Streamlining

It may seem like a trivial task but managing your diary can be very time consuming between setting appointments and changing them. Having Call Pal’s experienced PA team manage your diary will inevitably enable you to dedicate more time to tasks that require your immediate attention. It also reduces the risk of missing appointments or appointments not being diarised.

Fair Distribution

Where an organisation has a larger group of staff, having a diary management service can ensure that appointments are evenly distributed. This ultimately has the effect of improving the organisation, administration and efficiency of your staff.

Consistent Workflow

If a consistent workflow while you are in the office is important to you, then walk-in appointments can be somewhat inconvenient especially if you do not have an in house receptionist. By having Call Pal manage your diary, you are guaranteed to only have appointment at times that are the most suitable for you.

To find out more about Call Pal’s Diary Management Service call 1890 511 400 or +353 511 414 if you are calling from outside Ireland.

Prices for our Diary Management start from as little as €30.00.

Let’s keep he conversation going on all our social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+!

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Call Pal Call Answering

This is undoubtedly our most sought after service as most entrepreneurs are extremely busy. More often than not, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to take calls as well as complete pending projects, attend meetings, manage the diary and much more. Having our call answering service has the following distinct advantages:

a) Savings

With every business today it stands to reason that every Euro counts. Having a dedicated receptionist working on a full-time basis is costly – more so if you are in the startup phase of your business. A call answering service is an ideal way of reducing staffing costs significantly without having to compromise your business’ professional image. And what ‘sweetens the deal’ is the fact that, with a call answering service, you are only charged when a client calls your business as opposed to paying someone to wait for your business line to ring.

b) Pick and choose

Spam and unwanted sales calls are time stealers for any business. A call answering service is an excellent way of filtering your calls so you only deal with important client calls.

d) Focus

A phone ringing off the hook isn’t a bad thing but it can pull you away from projects that require your attention. Having Call Pal’s PA Team at your disposal means that you can stay focused on important projects without any unnecessary interruptions.

e) Freedom

Growing your business often means getting out of the office and meeting your clients. having Call Pal’s PA Team manage your calls gives you the freedom to leave your office you need to with the guarantee that your calls won’t go unanswered.

Reception Too Busy?

If your business is well established, a virtual office service may seem like an unnecessary addition to your business. If your reception is particularly busy or inundated with calls, Call Pal’s Switchboard Overflow Service scan be the ideal support system for your existing reception. Essentially, whatever calls cannot be managed by your reception are routed to our experienced PA tea who answer calls in your company name. This means that every inbound call to your business is being answered which is vital for retaining your current client base as well as generating new business.

Call Pal Mail Handling

Most businesses have their beginnings in a home-based environment but having a home address on your business cards and letterheads may not lend your organisation the professional image you want it to have. Plus having to sort through a melee of business and personal letters can be tedious and even distracting. Call Pal’s Mail Handling service takes the stress out of that can arise as a result of your business sharing your home address by having Call Pal’s PA team organise your mail in our secure serviced office facility in Galway, Ireland’s Western Capital. And having your address in a city centre location can only add to the professionalism of your business.

The Smart Choice

With Call Pal’s Smart Numbers, you have the benefit of either creating a more localised feel to your business which allows you to zone in on business opportunities in a specific area or increase your presence in Ireland on a national level. It is also widely accepted that having a landline garners more trust from your potential and existing clients.

Time to get away

It can be hard to get away and truly disconnect from work even though it is imperative that every business person does so. And often when you do get away, the temptation to constantly check your emails or constantly check your phone for missed calls or mess is very high and often equates to you not having a holiday at all. Call Pal’s Holiday Cover takes the potential stress out of being away as it allows you to leave the office without the risk or concern that your business calls will go unanswered. Having our Holiday Cover means that you maintain a high customer service level, continue to grow your business and enjoy those well-deserved breaks.

Give us a call on 1890 511 400 or +353 511 414 if you are outside Ireland to find out more about our business virtual office service packages which start from as low as €30,00.

Stay up to date with all our news and offers by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+

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Hey! Must be the money!

With a virtual office you avoid the large overheads that are often associated with being in a dedicated office space such as the rental, electricity, heating, refuse management etc. – and that’s before you add the costs of having onsite staff to the equation! A virtual office also gives you the added bonus of being able to text the market waters to see and predict how well your business will fare in the marketplace in the future. Overall, a virtual office is low cost, low risk way of giving your business the additional administrative support it will need in its initial growth stage.

That Professional Touch…Your Way

Call Pal provides a suite of cal answering services for clients to choose from including Mail Address/Handling, Call Answering , Diary Management and more. Having your mail managed from a city centre location, your calls managed by dedicated PA team and your diary kept up to date gives your business a professional veneer and gives your clients the sense that your organisation is sizeable and influential.

Efficiency and Focus

A phone that rings  constantly is both a blessing and a curse for any growing business. It is a blessing as a phone that is constantly ringing means that your customer base and business are growing. But the endless stream of inbound calls means that you won’t be able to get into a consistent workflow which in turn decreases your efficiency significantly. A virtual office that includes a call answering service will allow you to focus on crucial projects that are vital to the success of your business.

Access to High End Meeting Rooms

If you are based in the same location as your virtual office provider, you often will have access to any boardrooms they would have on site. At Call Pal we offer our clients access o our onsite boardrooms at a discounted rate which includes:

Free onsite parking

Free wifi

Boardrooms fitted with high spec technology

Smart TV

Telephone facilities

Reception services and more

Being able to meet your clients in a private, central city location instills an ambiance of professionalism in your current or potential clients which in turn will both impress and reassure your clients.

To find out more about our E-Commerce Virtual Office Services, contact us on 1890 511 400.

Follow us on all our social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+ to stay up to date with all our latest news and offers.

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1. Call Pal Smart Numbers

Choosing a Call Pal Smart Number gives you the ability to either increase your existing presence in Ireland or create a more localised feel so you can hone in on business opportunities in a particular area. An added benefit of having landline number is the increased credibility it gives to your business. It’s widely believed that businesses represented solely by a mobile number are less trustworthy. Having a landline number not only makes your business look more professional, it also gains the trust of your potential and existing clients which is priceless in the business world.

2. Call Pal’s Mail Handling Service

Almost every business starts at home and that has some clear advantages. But sorting through letters pertaining to your business in your home space can be tedious and distracting. Having access to Call Pal’s mail handling service means that our team of professional PAs will collect and organise your mail in our safe, convenient serviced office facility in Ireland’s Western capital, Galway. There is also the added advantage of having your business address in a central city location, again, making your business appear more professional.

3. Call Pal Call Answering

As a sole trader or smaller enterprise, you are generally very busy and getting to the phone can be a virtual impossibility. And most entrepreneurs barely have time to check their voicemails on a day to day basis! Call Pal’s Call Answering Service means that

a) You never miss an important call again. Our Call PA team is at hand to answer calls in your company name ensuring your customers get the best possible service and managing a vital revenue source for your business

b) You can stay focused. With Call Pal managing your calls, you can focus on current projects or critical meetings without worrying about whether or not you are missing calls

c) You have the freedom to be mobile. You can leave the office whenever you need to knowing that your calls won’t go unanswered

d) Your customers’ satisfaction is maintained. Technology is wonderful and has, in so many ways enhanced and accelerated business processes. With all that said, there is still a huge value to our customers being able to connect to a human voice. There is something fundamentally reassuring to the about having their call answered and being able a professional representative of your business

e) You only deal with important calls. Spam calls are truly the bane of every business. Thankfully, with Call Pal, you don’t have to take any annoying calls because we do that for you

f) You save money. The cost of having a dedicated, in house receptionist on a full or part time basis especially when you are starting out can be impossibly high. Call Pal affords you the luxury of having a personal assistant without the heavy cost of recruiting and hiring additional employees.

With a Call Pal’s Smart Numbers, Mail Handling and Call Answering, you have all you need to have a complete virtual office that will give your business the professional image it deserves. Give us a call on 1890 511 400 and we’ll get you started with your virtual office today!

Let’s keep the virtual conversation going on our social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+!

The post Let’s Get Virtual appeared first on Call Pal - Ireland's Go-To Call Answering Service.

What a fantastic night we had at our Summer Party! The night was a perfect blend of an excellent venue, great music, food, drink and company. Thank you to everyone who came out to celebrate with us. We would especially like to thank O’Connell’s Bar for the use of their newly refurbished venue, The Dough Bros for the delicious food, Aoife Kenny from Bash Event & Project Management for all her help planning and managing the event and Lisa Regan from Lisa Regan PR for her assistance and oversight of the public relations side of the event. We could not have done it without you and hope we can do it all again soon!

Welcoming Ciara Finan to the Call Pal Team

Originally from Melbourne, Australia, Ciara has lived in Galway for the past four years and is currently completing a Masters in Publishing in NUI Galway. Outside of work she is is interested in travelling and photography. In her previous job, she worked as a receptionist and administrator in Kingsbridge Hospital, Sligo. She is looking forward to getting to know all the clients as well as the Call Pal Team. And thanks to her studies, she will always have a good book recommendation to hand!

More often than not, we are asked to describe exactly what it is we do as a company. Let me put it to you this way – at Call Pal we understand that entrepreneurs are busy people. There are endless meetings to attend, staff to manage, product and brand development and much more. And threaded through all these duties is a seemingly endless stream of phone calls from existing and potential clients, marketing companies and much more. Call Pal offers a Reception Management Service that can be provided in a number of ways…

We LOVE to give back to our clients and our client referral scheme allows us to do just that. If you refer a friend or colleague to Call Pal and they decide to go ahead with our service, we will reward you with a €25 All4One Gift Card! Go on…you deserve it!

Congratulations to Call Pal Team Member Lucia Evans who performed with renowned Irish composer Brian Byrne on Miriam O’Callaghan’s ‘Sunday with Miriam’ radio show on RTE 1 last Sunday! She was also be one of the headline artists performing songs from Brian’s latest album, Goldenhair, on Sunday the 2nd of June in The Sugar Club, Dublin. Click the button below to listen to the full Radio Show. Please note, you may need Adobe Flash Player to listen to the show.

Thanks for reading our June Newsletter! Let’s keep the conversation going on our social media channels including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+!

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So Why Would A Company Need A Call Answering Service?

There are a number of reasons a business may need a call answering service including:

• Absence of a business landline
• The cost of having an in house receptionist is too high
• The company is home based and does not have enough space for a receptionist
• The business owner/s and their employees travel extensively with very limited time to attend to inbound calls
• Having a call answering service will improve your business’s professional image
• The business is missing inbound sales calls from existing and potential clients resulting in lost revenue.

Consistency Wins Out

Businesses often benefit from having a call answering service because it functions as an extension of the organisation. A personalised answering service guarantees your company has consistent, branded interactions with existing and potential clients and also gives more of an ‘in house’ reception feel as opposed to a service that is based out of a remote office.

Your Sales Are Protected

In a business world that is competitive and teeming with choice for the customer, missing a sales call can have profoundly negative effects in terms of incoming revenue. A staggering 60% of callers will not leave a voicemail if their call is unanswered and this can lead to the loss of thousands of Euros. By having a call answering service, companies not only maintain existing sales but also have the opportunity to increase their sales as calls are not being missed.

Bearing all that in mind…

If you are looking to add a professional feel to your business, decrease your work load, maintain your client base and even increase sales, Call Pal’s personalised call answering service could be exactly what your company needs. Not sure if we are the right fit for you? Then why not give our free 7 day trial a go? Even better, sign up for 12 months and get one month ABSOLUTELY FREE!

For more information, call us on 1890 511 400. And be sure to stay up to date with our latest news and updates by following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+. 

The post Does Your Small Business Need A Call Answering Service? appeared first on Call Pal - Ireland's Go-To Call Answering Service.

The digital age we live in has given us such a vast range of ways to communicate that it can be easy to forget just how important phone calls are. All you have to do nowadays is pick up your smartphone and open an app such as Whatsapp, Skype, Messenger etc to communicate with someone. So picking up the phone and speaking to someone may not be as obvious as it seems. And whilst customers and consumers love contacting the brands they  are working with over social media, talking to another human being over the phone cannot be beaten. Here are 5 reasons that support why we think it’s a good idea to get talking…

1. Believe it or not, not everyone is on the internet

Although we’ve already pointed out that the world at large seems to centre around social media and ecommerce sites, a valid point worth remembering is that not everyone is online – and not everyone is online all the time. Ignoring offline clients means you run the risk of alienating a significant number of potential clients and pushing them into the open arms of your competition.

2. Speaking of your competition…

There is a very real chance that your competition is 100% online in which case you stand to gain a real competitive edge over them by having a human voice at the end of your phone line. A ‘real live person’ answering a client query over the phone gives way to a positive image of your company being developed in the caller’s mind. By speaking to them, you connect on a personal level that no other form of communication (other than face to face) can reach. This means that when the client thinks of your company, they’ll remember your voice as opposed to an impersonal email.

3. A phone is great for your brand

Potential customers looking for a company to work with or buy from, more often than not look for a phone number. A phone number gives the same legitimacy to your company as having an office in a reputable location or a website compiled by a  professional designer. And it reinforces your offline presence by confirming that you are  a  real business.

4. People who call generally have a problem that needs solving

People calling a business over the phone generally have a question or a problem that needs to be resolved quickly. Talking to customers directly over the phone is a great way of helping to solve their problems quickly as well as identifying issues that may affect other customers as well. An example is a customer calling in relation to a broken link on your website. Your answering their call not only saves you a sale, it also means you can quickly solve a problem that could have cost you thousands of sales had you remained unaware of it.

5. It’s personal

Complex problems or problems of a personal or sensitive nature are often best solved over the phone. Also, when it comes to scheduling appointments or deliveries, speaking to a person who has their schedule to hand can greatly reduce the frustration caused by seemingly endless hours of email tennis.

The bottom line is that, in spite of the world being obsessed with digital communication, your phone is still relevant and very important to the successful running of your business.

Can’t get to the phone fast enough or are you unable to manage the volume of incoming calls you are receiving? Why not let our professional call answering team help you? Call us on

1890 511 400 to find out more about our call answering packages and how you can get a month’s worth of call answering ABSOLUTELY FREE!

Get to know us better by following us on all our social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and Google+

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Tips for Taking Calculated Risks

1. Do Your Homework

It may not have been one of our favourite parts of being in school, but having your homework done is important to taking any calculated risk. You have to understand every detail and subtlety of the decision that you can. This allows you to discover any dangers or potential issues that may arise. Taking calculated risks is much like being a sports bettor. Contrary to the common belief that successful gamblers are just lucky individuals, they actually conduct lots of research and never make emotionally based decisions. Let’s just say a sports bettor wants to place a bet on a football match – a seasoned bettor would never just look at previous matches or a current league position and place a bet. They would always review picks from a handicapper of good repute and analyse the trends. As a startup CEO, you need to do the same thing. Even when taking a calculated risk, you need to enlist a trusted advisor, go over the number and negotiate the best deal. That wayou can ensure you’re taking a calculated risk.

2. Set Checkpoints and Goals

The end point of any calculated risk can be months, even years away. To stay the course of the inevitable process involved, you need to carefully identify and put into action checkpoints and goals. Goal setting is often discussed at length with focus either consciously or subconsciously revolving around long term or ‘end’ goals. Short term goals are often left by the wayside – and yet they are more important as they keep you on track. The path of any calculated risk is marked by several goals and checkpoints and they should be in place well before making a decision.

3. Foresee Mistakes

Before making any decision, consider the positive outcomes but pay particular attention to the negative ones. Examples of things you need to think about include ‘How would your business respond if the deal lost money?’ ‘If project deadlines are missed, how will you make up the time in order to meet them?’ ‘If partnerships are broken, what course of action will you take?’ Intelligent risk takers preempt potential mistakes and account for them. If you foresee too many mistakes, it probably means the risk is too high and you should consider moving in a different direction.

4. Accept that things will probably change

Business decisions rarely go exactly to plan. While you cannot always control whether the outcome will be better or worse than anticipated, you can control how you respond. Say the budget gets slashed significantly – slamming your head into your desk will more than likely doom you to failure. If, however, you’re willing to pivot, you’ll head back to the drawing board to find a solution. We often hear about entrepreneurs who took serious risks and found success but you rarely hear about what went wrong behind the scenes. In every success story, the decision makers are willing and ready to pivot in order to find success.

5. ‘No’ – It’s A Good Word!

Learning to say ‘no’ in your personal life and career is a fantastic skill to adopt especially when it comes to risks and opportunities. Jumping at every opportunity that comes across your path will leave you with no time or space to take the risks that have a high probability of succeeding. Psychologist, executive coach and speaker Camille Preston puts it perfectly – ‘Whatever the psychological back story, whatever the reason, the fact remains that saying yes to too many things is overwhelming and counterproductive. By saying yes to too many things we may, we may be saying no to some very important things. If your plate is too full, there’s no room for the unexpected or ideal opportunity.’

6. If It Feels Good, JUMP!

You’ve done your due diligence, run the figures, looked at what could go right and wrong with your risk…and yet you’re afraid to pull the trigger on your decision. That’s understandable and you wouldn’t be the first entrepreneur to feel that way. All we can say is, if you’ve done your homework and the water feels good so to speak, take the plunge. There comes a point when you have to jump in spite of the unknowns. Trust your instincts, rely on your research and with a bit of luck, it will all work out in the end.

The Call Pal team would love to make sure you never risk losing calls from potential or existing customers. Let our professional secretarial team take your calls for you. Want to give it a try first? Then call us on 1890 511 400 and we will give you free 7 day trial!

And be sure to follow us on all of our social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Google+ to stay up to date with all our news, events and offers.

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What’s your Identity?

It’s really important that you have a specific set of goals for your business and these should correspond with your social media plan. For example, if you have a newly opened takeaway, your initial plan would be to increase the number of walk in customers. Therefore, your social media goals would be to create more awareness of your takeaway and drive more people to your location.

Defining who you are as a business is imperative. How people perceive your business will be as a result of the vocabulary you use, images you post and the types of campaigns you run. A good starting point for creating your online persona would be to write down a list of adjectives and terms that you want people to associate with you. Keep those adjectives handy as you create a voice for your brand.

Lastly, define your target audience. Your campaigns and their success will rely heavily on how specifically you define your audience. Most social media platforms allow you to create campaigns that target potential customers from specific age ranges, occupational segments, key interests and geographic areas. Understanding these segments will help you design campaigns and create content that captivates the right audience, the right way.

We hope this post has been helpful. Be sure to follow us on all our social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Or give us a call directly on 1890 511 400 for more information on our nationwide service.

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