The TAS Industry Centers on a Readily Understood, Universal, and Reliable Technology
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD
Telephone answering services handle thousands of telephone calls every day. The majority are incoming calls that come from clients’ customers and prospects. The rest are outgoing calls made for clients. With the continual use of the telephone at work, it’s easy to dismiss it as commonplace, even boring. But let’s not overlook the all-critical role the telephone plays in our every-day work.
In fact, let’s take a moment to celebrate the telephone as the essential star that it is. Let’s pause to applaud the telephone:
It’s Understood
Everyone knows how to use a telephone. Even those who prefer not to call someone and seek alternative means whenever possible still possess the knowledge of how to call a telephone number to talk to someone.
The telephone is the best understood communication option, used by more people than any other alternative. The phone is also the easiest to use and requires little technical expertise and minimal training.
It’s Universal
The telephone is also ubiquitous. Though not all residences have a hard-wired telephone sitting in their homes, as they once did, virtually all businesses do.
And most everyone carries around a telephone in their pocket. They may even have two.
Reliable
Email make get blocked, end up in spam, or be accidentally deleted. Text messages can suffer from delay or non-delivery.
Not so with a telephone. A phone call goes through most every time. And in those rare cases when it doesn’t, the caller immediately knows by receiving a busy signal or a recording alerting them of a problem.
Conclusion
It may seem silly to celebrate the telephone, but without it we wouldn’t be in business. Though it’s easy to overlook the telephone for its always-available, always-working nature, let’s take a moment to appreciate it is the essential element and central icon that it is.
We exist because of the telephone.
Learn more in Peter Lyle DeHaan’s book, How to Start a Telephone Answering Service.
Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of TAS Trader, covering the telephone answering service industry. Check out his books How to Start a Telephone Answering Service and Sticky Customer Service.