The telephone was first introduced to the public just a little over a century ago. But those who bought them and installed them in their homes and businesses quickly found out that they came with a problem. That problem was that someone had to be there to answer when it rang or a call was missed.

So not long after that, inventors began the decades of work of coming up with workable solutions. The first solution they hit on was an answering machine that used newly invented magnetic recording tape. It was made out of wood, weighed in at close to 100 pounds and stood just under 4 feet tall. It also cost the equivalent of about six months wages for the average working person of that time back in the 1930s.

So obviously there was plenty of room for improvement. Fast forward to today, and now you have your choice of three options when it comes time to field incoming call, and one of them what is voicemail which is the technology that came along to push out the answering machine. But there is a relatively new service as well they came as a result of call rerouting technology that was developed back in the late 1970s, and that’s an answering service.

The article following is a three-way, side-by-side comparison that list both the pros and the cons of the three choices that you have, beyond hiring a personal assistants to sit all day to field your calls. Those three choices are to use voicemail, to go with a phone answering service or simply pick up your calls and go without those that were missed when you weren’t there when the phone rang.

Voicemail: Pros

The first big pro going for voicemail is that it’s cheap and effective. In fact you would have to move to a foreign country to find a phone service that charges up for it now. Just record a short introductory message, and when a call comes through and you can’t be there to answer it, it automatically picked up, the message is played and the caller can leave a message of their own. All very simple to operate.

Voicemail: Cons

The first downside of voicemail, for businesses in particular, is that recent studies have shown that up to 30% of callers will simply hangup as soon as they encounter your initial greeting message. 30% is a lot of potential business to simply ignore, but surprisingly some businesses today still choose to do it. Then for those who do get through, there’s no corresponding and too often by the time the message is heard, in terms of business it’s too late.

Answering Your Own Calls: Pros

Then there’s the option of answering the phone calls yourself, and a lot of people in a lot of homes do just that. If you call when they aren’t there though, the call goes unanswered. So it’s a nice throwback to the simpler days before the first answering machine was invented. Another big benefit here for the caller though, is that they’re assured that the person that they are calling will be the one who answers the phone, even if it doesn’t happen every time that they want it to happen.

Answering Your Own Calls: Cons

So while it may all sound all nice, nostalgic and personal, none the less there are a whole lot of downsides to taking this route. For business operators in particular it would be financially devastating, that is unless they have a religiously devoted return customer base. Even then, this option really is only for a person who’s content with not knowing at all what the callers that they have missed had on their mind.

Answering Service: Pros

This third option is also the fastest-growing in terms of popularity. So more people are opting for it and the first reason is a live personal response 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Then for businesses the list of benefits are many and continue to expand. The option of an industry specific service is just one benefit, such as an answering service that caters to healthcare businsses, for example. Then for owners and managers who are marketing online there’s an ever increasing list of web-based marketing assistance service options as well.

Answering Service: Cons

There are however, a couple of glaring answering service cons that may have you thinking twice before you sign up. This first one is that now with 24 hour a day call forwarding, having priority calls directed to your personal phone means that as a business operator you can end up going without needed rest away from closing transactions. Then of course, there is the cost, and with both of the above options coming absolutely free, this is for sure the most expensive option.

A Few Final Words

Something that’s important to consider when comparing costs for a business operator is that there are both front end, and back end costs to consider. So while one option may be cheaper than the other in the beginning or the front end, on the backend as time moves on other costs do rack up due to business losses as a result of missed calls and messages not left.

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