FullCircle service

[AJR]

I posted this in the wrong forum earlier, so i reposted here.

Fullcircle has been making a few changes to their service. One change is they are trying to do away with roll over minutes as well as scaling back some services to streamline operations. Price is also going up on April 1[SUP]st[/SUP]. I was wondering what kind of experience those of you using the service have had? Those of you who do not use fullcircle what are you doing to get help answering your phones? What other options are there that compare to fullcircle? ​

 

[AJR]

Is this posting ?

 

[Mikey P]

yes.

I just got the notice today as well.



The new staff members appear to have approved some glitches they were having.


as far as other options, there is Perceptionisit and your aunt Matilda when her lumbago aint acting up.

 

[John Olson]

Charging more for less is never a good thing..it is the beginning of the end when people start doing that..hopefully that won't be the case here..

 

[Able 1]

They could save some money if they outsourced to India...

 

[Mikey P]

I hope they are using the increase to attract and retain quality staff.

it's a tough job for sure.



Honestly, I don't know what I would do with out them


If you already use FC or are thinking of trying them out here is a KILLER deal..

 

[Dan]

Well that's a shame.... I wish they would revise there pricing to make it more affordable rather than less services.

 

[Mikey P]

guys, compared to ANY alternative it couldn't be anymore affordable.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

I hope they are using the increase to attract and retain quality staff.

it's a tough job for sure.



Honestly, I don't know what I would do with out them


If you already use FC or are thinking of trying them out here is a KILLER deal..

Is that for one month?

 

[renegade_cowboy]

I'm not very happy about the pay increase with no additional minutes.. I thought it was going to be more effective pricing, to make it more customization for a company. The only change was the price increase.

 

[Mikey P]

Is that for one month?

this offer will roll over if you cant use 750 in one month.

 

[AJR]

this offer will roll over if you cant use 750 in one month.

if would be if you could use all the minutes in one month. they are trying to do away with rollover minutes from what i understand.

 

[AJR]

guys, compared to ANY alternative it couldn't be anymore affordable.

Exactly, no alternative. I am sure that will change sooner or later. I love the service concept and for the most part they do pretty well. To be honest i need the service, but there are some times that I get quite frustrated with the service and the mistakes. What is usually the most frustrating is when the solution to my concerns is addressed with "we will bring that up with your CSR". That gets old after a while. As with all other services and products that are marketed to us competition creates better service and products. I assume that as with all the other stuff that is marketed to us it will only be a matter of time before one of the other big players/suppliers will step up with a similar service. Only time will tell.

 

[SMRBAP]

Based on my averages - 2 full time in house office staff vs using their services is a wash from a cost standpoint.

However my office gets a great deal done between calls, so it is only a wash monetarily. At the end of they day a whole lot more production occurs with 2 in house'rs.

I have considered a few times sourcing some comm's - but it never makes sense when you look at what can get done between calls.

 

[knoxclean]

Wow! They really have gone up on the price since I used them. To get a decent amount of minutes what you would pay is close to what you could hire someone to work in the office for you. Like Anthony said they could do other office duties between calls and be more productive. I loved them in the beginning but when the employee turnover started things went down hill. They had a great group of CSR's when they started. I will agree that for my business (charging by the sq ft) it was harder for them. If you charge by the room they have an easier time.

 

[SamIam]

Maybe they're hiring more girls, at mikefest I was bragging about booking a 100 calls a day when I worked for my dad, and the lovely girl there told me she's booked over 300 in a day!

I was trying to do the math 2 min a call 30 per hour 10 hours of non stop banging on the phone?

they don't charge enough for those headaches.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD

 

[Full_Circle]

Greetings! I would like to take a moment to clarify. Full Circle conducted extensive research before making this decision. We pride ourselves at being the only industry trained service of our kind that offers competitive pricing. Full Circle is not offering any less service, in fact in most cases we go above and beyond to keep our members happy. We have streamlined a few of our processes to make scheduling more efficient. The roll over minutes have been replaced by an expanded selection of plans to suit each member’s current needs. Yes, there are other services, none of which provide full service reception and scheduling. We currently staff 9 amazing upbeat, industry trained customer service super stars that go through ongoing training and education to further build their knowledge and create an excellent experience for your customers. That in itself is a major benefit to any business owner, the alternative of hiring 1 or 2 office personnel would include but not be limited to added cost and needs such as… sick days, personal days, vacation and benefits that they will be asking you to provide. And they can only handle one call at a time so that's not a fair comparison.

~Sarah
FullCircle Team

 

[Dan]

guys, compared to ANY alternative it couldn't be anymore affordable.

Not true Mike. I am not saying they are over or under priced. What I am saying is for a guy looking into adding them to the toolbox they may not be affordable. I would love to use them and have called and talked to them. I was looking at the minimum pay as you go plan because that's what would truly suit my needs at the moment. The next step up is to steep for my current needs. Then you run into the issue of the cost being to high and cheaper to run office staff who can do more as Anthony suggested.

make it affordable and attractive and those of us looking will flock to it. Raise prices and we simply won't be able too.

 

[Mikey P]

Can everybody in your community afford to use your services Dan?

 

[Dan]

Can everybody in your community afford to use your services Dan?

My service are priced affordable but what difference is that? I have entry level pricing structure so people can get something thats affordable and makes them happy. With structured price thats affordable allows more customers. Here is the thing Mike, to use them at 50.00 dollars per month and pay as you use price is affordable and makes monthly commitment lower initially. I could end up paying 200-250 bucks a month on a plan like that and that would be fine because that means your phone is ringing for jobs and hopefully you get bigger and can afford to step up. Commiting to a 250 dollar agreement every month is a lot harder of a decision. All im saying is structuring the pricing for smaller clients like me would be a win win for both. We smaller guys need a structure between the 50 dollar and 250 dollar plans. We also realize that we are going to pay more per minute than a guy on a 2500 month plan but thats the trade off.

 

[hogjowl]

This was bound to happen ... I am surprised it took this long. When Mikey fell in love with FC, it was the kiss of death. When he started shilling for them on this board, it was the nail in the coffin.

Que up the next wonder company please.

 

[Mikey P]

I understand Dan.
I just can't imagine that having a company on board for $50 a month would be worth to them.

All the time spent learning and dealing with your or any businesses idiosyncrasies X 9 sounds like more hassle than its worth imo.

Ill let Sarah clue the slow southerner in about Mikey Board Math

 

[Dan]

It's not 50 bucks unless you do nothing. You ad the 1.75 or whatever it is per minute. Quickly you double and triple that.

 

[Mikey P]

Dan are you aware that $35 of that fifty goes to just your phone line?

They really can't afford to give any minutes at the $50 monthly service fee.

 

[Wandslinger]

I've had FC for probably over a year and was very happy in the beginning as well. That being said, over the last couple of months they seem to have fallen off course. I spoke with Sarah at MB. She didn't make any excuses and told me they revamped things. As you can tell from her post she is a kick ass representative. I hope that will translate to the other CSR's. I'm still deciding whether to forward my phones back to them. I too hope they decide to have a smaller plan such as 100 minutes.

 

[Dan]

Why do you keeping thinking its 50 bucks? It's a 1.75 per minute on top of that. Can easily become 250.00

 

[Dan]

I've had FC for probably over a year and was very happy in the beginning as well. That being said, over the last couple of months they seem to have fallen off course. I spoke with Sarah at MB. She didn't make any excuses and told me they revamped things. As you can tell from her post she is a kick ass representative. I hope that will translate to the other CSR's. I'm still deciding whether to forward my phones back to them. I too hope they decide to have a smaller plan such as 100 minutes.

exactly... Because it opens the door for smaller guys like us.

 

[Mikey P]

Why do you keeping thinking its 50 bucks? It's a 1.75 per minute on top of that. Can easily become 250.00

How many jobs do you think you can get booked for that $250?

 

[joey895]

Why do you keeping thinking its 50 bucks? It's a 1.75 per minute on top of that. Can easily become 250.00

Its not on top of the $50. The $50 is the minimum, it buys you a little under 30 minutes. Which is not a lot (maybe 4-6 calls) but that's the plan I'm on.

I used to use them full time but frankly i found out i was losing substantial (to me) business due to the "on hold" issues. I continue to stay with them part time because its nice to have back up if i want a day off or to take a vacation, etc.

Of course it sounds like they've addressed their issues but to be honest i just cant afford to chance it. I need every job i can get. There will probably be a point in the future where i try again, after I'm a little better established.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

[AJR]

I have used FC for about a year or so. Like many of you I have had both good and bad experiences. My beef is that there has been from day one very little accountability for the bad service. I have over a years worth of exchanged emails that would make a great book lol. Mostly excuses but little in the way of lasting results. I have lost water damage calls, lost customers on hold and a whole bucket list of what many of you have mentioned as well. But I still stick with the service, why? Because there is no alternative out there. <o></o>
<o> </o>
Look the girls at FC are truly awesome. They are very nice and professional, they are always polite even when I call complaining. They never loose their cool, very professional. And overall the most part service works for us, it just gets very frustrating when it does not. Example: One issue that was pretty regular was that a call comes in (local call not telemarketer) but there would be no work order in SM, no emails or record of call. This drove me nuts. I would call the missed caller and many times it would be some one that was either on hold, hung up or didn’t like the price or whatever, but I would get no record of the call. This was not the norm but would happen frequently. I would ask "why don’t you call back the caller that hung up on hold" FC would reply "because we don’t do that". A quick fix that I came up with was to have FC send me a call log at the end of the day so I could follow up on the calls missing from SM. This worked for the most part but many times my caller would have found some one else. I would go thru a call log every night. With this latest FC policy I was told I could no longer get a daily call log that it was taking up to much of their time. What I have resorted to now is to have my phone delay forwarding to FC after 2 rings. If I can take the call I do. I even sell the jobs myself and then forward them to FC to enter into SM. I can be driving and get the job sold. If I can’t take the call I can at least see the caller’s number and follow up when I get a chance. Usually FC takes care of it with no problem but there is still the frequent occasion that I have to recover the caller. <o></o>
<o> </o>
I will say that FC has worked with me to fit my company’s needs but lately the are falling a bit short. My monthly will go up about 40 bucks with the new price changes. I am still trying to figure out what they mean by “The roll over minutes have been replaced by an expanded selection of plans to suit each member’s current needs”. I see no new plans just higher prices for the same plans. Is there some new plans? Also does this mean we have no more rollover minutes? I had the impression that we had 90 days to use rollover minutes. <o></o>
<o> </o>
Truthfully I feel that I have to put in a lot of effort to use the service but I have no other options at this time. Would I try another company with a comparable service? In a heart beat. But for now I will just hope that they don’t pull my plug lol. <o></o>