Do you use a telephone answering service?
I would be grateful for recommendations for telephone answering service from the users of this type of service. How much do you pay?
My needs are as follows:
- To take all my calls and pathes(forward) these to me
- Does not foward spam calls (ie screens calls)
- Takes messages when I inform them that I am not available.
- Needs to be UK based - should speak clearly. No heavy accents that are difficult understand.
- I do not want to change my number
- My Calls should not be forwarded to 0845 number
I would appreciate recommendations from users of telephone answering service. It would be good to know the monthly costs for this service.
Thanks
Have used... 2 thanks
Moneypenny and Alldaypa.
Moneypenny were the better of the two and do all of the good things you want and none of the bad things. I paid them circa £12k p.a. for a 7 days, 10 hour service for circa 500 calls a day.
This was in 2007/08; don't know their pricing today
jet virtual 2 thanks
a , smaller company, but very cheap does the job for me http://www.jetvirtual.co.uk/
Zebra Connections 1 thanks
I use Zebra Connections. They do everything you require. No need to change your number and very reasonably priced.
Banana Office 1 thanks
I highly recommend Banana Office:
http://www.bananaoffice.co.uk/
They tick all your boxes and are brilliant, and the service is customisable to your needs. Excellent value for money and the service is exceptional.
Feedback 1 thanks
Thanks you all for your help.
I looked at all the telephone answering service providers that are recommended on this thread,
I have chosen http://www.jetvirtual.co.uk/ recommended by alwalters. Price was a key factor to go with them. For what I needed there really was not much difference between the providers. They cannot be for answering calls, taking a message or passing the calls through.
I will see how my 7 day trial goes with http://www.jetvirtual.co.uk/.
Complete marketing service for accountants
Not easy but;
Does anyone know if anyone out there provides a complete -and result based not too pricey- service for marketing as well as call answering;
ie; write letters, post them, follow up, answer call,screen them, pass on enquiries for client acquisition.
Accountants Marketing 2 thanks
I recommend http://www.maxxy.co.uk/
I've not used them, but I know Maxine and she is fab - if I was looking for that type of marketing, that's where I would go first. Not sure if she does the call answering as well, but for marketing it's well worth a look.
Thanks for the mention Monsoon :)
Actually yes we do provide call answering as it fits in well with telemarketing and other marketing activity.
It makes sense that we present a phone number (caller line identity) when making an outbound call, and use this number on outbound calls if we leave messages or people ask if they can call back.
Some of our clients use IVR (press 1 for this and 2 for that etc) and this means accountants can have a buffer in place to reduce the amount of calls that are handled to the call answering agency in the first place so that if paying on a per call basis that they are paying for calls they want to go to the agency rather than everything if that isn't appropriate.
At the moment I am flat out with telemarketing and don't have spare capacity to offer call answering on a stand-alone basis and can only offer this as part of an overall marketing package ... but I'll let you all know if that changes :)
In the meantime... I can vouch for Emma at Answer-it as I have used her myself and would possibly do so again as overflow :)
A client of mine uses this service 1 thanks
www.moneypenny.co.uk
The minimum charge was £25 per month but they end up paying around £125 per month. I think it's too much but they seem happy.