Answering Service For Small Business

How Much Does a Telephone Answering Service Cost?

On average a live answering service is going cost a small business with normal usage times somewhere between $12 – $43 a week. The real question is what determines the actual cost of an answering service and what can you do to control the price. There are two types of billing programs and those are pay per call and pay per minute.  Pay per call answering services are just what they say they are, you pay a fixed rate for each call that the call center answers on your behalf. A per minute plan is billed according to the time that is spent with your customers and is generally billed in 12 second increments.

How Much Should You Pay For Answering Services? This is probably the best way to address the question of how much a telephone answering service will cost. Depending on your specific needs (and they vary greatly) on average you can expect to pay about $0.79 a minute. So if you have a plan where you pay per call then you should examine the average duration of those calls and determine if you’re getting the best rate available. In other words if you’re paying $1.80 per call but your average call length is only one minute and fifteen seconds then odds are you may be paying too much the service.

How Can I Get the Lowest Price on an Answering Service? Bottom line, make them fight for your business. When call centers service providers are bidding against each other for your business you can save as much as 25% off the cost of service. This also applies if you already have a service. When you have an existing service you can compare the prices of the competition and usually even enjoy a free trial. If you like the service you simply forward your line to the new number, or see if your existing provider will lower your rates to keep you from leaving them.

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What Can Select Answering Service do to Lower my Cost? To help you get the best price on your answering service solution we offer a totally free service so you can get top companies to go head to head against each other for your business. In other words you’ll get their best price because they’ll know you are shopping through our system. We don’t think businesses should pay marked up prices for answering services and this free, no obligation system lets you use a single form to communicate your needs to up to 5 top companies that match your needs.

How Can I reduce the Cost of my Answering  Service? There are a number ways to lower your answering service costs. The easiest way is to have the receptionist service only ask the questions that are required, which may be the callers name, telephone number, and a short message as to why they are calling. Also, if you’re paying for calls to be transferred but you are rarely able to answer those calls it’s a good idea to change your plan to just have messages sent by text, which can lower your bill by as much as 20%. Alternatively you have the ability to turn your service on and off at will. When you or your staff are in the office simple un-forward your  lines, or your phone company can set up a “busy no answer” feature whereas the first 3 rings come into your office and if you’re busy and don’t answer then the call will be forwarded to the service.

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2 Comments
  1. Its hard to find answering services that charge a flat rate anymore. We used to get 300 calls for $50 a month and no one does that anymore. Ideas?

  2. Consider yourself as once lucky, some company was stupid (business wise) to do that for you. Who could make money answering 300 calls for $50? Even if a call only lasted 1 minute you have 5 hours of payroll for the agent alone. So even if she/he only earns $8 and hour their payroll is $40. You’ll never see those days again,and if you do I’d bet the idiot will be out of business in less than a few months. Sorry, I guess you were hoping for more encouraging replies.

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