The Telephone Answering Blog

There have been a number of articles appearing recently supporting the idea that the phone call is dead.  They seem to have been triggered by a report from the research company Nielsen saying telephone usage is falling in every age group under 55 years.

An example is an article on the respected Tech Crunch website called “The Phone Call Is Dead”.  This stressed how many text messages teenagers were sending and that text is a far more convenient way of communicating than a telephone call.

The Tech Crunch article was even referred to in The Economist which did have some good counter evidence showing that telephone calls, measured in average minutes per month, has risen in the past five years in most European countries.    The key change being that a bigger proportion of these minutes now comes from mobile originated calls, no surprise there.

So the phone call is not dead yet, and that particularly applies to small businesses.  Having worked previously for a telephone system provider I can tell you that small business owners complain loudly if their telephone system is not working.  They know that answering telephone calls is critical to their business and a phone system down for two hours gets some serious attention.

It is true that email, Facebook and Twitter have had an impact in the business world BUT, and it’s a big but, there is a lot of evidence that people want to see a telephone number on a website.  They may not ring the telephone number but it gives them confidence that it is a professional business behind the website.

So what type of telephone number should be on a website.  Well as it a confidence booster a mobile number does n’t really do the job.  So either a landline or an 08 number and you need to ensure that calls are answered in a professional manner.

Long live the telephone call.

The New Year is normally busy for us as we get enquiries from people who have made a New Year Resolution to start their own business.   What an excellent objective for the year.   Some are starting part time, some full time, and others are just researching prices as part of working out their costs.

January 2009 was very quiet when optimism about the economy was rock bottom.  January 2010 saw a dramatic change and January 2011 is looking good as well.   I sometimes like to think we are barometer for business confidence in the country as we focus on startups and businesses with less than 5 people.   I have six years of figures now for enquiries coming from people starting a business and in this context January 2011 figures look encouraging, if not quite as quick as 2010.

So if you are starting a business give us a call as we are always happy to talk through the options and will ensure you have clear prices for your plan.