Virtual Reception - Does Everyone Charge for Sales Calls?

[dataferret]

Hi all

Does every virtual reception charge for inbound speculative sales calls? Read below to understand why I am asking this question.

I operate a not for profit company and we provide solutions which would otherwise stop people earning a living. One of the services we provide is a virtual telephone reception. We hire a third party company to deliver this service on a "pay as you go" basis. We do not make any money from it. We even use it ourselves.

Usually it works quite well and the costs are very low. There is a minimum charge of £20 per month which guarantees the call centre firm their income. Once 20 calls have been received there is a cost per call.

With regards to speculative sales and marketing calls we originally negotiated a fee of £0.25 for any sales calls received lasting over 5 seconds. But over the past three months we have seen call volumes from speculative sales callers increase and we are now getting charged £0.99 per call which is the same cost as one of our genuine customer enquiries. As a result, the cost of the virtual reception service has trebled but the actual genuine call enquiries has stayed pretty much the same. The service provider says the increase in cost is because they charge more the longer the sales caller stays on the line which seems rather unfair.

This service is getting too expensive and we cannot recommend it to our clients who have little spare cash. Is there any similar service which does not charge for inbound sales and marketing calls but still has a 24/7 service? If so can anyone recommend which one to use?

Thanks all

 

so your asking will someone take your calls for free? have i understood that right?

 

[Officebird]

Hi,

My service does charge for sales calls, as we still have to answer the phone and deal with the caller. We don't charge on length though, just per call. However... we do have a junk call filter which, if activated (the client can choose) puts all known sales call numbers are automatically diverted to a personalised answerphone. They can leave a message which is then sent to you via email and is free. There is a minimum usage of £5 a month. You can check out http://tinyurl.com/35glq6v for more info and a helpful FAQ section.

 

[dataferret]

so your asking will someone take your calls for free? have i understood that right?

No you have misunderstood. We have no objection paying for the telephone answering service - even a low rate per call for speculative inbound sales calls. But we do not expect to pay £1.00 per call for speculative inbound sales calls trying to sell us services. £0.25 per call or thereabouts is more than fair given these will not and never will convert to paying customers. It is not difficult for the receptionist to identify them and as such they can be easily dispensed with. A fixed price based on sales and marketing calls are to be expected seems only fair.

 

[KatieMoore]

Hi

Most of the services that do not charge for sales calls are quite unlikely to do it as a part of a PAYG service. As Sara quite rightly pointed out, the operator is still taking the time on the call. I would recommend registering with TPS and putting call instructions in place to stop these callers from repeating. A way around is to offer them an email address to ring instead or to call and ask to be taken off the list.

Our PAYG service offers bonus credits as a way to combat these - depending on the amount you topup - happy to have a chat about that and/or a way to reduce these calls if you need.

 

[James1980]

Does every virtual reception charge for inbound speculative sales calls?

Some do, some don't. The "we don't charge for sales calls" model works for small volumes of sales calls (which is typical in our experience) but would become a burden for a VR company in larger volumes.

We've researched VR pricing models and find that a company that charges you for sales calls may work out cheaper in other aspects so it often works out the same in the long term.

An experienced VReceptionist is able to politely get rid of sales calls quickly (not quicker than five seconds, though). Being impolite just leads to them calling again.

Just some info/thoughts from a VR company. We don't do 24/7 so we're not going to try and tender for your calls



James

 

[No Missed Calls]

Hello

We provide a Pay As You Go Call Answering / Virtual Reception Service and we don't charge for any unwanted sales calls. Please visit us at NoMissedCalls.co.uk