A STATE-OF-THE-ART call handling service in the Highlands is on track to have answered 100,000 calls by the end of 2022 – following its launch more than two years ago.
CATCH Highland specialises in providing an expert receptionist service for companies, saving larger businesses a full-time receptionist salary, and giving smaller concerns an administrative facility they wouldn’t have otherwise had.
The company prides itself on enabling a business to never have to miss a call – at a time when every missed call could be crucial.
To date it has answered well over 80,000 calls from its bases in Harbour Road, Inverness, and Tore, Muir of Ord, since it launched and is on target for the six-figure milestone by the end of the year.
Most of the businesses CATCH represents are local, but some are from as far away as the South-west of England with, for example, the Highland call handlers frequently dealing with customers’ property management queries in Cheltenham – over 500 miles away.
CATCH is the brainchild of Highland businesswoman Abbie McCahill, who has a successful full-service marketing company Adder Business Ltd, facilitating clients throughout the Highlands from its Inverness base.
She said: “CATCH has been a phenomenal success and I am so proud of the way it has developed. We offer a uniquely personal service and take our time to understand how the business operates before we take calls on their behalf.
“Basically, we are led by the client and what their individual requirements are, but the software and skillsets we have means our service is equally valuable for bigger concerns or one-person-operations such as joiners or plumbers who can’t take calls when they are busy working.”
CATCH’s Diary Management Service enables it to book into a customer’s diary management software, if they have one, or relay the information by e-mail or WhatsApp Business. This could impact on anything from job interviews to service engineering requests.
The company also offers a holiday cover service, sending urgent messages if required, when customers are taking a well-earned break.
“Although we do have UK-wide clients most of our business is in the Highlands,” said Abbie. “All our receptionists live in the Highlands and are fully conversant with the area’s geography and placenames.
“Most businesses just divert their ‘overspill’ calls to us – meaning their phones ring in their own workplace first and only then if they go unanswered will the call come through to us. From the caller’s point of view, there is no difference – their call will be answered within 15 seconds – without any funny divert tones.”