15 Certain ways to lower your answering service bill in 2022

Posted by Janvi Anand

Isn't it true that you need money to make money? Isn't it an old proverb? The challenge is to strike the right balance so that when all of your bills are paid, you're still in the black at the end of the month.

How can company owners minimize their monthly answering service expense is one of the most often asked inquiries we get.

We've been here before. In reality, Focus had a key role in the development of the industry standard for answering service protocols. As a result, over the previous few decades, we've found a few tricks to nip here, tuck there, and alter things overall to keep invoicing at a reasonable level for our clients. If you want to cut your monthly answering service fee, keep these 15 suggestions in mind:

Voicemail is used to filter routine calls.

Pre-screening of greeting voicemail Consider having a greeting played for the caller before they ring into an operator if any of the inquiries you receive are regular, such as questions about office hours, directions, and FAQs. This is known as voicemail prescreening in most call centres. Some of our call centre customers have experienced a decrease of up to 40%. The greeting can be supplied by your phone answering service or, in certain situations, by your office's phone system. You may also create numerous greetings to accommodate different languages and allow callers to leave voicemail messages.

Maintaining Current Information

It may appear straightforward, but trust us when we say that phone numbers and instructions get out of date far more quickly than you may imagine. Over time, personnel, methods, and instructions all change. For the greatest results, we recommend reviewing your account information once a quarter. Some businesses have a website where you may view or download this data. Others even let you make changes to your telephone answering service information on the internet.

Making sure your data is current saves money by preventing mistakes caused by outdated data. When an operator must convey an important call to your team, this is a regular scenario. She continually dials the on-call mobile phone number to transmit a message, only to discover that the number had changed six months ago. This increases the expense of doing business and, more crucially, compromises the quality of service provided to your consumers.

You may increase the quality of your customer service while also saving money by evaluating your data.

Maintain Current Information

You may increase the quality of your customer support service while also saving money by evaluating your data.

Scripting

Answering service scripts, or the pre-recorded conversations your virtual receptionists have with your callers, are one of the most common causes of high answering service bills – and the greatest location to search for cost-cutting solutions.

To make decision-making easier, remove pathways that aren't used.

It's crucial to note that the operators who answer your calls aren't specialists in your industry when employing an answering service. To minimize problems and long calls, remove any script routes that might jam up the workflow. If your script has pathways for Quote calls, Sales calls, and Service calls, for example, your agents may struggle to figure out when to take each path. If you don't want to remove any options, ask a driving question up front to assist direct the call and guide the operator to the proper path, such as "Thank you for calling ABC, is this an emergency?

Remove any questions that are not necessary

Having your answering service collect information from your callers by asking a slew of qualifying questions may appear to be useful at first, but it will simply waste time and money in the end. A better alternative is to have your answering service collect the essential information and then have your in-house staff follow up on the details.

Merge approaches, where possible

There might be a hundred distinct reasons why a consumer calls a firm, but that doesn't imply your answering service script should contain every potential situation. A better way is to include the most common call situations, such as appointment scheduling or calling for service, and then have a broad path for the operators to follow for anything else. If you want your operators to take messages or transfer calls for certain persons or departments, combine the two paths into one that includes a list of names and departments. The less time your operators spend on the phone and the lower your bills, the more brief and simple your script is.

Make long FAQs as simple as possible.

While arming your answering service operators with commonly asked questions about your organization is beneficial, you don't want to cram every potential response to every possible query, nor do you want to write reams of material. Not only will operators struggle to navigate lengthy and intricate FAQ sections, but the more information you include, the longer it will take them to read through and discover what they need, resulting in larger charges. It's best to keep your FAQs brief and to the point. After all, you're the most qualified person to answer your clients' more in-depth inquiries.

Protocols

Unnecessary procedures are the second most expensive item after the majority of high-value bills. Changing how you're reached for messages may make a significant impact on your overall answering service fee and ensure a low-cost answering service.

Cold transfers should be used instead of heated ones.

Warm transfer calls to you or your in-house team do come at a cost, especially with many answering services charging by the minute. While you won't probably be charged the same rate after the call is moved, you'll be charged a patch or transfer cost as long as that line is in use. If you need to transfer calls, a cold transfer rather than a warm transfer is a preferable option. Your callers may easily leave a message for a return call if no one is present, lowering your bills.

Reduce the number of efforts at outreach that come with an on-call schedule.

Limit the number of times your answering service contacts your on-call employees to keep your bills low. You're going to have a big cost on your hands if each reach-out effort takes 1-2 minutes and your operators keep calling until someone responds, and all of your staff are avoiding work. We recommend limiting your reach efforts to three and leaving a note so that your staff has the information they need to contact the consumer again.

Toss down the phone and go for text or email instead.

This is the advice to remember if you want to save money on your answering service cost. When you want the call centre to reach your employees, outgoing phone calls are the most inefficient and costly option. When dialling a phone number, the clock begins ticking as soon as the number is dialled.

The time it takes to complete each ring is 6 seconds. You've already spent 18 seconds if someone replies within three rings.
Figure on at least 1-2 minutes, assuming the individual is ready to jot down the message right now.
If they aren't ready, they may ask the agent to 'wait on until I pull over' or 'get something to write with.'
On a good day, these calls should take 5 minutes.

As a result, calls last an average of 1.5 to 2.5 minutes at best. In the worst-case scenario, each call may last up to 5 minutes. Multiply the number of incoming calls each month by this quantity. Time flies by. Alternative message transmission methods are easy to view as a good concept.

In place of email, you will receive texts.

Using SMS text messaging, you can receive all of the information in the example above in seconds. The individual who receives the message might respond by texting back to confirm receipt. It's much simpler with the secure text messaging app: simply tap a button to end the call.

Instead, receive updates through email.

Receiving communications via email, like text messaging, might be a viable alternative. For particular email addresses, most phones may now automatically activate an alarm tone. An encrypted email option will be preferred by health care practitioners.

Bonus: With a rapid email response, the finest answering service providers may stop the escalation process.

Online Scheduling for On-Call Personnel

You undoubtedly have a rotating employee on-call if your organisation provides after-hours support. Most businesses follow a weekly plan that alternates every month. Some companies have a daily rotation of who is on call. For the call to proceed smoothly, you must ensure that the answering service has correct, up-to-date information.

Your charge will go higher if you manually relay this information to the answering service. For loading your on-call schedules, some call centres will charge a set monthly cost. More often than not, you will be charged for the time you spend inputting on-call information into their system. The good news is that you may avoid all of these fees by using online on-call.

On their online site, the leading answering services provide free web on-call, allowing you to make real-time on-call modifications. You'll probably find that utilising a spreadsheet or writing things down by hand is a faster way to make your on-call schedule. You may also allow your employees to see your schedule through the internet, ensuring that they are constantly up to date on on-call information.

Based on how on-call information is updated each month:

When you call forward your phone, you may call in on-call information each night. The monthly cost is estimated at $30.
Weekly on-call schedules are emailed or faxed. The monthly cost is estimated to be $25.
Monthly on-call schedules are emailed or faxed. The monthly cost is estimated to be $20.
Using a web-based on-call system. $0.

Simply increase each of the following possibilities by the number of schedules if you have several locations or on-call schedules. Unless you use online on-call, the charges quickly pile up.

Lookup in a database

This is similar to Caller ID Recall, but with a little more zeal. Checking if a caller has an after-hours service contract is an excellent example. You may input as much data as you like, and the caller will have a wonderful customer service experience.

Before waking up a member of your staff, check to see if the caller has an after-hours service plan. It not only saves money on answering services, but it also saves money on employee tiredness and overtime.

Your company's response time

Your team must acknowledge calls promptly. You'll save a lot of money this way. If your message centre must frequently contact and text the on-call employee to get them to answer, the minutes will fly by. Assuring a smooth escalation protocol can be accomplished in several ways.

Staff should be educated on the necessity of promptly reacting to consumers in need.
Mobile phone service should be available where employees are physically located. Consider switching carriers or getting a pay-as-you-go backup cell phone on a different network if there are dead zones.

Obtain a copy of 'Just the Facts.'

Answering services are responsible for gathering precise information. In some cases, gathering a lot of precise information on a call is necessary. This isn't always the case, though. We usually advise clients who wish to cut expenditures to have us obtain only the information they require.

When you ask for too much information from a caller, you're doing two things:

An irritated caller is on the line.
As a result, your minute use rises, resulting in a larger answering service charge.

Examine your process to see what information your employees require to handle the customer's request. Then come up with a list of questions to ask your caller. When it comes to design, sometimes less is more.

Tags: Telephone answering service Answering service Call centre services