Unlimited Answering Service
All you need to know about Unlimited Service
I can't tell you how many times people call and ask if we have live humans answering the phone. While it's a funny question, it makes me wonder what kind of service these prospects have been receiving. While we spend a great deal of money in this business on phone lines and state of the art equipment, our highest expense will always be payroll. Our rates are determined by what we know it costs to have a qualified representative answering your phone. By doing so we ensure that we can always afford to staff appropriately for the amount of calls our clients bring to us.
Many services use "Unlimited" as way to attract new clients. It is possible to take statistical information and establish what the average cost per client is. This ends up being great for busy clients while not so great for the less busy ones. If any one client, or group of clients, suddenly has an increase in call volume the company now has to increase the number of reps. By charging a flat fee these companies often find themselves without the revenue to add reps. The end result is always the same, bad service. Sometimes increased activity means we have to add additional phone lines. Services offering an unlimited price find themselves unable to add these lines resulting in busy signals.
If you need a better example, take your own office in mind. You probably have more than one line in the office. If you start receiving more calls you will need to add more lines, and of course you'll have to add additional staff to answer those lines. You can trim the expense of this growth using a voicemail to put callers on hold. Now, if the increase in calls is a reflection that your business is also increasing, you may not need to trim those expenses. In our business more calls always means more revenue, which allows us to add lines and staff as needed without needing to trim anything.
Some clients just don't care if their callers are on hold forever or if the lines are busy; their only interest is paying less. While we would love to service everyone who needs an answering service, we choose to only service clients who are willing to pay for the time they use. Most of our competitors would agree with us and also charge based upon usage. This leaves the client shopping for unlimited or flat rate answering service with few options. At the end of the day the unlimited services end up with these clients, filling their client pool a group of clients that don't have high expecations. Do you want to be serviced by a company whose client base does not hold them accountable?
If you ever get the chance to visit an answering service you'll find one of two things. Some services are organized, clean, quiet, and have a staff that looks as professional as they sound on the phone. Others have stacks of sensitive paperwork piled up, massive amounts of noise, a cloud of cigarette smoke hovering in the room, and a staff that is not even polite, much less professional. It's been our experience that unlimited service is usually synonymous with the second. Even are large national competitors, who could probably offer a flat rate and still provide decent service because of their size, have all avoided unlimited pricing. Usually an unlimited answering service is an ex-employee of a good service trying to start something a service of their own. While usually very anxious to provide a good service, these guys usually find themselves broke with a huge payroll tax debt in their first year.
You're paying for a service to answer your calls. Now that you know about unlimited answering service, chances are that you want these calls answered quickly with no chance of a busy signal. By charging you for the time you use, otherwise known as time billing, we can guarantee A Live Answer every time.
All Services can be customized to fit your individual needs. Please call us today at 800-355-2650 or request a free quote here. Your business and your clients deserve excellence, a quality that you won't find in an unlimited answering service.
