Telephone Services

[lyndsey]

Hi

I am a Virtual Assistant and I am considering adding telephone answering services to my remit.

However, I am not 100% sure the best way to do this. I know that I would probably be best getting an an additional line installed in the house, however, then I wouldn’t be able to answer in the clients name as I wouldn’t know what client the call was for.

I was therefore considering getting some sort of switchboard, so that I could find out what client the call was for.

I am looking for any advice on this issue.

Any advice would be much appreciated.


Lyndsey

 

[Didi]

Hm.... a very interesting question. I am not going to give advice...My friend works as a vertual assistant too and has almost the same problem.
So i am waiting for your advice too

 

[philjeffs]

Its fairly simple.

You simply need to get a few 0870 or 0845 (non-geographic) numbers, and provide them to callers to use. I asume your client will advertise them in some way, or agree with his clients the number they will use.

That allows you to identify incoming callers by the number they are ringing, and to answer accordingly. As you will be working for a client, the client could point one or more of his own NGN's at your line. You can also set up call divert with BT which allows you to automatically redivert calls to your line back to the client if you don't answer.

There will be a lot of NGN providers on this board who will now be presenting you with all sorts of offers .....

 

[Spire]

I was going to suggest exactly the same thing with 1 minor addtion and that is u can get from BT not sure about other providers a addtional number for your existing line that will give a different ring tone when called and it only costs about £1 per month and no installtion charge, that way u would know it was a clients call without the additional expense of another line, then set u a PC to dispaly the name of the clients number called and u are up and running for a small outlay.

 

[Ozzy]

Hi Lyndsey,
You need to cater for more than just one client so using a normal analogue phone line (like getting an extra number from BT) will not be suitable.

You need to get at least an ISDN2e phone line from the likes of BT, with a DDI range of numbers (the amount of numbers you get needs to depend on the amount of clients you want to cater for).
Then, you need to buy a phone system that caters for ISDN and DDI ranges (to be honest most office phone systems do).
Then, for each customer you give them one of your DDi numbers to use as they wish, and you set that number up on your phone system to be "allocated" to that customer.
Then when anyone rings that number if will flash up on the phone your customers name, so you can answer the call in their company name. A good phone system I would recommend is the IP Office range from Argent.

 

[lyndsey]

Thanks to you all for the info.

I think i will look into ISDN and DDI Numbers

Many thanks



Lyndsey

 

[philjeffs]

Oh come on Ozzy,

I manage seven IP Office systems for clients and even just a basic system will set Lyndsey back a few grand at least, plus the cost of ISDN lines - for a home based sole trader??

Lyndsey, you can move up to this gradually. Save your cash to grow your business. Low overheads are the essential for all new startups.

 

[Ozzy]

OK, imagine Lyndsey has 10 clients. So then takes 10x NGNs redirected to a landline number at home. The best available from BT on a PSTN is 2x numbers. So he'll only be able to distinguish between two "companies" and the other 8 will potentially be answered in the wrong name. Or the NGN has a bespoke answer message before being put through to Lyndsey. The downside to this is that when I used an autoattendant service on my phone system I lost about 15% of calls who hung up the moment they heard an automated answer. As soon as I made all call s go immediately to a human I no longer lose those 15% of potential orders.

An IP Office is about £1,500 plus say £200 a quarter for a single ISDN2e (2 lines).

Yes can get away with providing the service for 1x customer plus his own line initially, but then I woudl seriously not recommend getting several PSTNs in and having different phones hanging off each line as it would sound very unprofessional having a couple of phones ringing off the hook in the background whilst dealing with one customer call. At least a phone system would enable call queuing, and even a bespoke hold queue for each client if required (VMPro).

I woudl recommend if you're going to do it then at least do it somewhere near properly. Howeber, that is just my own opinion, and everyone has one of those

 

[philjeffs]

Ozzy, I know where you are coming from, but Lyndsey is going to be providing a virtual service? In other words representing her clients to their callers as if she was sitting in the client's offices?

In that case is the client going to want the ability for many calls to go to voicemail or a hold queue, or wouldn't it be so much more professional to divert calls directly to the client if Lyndsey couldn't take them as she was already on a call? That's why, as a sole trader, my aim was to guide Lyndsey to do something well first, before considering expansion. I wouldn't want to contract a virtual PA who didn't take my customers calls personally and simply held them to a voicemail system. That hardly shows my company to the best advantage? I may as well do that myself. I'd want her to take what calls she could and handle them well.

But you are absolutely correct that everyone should voice their own opinion, and I strongly support you in that. Hey, its why this forum was put together I guess? Sorry if I came on too strong.

Lyndsey, up to you I guess? Ozzy and I are both trying to genuinly help you but probably leaving you more confused? Sorry..

 

[Ozzy]

Now that you mention routing the calls back to the client if Lyndsey could not take the call I see you point more clearly. I was working on the basis that calls would only go to Lyndsey.

I still think the limitations of a PSTN (a standard analogue line) mean difficulty of knowing what company the caller has rung though. I do however realise that you can get an auto attendant on an NGN (non geographic number such as 0845) to answer in the company name before putting the call through to the VA with an automated message saying something like "I am about to connect you to a call for XYZ".

Has anyone ever worked out exactly how many ways it is possible to skin a cat?

 

[odeniyi]

It would appear most of the technical angles have been covered so I would comment on that myself.

However I would suggest putting together a fag packet biz plan - number of clients, calls, minutes, charging mechanism etc you think you could handle.

You may also want to think about linking up with other VAs and including them to enable your company to answer more calls etc.

Only when you have done the above consider what you may / may not want to spend on technology. For example having performed this exercise you may decide juggling 3 clients with a second analogue number is as far as you want to go...etc.

Hope this helps.

 

[buying_it]

You could always use voip for this kind of problem a phone like the SNOM+360 (what a name!) provide alternative rings based on the destination account coming into it.

Each NGN is about £10 to setup and providing you have a decent reliable broadband connection you would be able to configure this to do what you want.

There is a higher spec phone that this as well which would offer more incoming lines should you need it.

Give voiptalk a call - they are very helpful!

Andy

 

[windleyns]

Apologies if this reply is a bit late, interesting subject.

I would agree with Olu that planning your business requirements is the most important step. Here you can assess your expenditure depending on the type of solution you go for and the potential payback.

Remember you are investing in this technology to provide a service (which should be good and reliable) and to make some money.

The alternatives are to have physical infrastructure installed such as a telephony system (PBX) or to have a manage service delivered over your internet connection (virtual PBX or IPPBX).

Alcatel do a very nice solution for the small office - scalable and modular and can support standard telephony and IP telephony. There are also a range of hosted services as well.

I would suggest finding a partner that can guide you through the process and the alternatives in order to help you find the right system for your business. That keeps you focused on the strategy and where you need to take it.