New Report Indicates Traditional, Automated Services Remain Atop a Fragmented Answering Services Industry

Featured article by Grayson Kemper

Despite significant advancements in the answering services industry, particularly with the growth of live virtual receptionists and internet-platform answering services, the industry still somewhat lives in the past.

“If people think about an answering service they kind of still think that there’s one person sitting by one telephone trying to answer phones,” said Dan L’Heureux, Executive Director of the Southern Telemessaging Association, who frames the archetype of the answering services industry as existing in an age before cell phones and the Internet.

This image is in fact reflected in the segmentation of the answering services industry by service type and technical complexity. A recent report from Clutch, a Washington, D.C-based research and reviews firm, shows that traditional automated answering and voicemail services are the most popular form of answering services used by companies in the US.

Over half (54%) of the 301 businesses surveyed use automated answering services, a category that includes interactive voice response systems, auto attendants, and traditional voicemail services. Approximately one-fourth (26%) use internet platform answering services (automated email responses, live web chat, and social media monitoring), while 20% use a live virtual receptionist.

The report also found profound segmentation between the leading providers in the industry. VoiceNation was found as the most popular service provider with just 14% of companies surveyed using them for answering services. No other single provider controlled more than 10% of the market.

Despite this segmentation, along with businesses favoring less digitally complex automated answering services, feedback toward answering service providers is overwhelmingly positive.

Three-fourths (75%) of companies say that their answering service was either of “excellent” or “above average” value, while 94% of the feedback businesses’ receive from their customers has been either “positive” or “somewhat positive.” In addition, companies reported having “no issues” with their service more often than any one specific issue or challenge.

Yet, even with this depth of encouraging indicators, businesses are more likely than not to replace their answering service provider within the next six months.

“38% of your respondents said they had no issues,” L’Heureux said. “75% say it’s either above average or excellent in value, and yet you still would have 40% that is likely or very likely that they would change. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

One possible explanation for this could be the fact that most answering services are offered on a month-by-month basis. This loose contract structure leaves the door open for businesses to easily transition between different providers.

Another explanation of why businesses tend to change providers may be with the issues that businesses actually experience with their answering services providers. The most common issues reported were technical malfunctions (33%) and call quality issues (24%).

“It’s good to see that price wasn’t the number one purchase decision factor,” said Andrew Tillery, Marketing Director of Sound Telecom, which the survey found as one of the top 10 most popular answering service providers. “At the same time, that makes it all the more disappointing to see such a significant portion of answering service customers experiencing issues with call quality and technical problems, which would explain why there is a significant number of people likely to make a provider change.”

However, technical malfunctions were much more likely to be experienced by businesses that use live virtual receptionists or internet platform services, which are more technically complex services. Thus, technical malfunctions may simply be par for the course.

Because of limited distinction between different answering service providers and challenges based on technical complexity of an answering service, the report recommends that businesses identify and use specific technologies or features important to them as a point of comparison between different providers.

Grayson Kemper is a Content Developer and Marketer for Clutch, a B2B research and review firm out of Washington, DC. He specializes in telecom and enterprise