taking all the necessary precautions and keep our members informed on all levels.

The truth is, business continuity in our industry is so important — especially when there is a lot of uncertainty and information is changing by the minute. Below, we are talking about many TAS business-related challenges that may arise as a result of this pandemic and how to manage them in the best way possible.

TAS and call centers have now been deemed an essential business. We support other essential and non-essential businesses so they can serve their clients and, in many cases, patients.

Support with Unforeseen Challenges
The fact that the COVID-19 virus is spreading fast puts us all in a position to connect with each other frequently — keeping our own lines of communication open.

For any unforeseen challenges you may be experiencing, be sure to leverage the knowledge and experience from our Listserve members who constantly share best practices, concerns, and solutions.

What we are seeing during this crisis is how our members are successfully navigating through this unprecedented time. Our members are nimble and able to bridge the communication gap for many and as stated, we are essential especially to other essential businesses.

We are one industry, one team supporting each other. We are here for you and will continue supporting our members with information as it pertains to conducting business during this crisis. We will keep you informed with up-to-the-minute policy and legislative changes.

Transitioning to Remote Operations
With this particular virus, we are faced with a lot of uncertainty and rapid-fire information. Indeed, no one knows how far the pandemic will spread, how long it will go on or what is coming behind it. Still, a lot of our members have begun taking proactive measures and deploying their employees to work remotely to help prevent the spread. Many ATSI members already have a staff of remote agents — even before this crisis. They are ready to assist with sharing their processes so that others can transition successfully from both a technology perspective and a human one.

Call centers allow businesses to be significantly more flexible. Our members are the ideal solution for not only essential businesses but non-essential ones as well.

Do You Have A Business Continuity Plan in Place?
If not, you will want to reach out to ATSI as well as your colleagues on the Listserve. If you already have a business continuity plan in place, chances are you have already shifted into action and a new normal.

At ATSI, we encourage our members to take the step forward and communicate with each other as we continue to learn by association.

The current situation with COVID-19 has certainly put a spotlight on the fact that call centers and answering services are an essential business — but as we know, our industry always has been essential. To quickly respond to the health and safety of others without compromising service delivery, many of our members have redirected their call agents to at-home remote status.

According to a new report by Buffer, around 98% of employees who work remotely want to continue to do so — at least part-time anyway. But one of the biggest challenges is how can operations managers and supervisors effectively manage and motivate a remote staff?

The Challenges with Remote Agents 
We all know there are many benefits to having remote capabilities for call agents. Many ATSI members say that the current situation is not only more convenient but more productive. Many members have always had a remote staffing model and have gone on to create an above-average employee retention rate while delivering healthy profit margins.

However, the challenge is the ability to be efficient and productive. This is a big concern for managers and supervisors who are now relegated to virtually monitoring their remote agents. Also, without the appropriate policies and procedures in place, remote agents can feel disconnected from their team.

How to Effectively Manage Remote Agents
The concept of managing a remote agent staff may seem a bit challenging. Below is a list of several tactics that could be applied to ensure agents are productive, engaged, and excited about working outside of the call center facility itself.

1. Making Work Fun — Gamification is one of the best ways to motivate a remote call center staff to do their best while at home. By using rules and regulations that have point scoring attached, competitions and challenges can easily be shaped into a fun experience.
2. Check-ins, Call Logs, and Daily Reports — Managing remote agents requires a system for operations and internal communication. Performance-oriented tools like Slack, Trello, and Asana can assist managers with gaining additional insight and obtaining valuable information about the work their teams are doing.
3. Quality Assurance Tools — The power of cloud-based contact center software can help managers securely track call quality and activities. Additionally, there are many solutions that trainers and supervisors can use to actively manage call quality based on specific KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
4. Offering Rewards and Incentives — Recognizing employees for everyday tasks, like showing up for their shift on time, is always a good thing. Catch them doing something right so that behavior is re-enforced and duplicatable. However, the real benefit comes when you offer rewards such as gift cards, gadgets, paid time off, dinner vouchers, and similar things to motivate your remote staff and give them a reason to continue to show their best work while ensuring an exceptional caller experience during every call. Be sure to check with your accountant as to which rewards are subject to tax in your state.
5. Fostering Collaboration — Last but not least is the idea of fostering a community within your remote staff. This is a tactic that directly impacts the challenge of being unmotivated or unproductive. If your call center uses a tool like Slack, you can provide a good method of communication between your co-workers (such as general chat rooms) as well as additional chats for managers.

How Are You Motivating Your Remote Agents?
In the face of recent events, many ATSI members are having to quickly shift to stay-at-home orders. Transitioning to a remote-friendly work model should be part of your business continuity plan. With a reliable system in place and actionable steps to track your team’s performance, you can position your call center on the path to success and be able to scale your operations — exactly when your clients need you the most.

Make Sure Your Advertising and Marketing Approach Is Strategic and Not Reactionary

When in the middle of uncertain economic situations, where future business prospects loom more evasive than usual, knowing what to do when it comes to marketing presents a challenge. The marketing you do today for your telephone answering service will affect sales now and the number of prospects in your sales funnel for months to come.

While considering changes to marketing plans is a complex deliberation with many moving parts, the reality is that there are only three basic ways to move forward. Once this fundamental strategy is determined, the more detailed ramifications become easier to deal with.

Scale Back
Faced with increased traffic and overstretched telephone operators, some answering services cannot fathom the idea of taking on any new business and thereby adding to the madness they’re currently undergoing. For these services, a wise strategy seems to be decreasing marketing efforts for this season. In fact, their situation may seem so haggard that they even opt to cease all marketing initiatives until things return to normal.

Reducing or stopping marketing campaigns will allow these answering services to focus more fully on the work of their existing clients. Then, once things settle down and return to normal, they can resume their marketing efforts and begin to refill their sales funnel.

Ramp Up
The opposite approach to pulling back on advertising may seem counterintuitive in a time that is more uncertain than usual. However, increasing marketing efforts now may pay off huge—both in the present and for the future.

First, if other answering services have reduced or ceased their advertising and marketing efforts due to uncertainty, this offers more opportunities for those who continue to promote themselves. This suggests the possibility of increased sales outcomes at a lower cost due to less marketplace competition.

Second, this is a time when businesses may, for the first time ever, consider outsourcing their communication needs to an answering service. Wouldn’t it be great if you’re the service they hire? But for them to consider you, you must make sure you’re doing everything you can to let them know you’re available and ready to serve them.

Maintain Everything
A third marketing strategy is to keep all existing efforts at their current levels. This will allow advertising to continue as is, generating leads and feeding the sales funnel. This no-change approach removes the need to make any tactical marketing decisions. The goal is simply to sustain the status quo. This will supply new business to make up for churn and hopefully generate some growth. It will also deliver leads to nurture now to produce sales in the future.

Conclusion
Of these three basic marketing strategies, scaling back may seem like the best approach. But it’s also the one most likely to jeopardize the future.

Maintaining the status quo may be the safest approach, not overreacting while waiting for things to return to normal. This, of course, assumes that things will at some time return to normal.

Increasing marketing efforts presents the greatest risk—increased expenses. It also offers the highest reward—a nice spike in organic sales.

Which path will you choose?

Member value is defined as the benefit that business owners receive from the association to which they belong. At ATSI, we are proud to have hundreds of members in the telephone answering and call center industry who not only recognize the value ATSI delivers but have experienced it first-hand.

As a user-centric association, we enable members to Learn by Association and receive strategic guidance from our staff and other members. This is fundamental to what we do and how we collaborate with each of our members, ensuring continuous progress toward the future.

But what are the specific benefits of being an ATSI member?

We Are Here to Advance Your Interests and Improve Your Business
First in the list of benefits is the core mission we all have at ATSI – to help you improve your TAS business through education, resources, and networking. We promote fair competition through the pursuit of appropriate regulation and legislation.

Under the ATSI umbrella, your telephone answering service business will be protected, guided, channeled, and supported. We are here to actively address present challenges and elevate our industry’s voice on Capitol Hill. All of this helps us maintain the highest standards of ethics and services.

We Focus on Education
The best way to describe our focus on education is through the ATSI Educational Foundation,  built to assist TAS owners in building a better future and bridging the gap between local and international markets.

ATSI thinks globally. We are continuously collaborating with industry professionals, adapting their strategies, and supporting programs that benefit the entire TAS industry.

Finally, we fund projects which include education opportunities, video recorded learning opportunities (webinars), and programs that contribute to our HIPAA training platform. We have assisted many members to thrive in the competitive landscape and inspired others to explore, become new members, and again — Learn by Association.

ATSI University: An Online Learning Platform Full of Products, Training and Toolkits
ATSI University is one of the most beneficial resources for our valued members. It’s an online learning platform that allows you to access educational opportunities that are sure to improve your business and your profit.

You can choose from a growing number of products, including:
- Agent HIPAA training (with proof of annual training and certification of HIPAA compliance
- Benchmarking tools
- Quizzes that help to measure performance
- A custom and branded online learning management system for each member

ATSI offers multiple subscription and payment options for the ATSI University platform. For more information, please visit this page.

Be Part of the Annual ATSI Conferences
Every year, the ATSI Board of Directors announces the Annual ATSI Conference that is held in a different U.S. location every year. This is an event where you can learn more about how to improve your business, get the support you need, and network with your peers in our industry.

Due to the pandemic that is still present, we have unfortunately had to cancel the 2020 ATSI Annual Conference, June 2–4, in Kansas City, Missouri. We will be updating all of our members about the possibility of hosting a virtual experience to celebrate our Award recipients and host our annual membership business meeting.

Want to Join ATSI? Here Is Your Special 50% Discount (applies to regular memberships only)
New members joining ATSI now have an opportunity to receive all of the benefits at half of the regular investment. Our membership dues are now as low as $75 per quarter, allowing everyone to experience the value that ATSI brings to the telephone service industry.

So, whether you own a call center, a telephone answering service, or any corporate entity in the TAS industry, we are now giving you a 50% discount on regular memberships (excludes Auxiliary and International memberships).

If Forced to Look at the Short-Term, Don’t Forget to Return to a Long-Term View

When driving, we’re told to look at the entire road and not focus on the car right in front of us. Have you ever known someone who only saw the car right before them? Were you terrified to ride with them?

Yes, there are times when the car right in front of us deserves our focus. Yet persisting in this mode keeps us from seeing everything else that’s happening all around. What else might we miss when one car receives our full attention?

Driving a Car Is Like Running an Answering Service
This, of course, is a metaphor about business.

Sometimes you’re faced with an urgent situation, and you must give it your full attention. In these situations, what’s happening right in front of you today is all that matters. Planning for later in the year, next week, or even tomorrow is a luxury you can’t afford.

However, once the present crisis ends—or is at least abating—it’s critical to return your focus to the big picture.

If you stay stuck in the present, you’ll miss opportunities for the future. Living in the here and now, however, is easy to do. An emergency pops up, and you deal with it. You’re living in that moment because that moment is all that matters. But when the moment passes, you sometimes forget to move away from it and return your focus to everything else that’s happening all around you.

Address the Urgent
As an example—which hopefully will never happen to you—imagine that your answering service catches on fire. At that moment, dealing with the danger is the only thing that matters. You move your employees to safety and call 911. Hopefully, there’s time to invoke your disaster recovery plan too. But in the overall scope of things, protecting lives is more important than answering phone calls.

As your building fills with smoke, it’s not the time to work on your strategic plan, conduct annual reviews, or agonize over a rate increase. You don’t want to be like Nero and pull out your fiddle as the city of Rome goes up in flames.

And then, once the fire is under control and your staff is safe, your immediate focus shifts back to resuming the answering of phone calls. Now, returning to normal operations becomes the new focus.

Then Move On
But once the emergency has passed, it’s critical to return to a big picture perspective. Don’t go looking for another metaphorical fire to put out. You’re sure to find something calling for your immediate attention, but it’s a distraction that keeps you from attending to more important matters.

Now is the time to finetune your strategic plan, hold annual merit reviews, and implement that overdue rate increase. If you’re stuck responding to the tyranny of the urgent, however, you’ll never give these more important things their proper attention.

Conclusion
Like many answering services, you may be coming out of a time when you could only focus on what was right ahead of you: how to keep your staff safe and somehow still answer an unexpected deluge of calls.

When the endorphin rush you get from successfully dealing with a near catastrophe begins to fade, don’t look for your next hit. Instead, take a step back and plan how you could better deal with such a situation in the future—because this is an element of history that could repeat itself.

Make sure you’re ready. Plan for tomorrow, starting today.

At ATSI, we’re committed to supporting our members on every level. That said, we are expanding opportunities for new Auxiliary members. This membership level is for organizations or individuals engaged in selling products or providing services that support business growth for our members in the answering service and call center industry.

If you are wondering how our Auxiliary Membership can benefit you, there are many different ways. Members are connected and learn by association and many times there’s a need for innovative solutions to assist with growing a telephone answering service (TAS) business.

As an ATSI Auxiliary Member, you have the opportunity to promote your product and/or services to our membership. ATSI will assist you with gaining recognition by offering an effective business landscape that will connect you with your ideal client who’s looking for your solution.

The Purpose of the ATSI Auxiliary Membership Program
The purpose of this exclusive program is to assist our members in obtaining better pricing and customer service through ATSI’s preferred vendors that our members frequently use. 

ATSI Auxiliary Membership is geared towards a select group of recommended companies that our membership base would benefit from collaborating with to grow their business and their profit. Auxiliary Members share the same vision and purpose as ATSI and are committed to delivering the following:

• Best-in-class products and services
• Exceptional client service
• Conducting business with solid ethical business principles
• Insight into product development, innovation, and implementation
• Strategic business development partnership

Gain Exposure to 200+ Members
One of the best benefits to becoming an ATSI Auxiliary Member is the opportunity to gain exposure in the industry. As such, your business can be put in the spotlight, where many other businesses are trying to find a strategic partner or just someone they can share ideas with.

Plan on attending ATSI’s annual conference where you will receive a special discount (member rate) for obtaining a booth to highlight your products and services.

Marketing Materials You Can Work With
Auxiliary members can quickly benefit by gaining exposure during our regularly scheduled member webinars. If you decide to become an Auxiliary Member of ATSI, you will receive one webinar hosted by us as well as one “Auxiliary Member Highlight” email in which your business will be promoted to our entire membership base.

All of these are strategies we designed in order to increase your presence and your reputation as an ATSI Auxiliary Member. While helping you navigate the waters of the TAS industry in a better way, we will also place your logo, company description and link to your website on our landing page within the ATSI website.

Now is the best time to expand your connections, strengthen your business and network with like-minded industry experts who need your solution.
Contact ATSI today to become an Auxiliary member or refer a vendor or supplier, who fits our selection criteria, to join our exclusive Auxiliary membership roster.

Contact Centers and TAS businesses are not eligible for Auxiliary membership. Auxiliary membership is exclusively for businesses that support contact centers and TAS businesses. Auxiliary members do not have access to the Listserv, are not eligible for the D&O coverage, are not able to participate in the AOE and AOD Awards and are not eligible to serve on the ATSI Board of Directors

Social distancing guidelines, as it appears, will be happening for a long time to come. And as we continue to follow these rules, we must
proactively think of ways to work, learn, and grow our connections, without any obstacles.

ATSI follows these guidelines and regulations and, as such, has switched to a hybrid model combined with virtual and socially distanced meetings and conferences to support and guide our members to the new reality that COVID-19 brought.

All of this means that our work hasn't been interrupted – instead, just pivoted into a new type of connectivity. As you know, our ATSI 2020 Annual Conference was canceled due to COVID-19, but that hasn't stopped us from connecting with our members.

Why We've Embraced the New Virtual Norm as the Way to Go Forward
Just like the rest of the world, at ATSI we decided that more tablets and computer screens will replace all the mass gatherings, carpeted floors, and chair rows for 2020. Even as some of the restrictions are lifted, we had to reinvent ourselves and move forward.

The decision to cancel our ATSI Annual 2020 Conference was tough, but we are committed to prioritizing the health and safety of all our members, partners, employees, and everyone involved with us. We are aware that our annual conference gives us an unprecedented opportunity to connect with our community; therefore, we are doing the best we can to make that happen with a virtual event.

On July 30, 2020, we hosted our very first online awards ceremony via Zoom. We had over 100 attendees who dialed in to experience our awards ceremony  in a new way. The Award of Excellence winners were announced, and we congratulate all of them and wish them continued success using this extremely valuable program. For more information, about the AOE program and the value it can deliver to your TAS, click here.

Moving forward, we are considering blending in-person and virtual meetings, mainly because of the ease of hosting online conferences and the ability to connect with even more current  and potential members.

From an environmental standpoint, virtual conferences are very promising. They are easy to attend and will potentially inspire more participation. However, planning and implementing a virtual meeting can be a daunting task, especially if you want to replace large conferences and move them to a digital world. As such, you can most likely expect a blend of online and in-person events creating a choice of hybrid options.

We'll Get Through This Together
While the COVID-19 pandemic altered the world and brought a lot of challenging consequences for many, it also exposed opportunities for meaningful and useful change. At ATSI, we are leveraging the benefits of videoconferencing. We are here to promote attendance, collaboration, and engagement between our members — because we will continue to Learn by Association.

On the surface, a virtual event for us seems ideal. It is far less expensive to produce, eliminates the need to lease a large venue, and reduces the cost of putting on significant events. It is also a better option for our attendees – they won't have to worry about taking time off from work or spending a lot of money on travel and feel comfortable about being able to still connect with each other without the stress of social distancing.

As an association, we don’t want our members to miss out on the many benefits ATSI has to offer — especially in-person meetings, collaboration opportunities with peers, and of course, sharing and learning by association. 

In an effort to bridge this gap, we are anticipating great response and attendance to our future hybrid events. This is the best of both worlds for now.

Consider How You React When Confronted by the Unexpected
Change is inevitable, but the amount of change varies. When unexpected events disrupt your answering service and the way you conduct business, how do you respond? What once worked no longer does, or at least no longer works as well as it once did.

Do you view these pressures to the status quo as an opportunity for improvement or a threat to your future viability? How you frame the issue will dictate your action.

When events outside your answering service occur, do you embrace them or cower in fear?

Threat to the Status Quo
Many see change as a danger to maintaining business as usual. When confronted with fear, people have three responses: fight, flight, or freeze. Each is a way of responding to what you view as a danger, and each response may force you to fall short of the ideal solution.

A common reaction to a threat, perceived or real, is to fight it. You go on the offensive and oppose it. The opposite action to a threat is to retreat. The situation represents danger, and you want to remove yourself from the peril as quickly as possible. You run away. The third typical response to peril is to freeze, to do nothing, and hope the menace will soon pass.

Opportunity for Improvement 
Though each response—fight, flight, or freeze—is a common, understandable human reaction, none of them may be the ideal solution. To capitalize on the unwanted condition that confronts you, you will do well to reframe the situation, refusing to view it as a threat and instead embracing it as an opportunity.

What is this opportunity? Regardless of the situation, you can embrace it as a chance to foster improvement in your practices or processes to achieve an outcome superior to where you are presently.

These opportunities occur in two forms: pursuing incremental improvement or shifting your paradigm. The first is usually easier and faster, with a corresponding level of reward. The second takes longer and is more expensive, but it carries the potential to produce profound transformation.

Pursue Incremental Improvements
When you consider making incremental improvements, you look at what is and tweak it to make it better. You’re not reinventing what you do. Instead, you’re fine-tuning it.

If you have trouble attracting potential employees, you may change your ad or seek new channels to promote your message. If you have difficulty closing sales, you may adjust your prices or offer more features. And if employees don’t feel safe working in an office environment, you may implement health and safety protocols.

Shift Your Paradigm
Sometimes there are no more incremental improvements to make or the tweaks you might consider won’t produce the scope of advancement that you seek. This means you must overhaul and even replace what is so that you can produce the outcomes you need.

For example, when confronted with a staffing shortage, you may look at automation to supplement or even replace your employees. If you’re having difficulty closing sales, you may shift to a growth-via-acquisition strategy. And if you can’t get enough employees to work in your office, you could close it and have everyone work from home.

Summary
When confronted with change, resist the tendency to view it as a threat and reacting accordingly. Instead, refresh your perspective, and embrace it as an opportunity to make things better. Then look for ways to make it happen, either through incremental tweaks or a complete paradigm overhaul.

Since mid-March, we all have been relegated to operating in a non-traditional working environment, thanks to COVID19. Experts say that we are witnessing “the world’s biggest work-from-home scenario in history.”

Most of our ATSI members and their respective employees continue to work from home, and productivity levels can undoubtedly fluctuate. The real question, though, is how can you keep a remote staff engaged in a work-from-home environment?

Below, we list some actionable tips and strategies to support and increase workplace engagement for at-home employees.

Schedule Daily Check-In Meetings
Daily and even weekly meet-ups with managers and supervisors are an excellent way to ensure your call agents feel connected. When the call queue allows, schedule these meetings to discuss new accounts, changes to existing accounts, recognition, upcoming operational changes, etc.

When your remote team can hear and see where their contribution makes a difference in your TAS business, they are more apt to be engaged with the bigger picture. Even if these meet-ups are short, they can help your team feel connected, and a new cadence of productivity will start to gain momentum.

Ensure Timely Breaks and Encourage Exercise
Ensure timely breaks for remote employees and encourage regular exercise. Studies show that physical inactivity can have severe implications for people's health. A fun way to keep employees healthy is to start a team exercise challenge. This can keep at-home employees healthy, excited, and involved as one team.

Here is an excellent list of 17 virtual team building games and activities to help at home employees stay connected and engaged.

Recognize and Reward Great Work
If you are a manager, you should regularly recognize great work and interact consistently with your team. Whether it’s a group conversation or an all-staff email, mentioning those who are consistently going above and beyond will help them feel valued and show them that their work gets noticed and is appreciated.

Here is a list of five best practices that are great for recognizing remote employees.

Allow Some Flexibility
Working from home sounds great, but this type of environment has challenges. For instance, some employees have to manage their school-age children with distance learning, while others have to take care of elderly parents. So how does that work in a call center?

Nowadays, allowing some flexibility will improve employee retention and provide them with a sense of balance. By doing so, you send a message that you care about their life and not only about the work they do.

Final Thoughts
Many ATSI members have had a remote staff for years, so this is nothing new to them. Reach out on the list-serve and solicit best practices from other members so you can continue to pivot in our new virtual world successfully.

We hope that this short list of suggestions can spark some ideas and help you improve engagement with your remote workers even more. After all, even in times of crisis, these are the things that matter in life.

This is the time of year when students of all ages return to the classroom. Most have taken a summer break, and now it’s time for them to resume their studies. In doing so they’ll acquire knowledge and skills to move them towards graduation and prepare them for what happens next.

Yet even when a student receives that final diploma, this doesn’t imply there’s nothing left to learn. We should always be in the mode of expanding our minds and growing as individuals. This means that to be successful, we should never stop learning. Just as students have returned to the classroom to advance their education, we, too, should follow their example.

Here are some considerations:

Learn New Material
Explore a new topic. This could be an area that you’ve always wanted to learn about but never got around to it. It could also be a recent development that didn’t use to exist. Consider things you find interesting, will benefit your work, or can advance your company. It’s a bonus if the subject you pursue covers all three areas. It’s a learning trifecta.

What fresh area should you pursue?

Expand Existing Information
The information on most any subject changes over time, often expanding and sometimes correcting what once was. Don’t assume that what you learned years ago or once mastered has remained static. Instead, assume that new developments now exist, waiting for you to explore.

As the scope of knowledge about the subject changes, be sure to keep up to date and don’t let developments pass you by, leaving you mired in what once was. If you have an out of date perspective in a certain area, any decisions you make relevant to that topic will be suspect, shortsighted, or even wrong.

Don’t fall victim to being a master of obsolete information. Stay up to date.

Develop New Skills
Going to school isn’t only about acquiring knowledge. It’s also about expanding your abilities.

For example, have you mastered each one of the communication channels your answering service uses to gain new business and meet the needs of your clients? Though it’s important you have a working knowledge of how each communication option functions, it’s also critical that you have the skill to use each of those channels. For it is only as you use them that you will fully comprehend their potential and be able to make the most of them in reaching your prospects and serving your clients.

As you develop new skills, you prepare yourself to best lead your answering service.

Seek Ways to Teach Others
A final consideration in education is not what you will learn but what you will teach to your employees. Personal growth benefits you directly and helps others indirectly when it guides your decisions and informs your vision.

However, you can maximize the impact of the knowledge you acquire when you teach it to your staff. This multiplies what you know, helping people to grow as individuals, and to do their job more effectively. And a bonus is that as you teach, you better master the content yourself. Instructing others benefits both the teacher and the student.

Take the Next Step
Now is the time to develop your personal education curriculum. What do you want to learn? Seek areas that interest you, will benefit your answering service, and will help grow your business. Pick one subject and pursue it. Start today. Then share what you’ve learned with your team.