You may be surprised to learn that we provide answering services for many different professions and service businesses. They include medical (for people and pets), property management, funeral homes, plumbers, electricians, HVAC, local municipalities, state and federal government offices, assisted living and long term care facilities, attorneys, real estate agents, contractors, not-for-profits, transportation services, IT services, telecommunications, security/alarm, financial services, fuel and propane suppliers, food & beverage, equipment sales/rentals and many more.
Always! That’s what sets our live answering service apart from automated systems. We have Customer Service Managers and Customer Service Leaders available to answer your questions, make updates to your account and address any inquiry you may have. Our company leadership places enormous importance on customer service, which is why we have received the Association of TeleServices International (ATSI) Award of Excellence for Outstanding Customer Service every year since 2005. We have broken ATSI records for consistently being ranked among the Top 5.
Our representatives work from one of our 5 call center locations including 3532 James Street Syracuse, NY 13206.
We offer a variety of ways to receive your messages. Text messaging has become very popular since it allows our clients to easily see a message and doesn’t require pen and paper to write down details. We also have clients that prefer a live call from one of our Representatives. In addition, we offer email, fax and patching. Some of our clients request a combination of options depending on the day of the week, the time of day and the nature of the call (i.e. urgent vs. non-urgent). We have to be flexible, since no 2 clients are the same!
Most telephone plans include a call forward feature and it can be as simple as pressing *72 and dialing the call forward number that we provide. If you’re not sure that you have call forward, a simple call to your phone carrier will resolve that.
Yes. We digitally record all our calls and make them available to our clients for playback. We track when calls come in, the length of the call and how it was handled.
Yes, there’s always someone available to talk with you! That’s what sets our live answering service apart from automated systems. We’re here for your customers and for you.
We uniquely program each account, so it’s entirely up to you how we answer your calls. Some of our clients like us to tell callers we’re the answering service and others prefer we be one of their team. It’s entirely up to you.
We answer every call. If you anticipate lots of junk calls, we can record a greeting (what we refer to as pre-call screening) that will tell solicitation callers to please hang up. All other callers can stay on the line and one of the Customer Service Representatives will help them. It’s not full proof but may knock down some of the junk traffic. If a solicitation caller stays on the line, the Customer Service Representatives will politely tell them that we don’t take messages for sales calls, if that’s what you’d like. It’s entirely up to you.
Aside from the traditional receiving calls and delivering messages, we offer other support services. For example, rollover coverage (for those busy times), employee call in lines, help desk support, sales lead capture, appointment scheduling/reminders, and customer feedback surveys, just to name a few.
For our medical clients that ask us to text their messages, we offer secure messaging using a HIPPA compliant and JCAHO endorsed secure messaging app. If you think you may need that type of service, let us know and we can send you more information.
A very common theme from people that call us looking for an answering service is that their current service won’t call them back. Frustrating, right? We offer outstanding customer service, (we refer you back to the 2nd question above) and well trained staff to handle your calls. Last year 74% of our sales leads came from client referrals, people calling the service for another account and liked what they heard, and current clients asking us to expand our services with them. We’re happy to consult with potential clients and we take the time to answer all your questions to make sure we can offer what you need. If we can’t meet your needs, we may be able to offer a referral to another service that can.
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Each account is custom programmed to meet your requirements, so using template scripts is not part of our methodology. We can collect as much or as little information as you want from your caller. You can also tell us if you need different information based on the nature of the call or the time of day. We’re flexible!
Our clients can build their own plans to include as many or as few operator minutes as they want. We have plans that start at $25 per billing cycle (28 days). If you’re not sure how many calls you will receive, we can start you on the lowest base rate and you can monitor the call activity over a few billing cycles. We can also adjust plans to accommodate seasonal fluctuations.
No. We prefer our clients to stay with us because they want to, not because they have to.
The setup process is easy. We collect information about your preferred answer phrase, how you want each call handled (some may be more urgent than others), how you want to receive your messages (as described above) and contact details for everyone for whom we’re taking calls. Each account is custom programmed, so you will work 1:1 with a member of our programming team. They make sure we have all the bases covered and do a great job making recommendations that will meet your needs and your clients’ needs. It’s never an issue to make edits to an account after it goes live.
We like to have 5 business days from the time we have all the set-up information from our clients, to complete programming and training. We use this time to train all the Representatives that will be answering on your behalf so that the 1st call they take will not be the 1st time they’ve seen the account and that matters!
It’s never an issue to make edits to an account. Simply call your Call Forward number and ask to speak with a Customer Service Manager or Customer Service Leader. There’s always someone available to answer your questions, make updates to your account and address any inquiry you may have.