Archive for June, 2010
Answering Service Employees Make a Difference For Your Business
Don’t underestimate the talent that you get when you select a professional answering service. Many of the leading answering service companies in the industry are very particular about the employees they hire. They obviously make it a point to hire only articulate individuals who can think on their feet and can handle multiple calls while staying poised. They also clearly realize the importance of answering calls promptly and in a professional manner at all times. Answering Service owners and managers know about the importance of the voice and its tone, and how an operator’s voice can truly make a welcoming and helpful difference when answering calls. Of course, being able and determined to help a caller is equally as important.
Industry leading answering service companies like 1-800 We Answer ( http://www.efls.com ) are very selective about who they hire. Before any hiring takes place, operators are thoroughly screened and their communication and listening skills are put to the test. After skilled operators are hired, they receive training in the company’s policies and answering service procedures. They’re closely supervised so that their performance is consistent. Training doesn’t stop once an operator’s evaluation period is over. Answering service operators receive continual training on new accounts, and learn customer service skills throughout their careers.
Answering service companies attract a steady stream of excellent employees. Many companies are realizing the advantages of outsourcing inbound telephone call answering to an answering service. The growth of outsourced business support areas and the virtual service industries has spurred a growing need for skilled customer service representatives across all fields. Answering service businesses constantly need fresh talent. While many customer service experts work in the answering service industry full-time, some of these employees are part-time workers, including people working second jobs. These employees, who work full-time in other areas, often have useful professional experience to offer an answering service company. That broad experience is evident when they answer calls and provide exceptional customer service.
An answering service can be an appealing place to work. For those individuals who love to talk, be helpful and who know they have strong communications skills, are well suited to work for an answering service. A clear speaking voice, known as a “great phone voice” is a plus for answering service employees. Answering service companies provide fair pay, and the hours are often very flexible since an answering service can provide call coverage at all hours, 24/7, 365 days a year. Employees can usually choose to work a specific shift that accommodates their lifestyle and schedule: early morning, afternoon, late night, and overnight.
Working for an answering service can be a path to higher levels of customer service experience. Answering service companies attract quality employees who are drawn to the latest technology in the telecommunications industry. By working at a professional answering service, customer service employees sharpen their technical skills since messages are relayed to clients in a variety of ways via phone and also through new technology: mobile e-mail, fax or directly to a client’s PDA. Some answering service employees update databases and they get to work on a variety of telecommunications software applications, some of which were created by their own IT departments.
Answering service companies partner with their clients to provide seamless call coverage. Keeping this concept in mind, the employees of an answering service become quite important. When a company’s receptionist goes home, it’s the answering service live operator who takes the reins. The operator becomes an extension of that company whose calls they are covering. A valuable answering service worker realizes their voice and presence is just as important as the company’s daytime receptionist’s.
Employees are the key ingredient that distinguishes one company from another. Answering Service companies also realize this, and hire only the best communicators: good listeners who are ready at all times to consistently help and service callers. Answering service companies actively recruit online just like the Fortune 1000 companies, and utilize key job search sites such as Monster.com, Careerbuilders.com and Craig’s List. The job front for answering service employees looks bright, since there is a growing demand for qualified and skilled employees. Unlike many other US industries, many answering service companies are expanding and hiring rapidly.
Rapid Re-score your Credit Files
Rapid Re-score is a technique by which negative information can be removed from your account, errors can be corrected and balances can be updated. If you are applying for a mortgage loan, refinance loan or equity line of credit and your credit scores are low, your lender or mortgage broker can have your scores re-analyzed through the method of rapid re-score.
It can only be done through a lender or mortgage broker who is a customer of a rapid re-scoring service. Generally, you must have proof that a payment was made on time or proof that the errors in your report are truly errors. As for balances, if you have cash on hand and want to pay down a balance for an immediate boost in your credit score, rapid rescoring is the answer.
The lender will usually charge a fee for every account that is corrected. But rapid rescore is well worth the money in order to avoid a bad credit mortgage loan or a bad credit home equity loan. New information can be posted in as little as 72 hours!
Accounts can be deleted from your credit file. Status of an account can be changed from “30 days late” to “paid as agreed.” Collection accounts can be quickly paid off and deleted from your credit report. You can even pay down or pay off a credit card and have that reflected immediately on your credit report to increase your credit score.
How a Mortgage Loan Credit Scores Determined?
? How you paid your bills in the past gives the lender some indication of how you can be expected to pay them in the future. If you have a record of paying your bills after the due date, this can lower your score. How often you have been late paying your bills, how recently your payments have been late as well as how long you remained delinquent on any bill at one time are important factors.
OUTSTANDING DEBT.
How many consumer loans and open charge accounts do you have? What are the current balances on these accounts? The lender wants to know how much credit you have and how much you have used. Research has shown that the number of credit accounts you have as well as how much of your available credit is used is important.
CREDIT HISTORY. How long have you had credit? Generally, the longer you have had and have successfully managed credit, the higher your credit score. However, people with relatively new credit histories or those with only one or two accounts can obtain high scores as well.
If you have recently established credit or have only a few credit refer¬ences, which does not mean that you cannot get a mortgage. Working with your mortgage lender, you may be able to establish a “nontraditional” credit report that is based on how well you have paid other types of debts, such as rent and utility payments.
CREDIT INQUIRIES. How many times have you authorized a lender to check your credit record? How many new accounts have been opened recently? Every time you apply for credit for an automobile or con¬sumer loan, to open a new charge account, etc. the lender checks your credit history with one of the credit bureaus. This is called an “inquiry” and is recorded in your credit report. Sometimes, having many inquiries within a recent period on your file indicates that your credit usage may be increasing and creates an additional level of risk for the lender. However, don’t worry that checking with several lenders about a mortgage loan will have a negative effect on your credit score. The credit report data used to calculate credit scores does not include auto or mortgage loan inquiries that occur in the 30-day period prior to the score being calculated, and auto and mortgage inquiries that occur in any 14-day period are always considered one inquiry.
TYPES OF CREDIT. What types of credit do you have in use? Do you have a mixture of types of credit, such as credit cards, personal loans, etc.?
Your credit score is calculated based on your history in these and other areas. Having established credit, paying your bills on time, and keeping the balances on open accounts to moderate levels will help ensure that you have a strong credit history and a good score.
Are credit scores discriminatory? No. Credit scoring is an objective process, based only on the infor¬mation in your credit report. Factors such as age, race, religion, gender, national origin, marital status, income, employment, and where you live are not considered in determining your credit score. Credit scoring is a bias-free tool that helps lenders evaluate the likelihood that you will repay the loan based on how you have managed debt in the past. Because credit scoring evaluates the information in credit reports in the same objective manner, one borrower is just as likely as another to have a high credit score.
What’s my score? Is that good or bad? Credit scores typically used in mortgage lending range from approxi¬mately 300 to 900. Generally, the higher your credit score, the less risk of future default you represent to the lender. This is a strong indica¬tion that you have successfully managed credit in the past and are likely to repay a mortgage loan.
Keep in mind that your credit score is only one factor that the lender uses to evaluate your mortgage loan application and that the final decision whether or not to approve your mortgage loan is made by the lender after careful analysis of all of the information the lender has collected.
Can my score be improved? The answer is, over time, certainly. But it may be difficult to immediately “fix” your credit score. The most effective way to make sure that you have the best possible credit score is to manage the credit you already have in a responsible manner. You can do this by following two simple rules.
1. Avoid becoming delinquent on any of your credit obligations (credit cards, automobile loans, or other installment loans).
Consumers occasionally miss a payment on one of their bills. This can happen for any number of reasons. Isolated situations like these, although they should be avoided and will have some effect on your credit score, should not have an effect on your ability to get new credit.
A mortgage foreclosure on your credit report will have a major effect on your credit score and your ability to get new credit in the future.
2. Avoid overuse of your credit cards and other credit accounts.
Just as it is important for you to pay your bills on time, it is also important that you control how much money you owe, especially on your credit cards. Lenders are increasingly concerned about the credit risk of consumers who seem to overextend themselves by using most or all of their available credit even if these consumers are still making payments on time.
Why would the lender need to be concerned if you still are making your payments on time? In recent years, there have been many news accounts of people in financial difficulty because they have used their credit cards up to their maximum limits and then struggled to make their monthly payments. For some consumers in this situation, the burden of these monthly payments becomes so great that they stop making payments altogether. Some file bankruptcy. This can happen to people who have never before missed a payment.
So, while you may think everything is fine no matter how much you charge, as long as you can pay your monthly bills on time, the fact is that you are actually a higher credit risk than those that manage their credit accounts more conservatively.
Credit scores are developed by looking at the way millions of consumers manage their credit and are able to identify consumers who are becoming overextended, before they become delinquent. This risk is reflected in the credit scores of those consumers.
Myself webmaster of www.castlemortgagegroup.com dealing in all type of mortgage loans in Florida, Georgia & Alabama with home equity loans, Florida Home Loans, refinance loans, constructions loans.