Any 24/7 call answer services?

[Chauffeur Centre]

Im about to launch a new business in the coming months.

I need to know are there any 24hours call answering companies/VA you have used and can recommend?

Loking forward to any replies.

S

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

From my experience if you run a 24 hour service you probably run a get up and go as quickly as possible set up.
To run this you need your own people answering the 24 hour line .The delays and frustration caused by a third party handling calls will mean they go to someone on the end of the phone that answers straight away

 

[Pandybearse]

I'm using alldaypa. 78p/min plus £20 set up, but their customer service is superb (called 3 times to make sure everything is ok in 5 weeks), and i've quizzed the people that have spoken to them and they are apparently polite enough.
Just got them on 'divert when busy or no answer' so I get the calls first.
Hope this helps
Paul

 

[independentSO]

think printempire offers a good service

 

[Joe E]

Hi Simon

Why not check out Call The Office ask for Kim http://www.calltheoffice.co.uk/
or http://www.jam.co.uk/ ask for Katie they do PAYG as well!

Both are super!

Hope that's useful

Regards

Chris

 

[Heart Communications]

Hi,

We provide flexible telephone answering services tailored to meet your specific needs and budget

Visit www.HeartCommunications.co.uk

Amy

 

[virtuallysorted]

I think it depends a bit on what you are doing - as Jeremy pointed out if it's a 24 hour business you need to respond 24 hours too.

My mum and dad used to run a travel agency and used a 24 hour call centre admittedly about 10 years ago. They eventually stopped using them because:
a) People calling at 2am to book a holiday were most likely on their way home from the pub and unlikely to actually book.
b) The call answering company couldn't offer the same service which my mum and dad would give when they answered the phone. So they'd come in to maybe 10-20 messages in the morning all along the lines of "Joe Bloggs called. He wants to book a holiday. Call him back" or worse "British Gas wanting you to change your supplier pls call back".
c) If it was a client calling with some sort of a drama, the call centre couldn't help them anyway. They did turn on call forwarding to my dad's mobile for a bit but after the 5th time in a week being woken up by someone who the call centre had said was an emergency and who'd lost their passport in Tenerife, my dad cancelled it.

Obviously we offer call answering so it's odd that I'm not recommending it. But being totally honest we did try and do weekend/evening call answering for a bit and the quality of people who you get who are prepared to work those shifts is...um... somewhat different to what I normally have with the daytime shift. I wasn't really happy putting my name to it, so we only do 9am-6pm Mon-Fri.

Hope this helps!
Caroline

 

[Pandybearse]

We've been with alldaypa since we started, and they have never let us down They're not cheap, but when you are potentially missing customers on the phone, they are a lot cheaper than permanent staff and allow start-ups a lot of freedom.