I am in need of a phone answering service and would like to know what experience others have in this area. Any companies you would recommend? What exactly do you use them for (message taking, gather specific info...)? How specific of a script do you provide? Thanks in advance.

Josh

I have tried them before and it never worked sufficiently for our needs. If all your looking for is a professional service to offer a live person to answer your phones, this can be fine. The problem in our situation was all of our marketing and promotional efforts are designed to get them to call. When they call they are seeking specific information and when using these services I don't care for the let down they received. Yes, they got a live person but someone who can't offer them the info they need, so they are really just a live message-taker. They still will have to wait to be contacted back by someone who can actually assist them.

Again, if all of your needs are just to provide a live person to take a message these services can be fine, or to use them to offer a basic or simple message, so I guess it depends on your specific needs and applications.

Thanks for the feedback. I understand your concerns with these services. My issue is that I have a full time day job that doesn't allow me to answer my phone from 8 to 3. I don't want to lose potential clients to a voicemail. Any other ideas considering my situation? Again, thanks for taking the time to share your experience.

First you have to figure out exactly how much you are actually losing. How many calls go unanswered? If it is such a staggering amount hire a minimum wage person and train them.

Then train them to make sales calls as well. If you are not losing enough then leave it alone.

All I can say is I use the cheap ATT one from Walmart and it sounds muddy and garbled brand new.

Too bad we can't hear the sound quality before buying.

-Mary Mowder

I use evoice. It's not a live person answering, but it gives me several advantages. I can have several redirect phone numbers in different parts of the country that I work in, which makes people more comfortable when they give me a call. Also, I can have a digitally recorded message from them, or one that's custom which is also included in the price. I hired a voice actor of my choosing to do mine. For me, it's a great way to avoid giving out my real number, and it allows me to skip the calls that are east coast based and allow them to be forwarded to my manager who takes care of that. Also, it's just another way to let your customer know you take your business seriously. A professional phone system sounds great, and it's extremely inexpensive.

Thanks for all the feedback.

Get a business line (land line). When you're out, forward it to your cel ... voila! It's always you answering!

The issue is that I can't normally answer my phone during the week before 3:30.

How many voice messages do you get vs. email or contact form submissions?

For myself, I get a ratio of about 10 emails/form submissions to every 1 voice mail.

Point is, why spend money chasing 4 people a month who decide to call?

Josh

Yea that was sort of what I thought.

All good points.