The Need For Live Operators During Emergencies

For a lot of companies and service providers, using an auto answering service makes a lot of sense for many reasons – economic, connectivity and management reasons including. It makes sense for companies and service providers to use such a service because it also means that they need not invest in full time office assistants and yet get all the benefits of being in touch with clients and other business. Most auto answering service companies can also offer niche services in terms of industry. Thus you can look for medical, contractors or utility answering services.

With an auto answering service, the users can also get customized answering services. Depending on the brief you give to such an auto answering service, you can get operators who will respond to customers in the precise way that you want them to. An auto answering service will need the involvement of a trained operator during emergencies – regardless of the nature of emergency. Natural disasters, automobile accidents, medical emergencies or even children in trouble will need the interactive communication mode deliverable by a live operator. However, most auto answering service companies also have agents trained to take care of such emergencies up to quite a large extent.

Another aspect of answering services is by the use of voicemail systems. Again, such a system may not be able to replace live operators completely during an emergency but if one were to learn about voicemail systems then one can use it in a manner that makes communication processes more effective. Voice mail enables the user of such a system to record messages that get played back to every single caller. Such a system can be used to deal with fundamental emergencies, it can be used to sell a company’s products and services and it can also be used to troubleshoot many customer related problems. For emergencies however, one thing we can learn about voicemail systems is that a machine cannot completely take over the abilities of a live operator.

Voice mail services are available on cell phones, corporate telephone exchange systems and with other service providers as well. With such a system, you will also learn about voicemail systems that you can use to ensure that not a single call goes unattended. Every caller will get to interact in some form or the other with your company and services. You can also personalize the voice mail message to make it more interactive and effective.

Emergency paging systems make it easier for customers to reach companies and services when they are under some kind of crisis. This crisis can be medical, crime related, service related and even because of some accidents like fire and natural disasters as well. Thus, emergency paging systems can enable a person under duress get in touch with your services that much quicker and get help. The best possible combination here is that the use of such emergency paging systems leads to the caller getting in touch with a live operator as soon as possible.

Such a live operator can then direct the caller accordingly and ensure that the message gets across to the right kind of service provider (doctor, police, fireman and so on) for prompt action. Most such services are heavily reliant on standard operating protocols which direct the agent in handling such calls. Emergency paging systems can be made to work in sync with existing systems and live operators as well. Thus the caller can use text messaging, web related methods or pagers for getting his emergency message across and the system will take care of it immediately.

Perhaps the need for a live operator is most felt when people use cellular telephones to make emergency or 911 calls. Cell phones and 911 calls enter into the slightly grey zone of location identification. When a person uses the landline to make 911 calls, then his location automatically shows up on the screen at the emergency center. But with the use of cell phones and 911 calls, the caller will have to ensure that correct and precise details on his location are given the moment he calls otherwise it might take a long time for the emergency help to reach him.

Users of cell phones and 911 operators will need to communicate more intensively simply because of this locational ambiguity. While 911 operators are trained to take such calls of distress and respond most effectively when it comes to cell phone users, it is important to know that it is essential to give the location details and nature of emergency immediately, after that the cell phone user needs to stay as calm as possible and answer the 911 operator’s queries as clearly as possible. Sometimes, cell phones and 911 calls connect via recorded messages. The biggest requirement here, again, is the ability to listen carefully to such messages and respond accordingly.