Farming out call taking

[PressurePros 248]

Does anyone have a suggestion for a company that fields phone calls? I need full time customer service but not to the extent of opening a nice office with a full time person. I know they are out there I just wanted to see if anyone had any info on a service they have used?

[Steve Kiser 14]

Just a suggestion, I went in with one of my buddies that has his own business and we hired a secretary and split the cost. So far it has worked out great. just my .02

[JFife 14]

Researched at one point---seems like I was expecting it to cost around $100 a month.....may be off. They charge a rate and then additional per each call you get.

[Tim McCulla 14]

I tried using a service at one point, it lasted for about four months and was a bad experience. It was a company in a remote city (Baltimore?), that did not know my area, my business, had no consistancy in the way they answered(they even had trouble saying the greeting) and the most agrivating, not taking the proper information: name, address, reason for call. Also, you may not realize the amount of calls you get that are not business related like friends, family, solicitations,....etc, but you will when they start costing You $each time you get one.

If I was going to do it again I would:

1) get some other businesses in your area that use the service, see if they are satisfied and then call them a few times at different times of the day to see if they do a good job of being proffesional and consistant.

2) Go with a small local company. They will know the area (road and common family names) so they can get accurate information. Also, they will have fewer different people answering the phone.

I like the idea of sharing a secretary - that could be something to look into.

Another idea could be to have call forwarded to a cell phone. either you could take calls in the field or have someone else answer the calls. For example, my brother had a similar situation a few years ago - He hired a stay at home mom that answered his calls all day 9-5 and worked about 10 hours a week (flexable time). It was win - win until they outgrew the arrangement.

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

A competitor 'who shall not be named' uses this kind of service. We have heard feedback from prospects that call these people expecting to get someone who works in the company become disturbed by the fact that they felt the owners were unreachable.

We answer our own calls and that has been pivotal for a number of our clients who say that it is because they got someone on the line who was actually a part of the company. This seemed an important feature to people and we make it a benefit to our customers.

I have also heard in passing conversations during conventions the same thing. I guess it depends on how it is handled that determines its acceptability to a prospect. Our position is that it is worth it to hire someone to take calls as an office employee than to farm it out to someone who legally has to state they are an agency and are relaying the call when a customer asks. They do, I did and I know how it affected me that the person I was trying to contact was perceivably unreachable.

Rod!~

[newlook 265]

I agree with Rod. Our customers find it refreshing that when they get someone on the phone from our office it is someone that has accurate answers to give or can readily get someone on the phone that will have the answer.

Not to say that hiring an answering services is a bad thing. It is very important that the first contact a potential and/or existing customers has with your company is a pleasant experience. If you do decide to have 'other' people answer your phones please be sure to inform them and/or educate them as much as possible about your operation. Stress the importance of sounding intelligent on the phone when dealing with customers!! Just my .02

[LyonsPressureWash 14]

Call forward to your cell phone is how I do it and it works great. I get a lot of business just because the people reach a real person and not a machine. Elderly people for the most part do not want to leave a message on a machine. They will hang up and call the next guy.:lgmoneyey

[PressurePros 248]

Thank you for the good advice given so far. I cannot get too detailed but the reason I need a service is because the calls can occur 24 hours, could be in very high volume and the response would not simply be getting a name, phone number or location. To have these calls forwarded to my cell phone would limit any other activites associated with PressurePros and as of right now I am still on the streets every day.

My biggest fear is incompetence on the line. I can script most customer service inquiries but if something falls outside of the script the operator would be lost. Rod, I was not aware that a service has to announce that they are not direct employees of mine.

Let me ask anyone reading this.. Suppose you had called for information and were unable to get a satisfactory answer. Would a response of, "Rather than give you misinformation I am going to have the owner of the company give you a call right back" appease you or further aggravate your troubles?

[Littlefield 65]

Ken, I think that would work for me, as long as the call 'right back' happened right away. I'm sure YOU would call right back, but would they get the message to you in a timely fashion?? I had looked into this, and they can be quite sophisticated even sending text messages, etc....

[Beth n Rod 1,279]

Ken,

The reason I found out is because I tend to ask the questions I need straight away and thats how I found out they were not an actual employee. Questions like "How much does a (fill in the blank) cost?" "Can I get an estimate today?" etc. When asked questions such as these, it falls out of the realm of their qualifications for the most part. They are only supposed to collect the information from the caller so the business can return the call. Does this answer your question?

Regarding your second question, it does set a bad taste in my mouth because to me, when I call a business number, I expect to get someone who works for that business and is either capable of answering my questions or will connect me to someone better qualified. Otherwise, it just seems to be a runaround and I for one do not like leaving messages with anyone unless the answering person presents themselves as proficient to get the message delivered. An answering service probably is very good at this, but it is not an actual employee. I am just used to conducting business a certain way.

Rod!~

[Adrian 155]

Service Magic told me that since I am now a 5 star rated firm that when customers call from my referenced profile that comes up on a search, that they actually have a representative answer on my firm's behalf to take the info.......... ummm..... to me an automated robot prompted vox machine is not a representative of my firm. I called it myself posing as a customer and did not like it at all. In my opinion whoever answers the phone for any business is the most important person to the caller. That's who you have to get through to get to the purpose of your call to begin with. an automated answering service is not my cup of tea. Although this is pretty much my only discrepency so far with them. Through this experience , I would never hire an answering service for many of the reasons mentioned in this thread.

Does anyone remember the movie War Games?

the computer sounded like this..... wou - you - lik - t -pla - a gam?

I always do my best to catch the phone by the 2nd ring, and always use proper etiquette (spelling?) .... ok manners. I'll just do the phone work myself. My customers do not want to hear a robot, even if it is a female robot!!!! Is that too biased?