Event Planners: 5 reasons you need a business answering service

Clients rely on event planners to be organised, efficient and reliable. They look to event personnel to provide calm in their chaos; to create a professional, streamlined occasion that aligns with the brief specified without the need for constant input. An event planner’s skills, experience and reputation should instil the client’s trust, allowing them to focus on their event objectives — be that to enjoy their wedding or impress delegates at a company conference.

Two of the most important qualities of a successful Event Manager are strong organisation and communication skills. From liaising with vendors to monitoring deadlines and ensuring contracts are signed — there’s a lot to keep track of! A business answering service can relieve some of the pressure by automating key processes. Wouldn’t it be great to meet all your client’s expectations while maintaining a healthy work-life balance?

Check out our top five reasons why you need a business answering service to excel as an event planner.

Never Miss an Important Call

Clients must be able to reach their event professional at all hours of the day. But this can be tricky to handle when you’re in and out of events for different clients — and you still need to sleep!

A business answering service can easily divert calls to another number, member of staff or voicemail during periods of unavailability. This facility means your clients get a response 24/7 and you can go about your business delivering spectacular events for satisfied clients.

There is a wide range of options for forwarding calls. With simple call forwarding, you can choose a number for all calls to be directed to during a specific period — as a regular occurrence or one-off occasion. For example, send all calls to voicemail during out of office hours or set up a redirect during an event. If you’re part of an event team, sequential call forwarding is a great feature that allows incoming calls to pass through a list of available personnel.

Greet Customers Professionally Every Time

A phone call is often a client’s first interaction with a business and first impressions count. It’s impossible to be available to respond to calls personally every minute of every day. But you can rely upon a business answering service to provide a professional greeting to every caller.

Record a customised message and keep it updated with key information about promotions, services and hours of availability. This is a simple yet effective way to set the tone for your business and keep clients informed. It’s a good idea to set up a range of greetings for different circumstances. For example, an after-hours greeting may ask people to call back the next day and an office hours greeting may invite callers to leave a voicemail or reassure them someone will call them back on the same day.

An answering service can also route calls to the relevant department or member of staff. A common customer complaint is being bounced from person to person multiple times before being put in touch with the person best placed to help. An answering service can automate call routing and make sure clients reach the right person quickly. This service is especially important for event planners, whose clients often need immediate help to resolve a potential crisis such as a venue booking cancellation the day before an event or a last-minute VIP guest announcement.

Manage Business On-The-Go

Most answering services software can be managed via a mobile phone app, allowing busy event planners to manage business on-the-go easily. Stuck in a meeting? Log in to the app and divert calls to voicemail. Have an important announcement? Log in and amend your greeting to share the news with every caller.

Call scheduling makes it easy to divert calls as needed — be that to the office while you’re attending an event or to your mobile during periods of travel. Clients and prospects will always receive a professional response whenever they call and no matter how busy you are. Set up planned redirects for specific times, such as out of hours or redirect calls on the go as unexpected situations arise.

Access Messages How and When It Suits You

Voicemail messages can be accessed from any location or device as and when required. Voicemail transcription is a useful tool for event planners who may often find themselves in noisy settings and unable to hear a voice recording. Set your answering service up to transcribe all audio messages and send them via email or text, ready to be read at your convenience.

For event planners, the devil is in the details. Callers, suppliers and prospects may leave lengthy messages containing important information such as the price of goods or times and dates of events. With access to message transcriptions, there’s no need to keep hitting repeat and trying to catch every word. Save all transcriptions until the event has been completed and refer back to it as many times as required, without worrying about a full voicemail box. 

Event Planners have plenty of balls to juggle — managing multiple events, liaising with clients and suppliers, marketing their business and more! Why not take advantage of the resources available to ease your workload and improve the service you can offer to clients? A business answering service is a cost-effective, low-risk investment that will save time, reduce missed opportunities and create a professional impression to prospective clients.

This article is sponsored by EReceptionist