AnswerPhone of America booth @ Connections

[Mikey P]

So Ken

You get on mb on your phone while at dinner with your girl friend?

If I do that with my wife,I don't get any for a week so how is that working out for you?

Our is she on face book at the same time bragging about what a catch of a bff she got in her wittle rug fag ?

 

[Ken Snow]

She was in the bathroom - I've had a few negative moments of truth with her about my mb fagcination.

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[Answerphone]

A few questions relative to setting up Cleaning Orders (not restoration calls) etc.

1. Avg time on call for new orders
2. Avg time on calls for repeat customers
3. Pricing tiers
4. Is there ability to transfer caller directly to a company should info or assistance outside the purvey of Answerphone be needed.

Hi Ken,

1) According to our latest case study, our average time per customer call is 3.2 minutes per call. I have yet to put the numbers together for AJ as I want to get a full spectrum of days (and data) together so we can get a good gauge of how we're doing so we can quickly discover where we need to improve.

2) To be honest, we haven't thought of monitoring the specific call length of repeat vs. new customers. I'll have to look at ways we can make that happen. I think that's a pretty good suggestion.

3) I don't like to discuss pricing tiers out in the open because it gives our competition ammunition. I will say that our prices are very reasonable, and I would be happy to PM them or email them to you. Please PM me your email address and preferred contact method, and I'll be happy to send over our full pricing guide.

4) Yes. We offer call patching directly through on a prioritized on call list you maintain through our online systems (Answerweb), which is accessable from any smart phone, tablet, or computer with an internet connection. I'm not going to tell you we know everything when it comes to your business, and there will be emergencies that pop up from time to time, so having a patch (or warm transfer) option is a good solution to those issues.

I wanted to let you guys also know that I'll be traveling (leaving in about an hour actually) to visit some heavy hitters in the C&R industry on the east coast over the next 3 days so, so your ability to get in touch with me will be a bit spotty. My cell phone is always available, and naturally, there are a lot of other like minded folks at Answerphone that are eager to help as well (like Pam & Richard).

 

[Answerphone]

hell, even wives make the same mistakes.


Only an owner op who knows his area by heart will be able to create perfect routes 100% of the time.

This is an excellent point Mikey, and one I wish to stress to our customers. I also want to make sure that those are the expectations of individuals who come onboard with us. Our service isn't some magic bullet that will be the answer to every problem a C&R company has with their customers. There will always be bumps along the way, it's the managers job to provide a prompt response and try their best to get the frontline CSRs not to repeat those mistakes. If you can do that...you've got a winning company.

One of the harsh realities of being in my shoes is that some customers can't accept that, and so some customers have to be let go (or they let us go). Some customers think that they're our only customer, and that we need to handle their calls exactly as that owner would in every situation. <salesguy mode> We live by under promising and over delivering. We aim for the moon and deliver the stars </salesguy mode>. If we can't legitimately and satisfactorily meet our customers expectations - we're the one's who screwed up, because they didn't have realistic expectations or we set the bar too high for ourselves.

 

[Answerphone]

If that's the case, I'm gonna increase our prices! And welcome to Answerphone Brent! I will say that so far, AJ seems pretty happy with his decision to switch, so hopefully, we can do the same for you

BTW folks. I was just kidding about raising our prices. Probably a bit poorly timed since many companies have shut down or been dragged through the gutter with the way the economy has been. My bad.

 

[Answerphone]

Martinis are for Skype fags.

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No way! A dirty bombay sapphire martini will help you get where you need to be! It appears that the customer is not always right.

I must profess, I'm more of a scotch fan myself though.

 

[Answerphone]

d you have a multi cultural abomination to the English language. Hope

Ok...that made me LOL! I think your english is pretty dang good AJ

AJ's been braggin about us for a while, so I need to brag on him. AJ & bama clean are our ideal customers. He's been 110% willing to work with us, and came to the table with realistic expectations. He allowed us to dive into his SM account, and revise his description of the jobs he handles to create a more uniform, easy to understand solution for our CSRs. He's allowed us to bring down an elephant with a bazooka instead of a blowgun. That means, we're allowed to work in limited generalities rather than having every feature of every job times 1000 jobs whittle down to the bare bones. The focus is on getting him more business & saving jobs, not acting like we're the swamis of the carpet cleaning industry...and he's gone along with it like a song. He's conducted himself like a true professional, even when he wants to change something, it isn't him shouting orders over the phone...it's "well, maybe we should do this instead...let's give that a shot". He's a true pleasure to work with, and like a breath of fresh air compared to working with certain types of customers.

Hat's off to you AJ. I'm really hoping for a long and fruitful and jobful relationship with you guys I'll touch base with you when I get back from my trip, or if I can find some time one of the evenings on the road.

Cheers,

Jeff

 

[Answerphone]

update. I just found another great perk answerphone has. its call answerweb. I can log on to answerweb and here I actually see all of my calls. its alive call log that I can access myself with an up to the minute account of my calls with

Message For	Message From	Call Reason	Date	Time	Message Id	Action

<tbody>
</tbody>

I can also edit how those call are sent to me as well very cool. no doubt here on how my calls are being handled. I get this info within two minutes of the call to text and email so its not really needed but very cool anyway.

...and free!

Alright guys, time to hit the road! Good luck with your respective businesses, and I'll be in touch

 

[Answerphone]

I forgot one other thing. I put together and really dove into the numbers on the case study subject we performed last week on another one of our C&R accounts, and put together a presentation for the clients I'll be meeting with over the next 3 days. The numbers will blow your minds. VERY exciting stuff, and this is all before our big announcement and service offerings that come out this June...so definitely stay tuned. Stuff is going to get even better!

 

[AJR]

update. and for the record " I am not receiving any compensation for my review". So far over all pretty darn good. Few bumps the first few days but the fact that I can see every call coming in and follow up within minutes made those bumps feel like I was riding in a Cadillac lol. Today AP answered about 6 calls, 1 booked job and 2 patched that became jobs and 3 marketing callers. all calls were followed up within 1 min. with full details to my text and email. so far I really cant complain. also calling in 24/7 for any tech issues as well as a custy being able to set a job up 24/7 ain't bad either lol. to be honest almost to good to be true. pinch me.

 

[mirf]

AJ That is a big plus and no reason for it not to easy to do.
Keep us posted. Are you using them for conformation and follow up calls too.

 

[AJR]

to be honest I did not even consider asking them if they do follow up and confirm jobs. I'm sure they can. I never had FC do much of that, I didn't want to run thru my minutes. I usually do my own follow up. I can schmooze an unhappy customer more efficiently anyway. when the answering service does it they just set up a re service and that's prob it. as for the confirming calls my wifey or I can do that as well as the service guys before they head out. AOA has something where I think you can give instructions to the CSR built in to answerweb. I really like the answerweb. you can see a complete call log history as well as some other cool stuff. I would think there would be a way to work that out if you nedded it.

AJ That is a big plus and no reason for it not to easy to do.
Keep us posted. Are you using them for conformation and follow up calls too.

 

[Answerphone]

update. and for the record " I am not receiving any compensation for my review". So far over all pretty darn good. Few bumps the first few days but the fact that I can see every call coming in and follow up within minutes made those bumps feel like I was riding in a Cadillac lol. Today AP answered about 6 calls, 1 booked job and 2 patched that became jobs and 3 marketing callers. all calls were followed up within 1 min. with full details to my text and email. so far I really cant complain. also calling in 24/7 for any tech issues as well as a custy being able to set a job up 24/7 ain't bad either lol. to be honest almost to good to be true. pinch me.

Got even better news for you AJ! Ran the figures from one of our other customers who have been with us longer to further expound upon the case study we performed.

Facts:

Answerphone is returning $12.80 for every $1 spent with our company (We're aiming to get that figure up to $15 to $1 ratio).
Initial projections on additional sales for our customer who does about $1.3-1.4M a year in sales is an additional $83,000 in sales this year.
For the average full time employee to produce what Answerphone is on track to produce, they'd have to collect over $600,000 in revenues for the company.
Answerphone costs vary by usage, but even at the peak for those who send every call our way, we're still less than the cost of 1 full time employee.

The harder we work on this stuff, the better the results keep getting. Great news so far, so my team is going to get a ton of praise from me and a little something extra for putting up those kinds of numbers.

 

[Answerphone]

AJ That is a big plus and no reason for it not to easy to do.
Keep us posted. Are you using them for conformation and follow up calls too.

We can do confirmation calls if you like. It just comes down to personal preference. I'd recommend 6 month, 9 month, or 12 month reminder calls to increase your number of repeat customers - your money would see better ROI there than the confirmation calls IMO

 

[AJR]

Ok we have been using AnswerPhone for about two weeks. Here is my overall review.

1. Professionalism of the csr answering the phone is pretty consistent with what we have experienced with our prev. service. In other words very good

2. Hold time on the phone for my customer has not been an issue. calls are being answered quickly. On my test calls I experienced an average of two rings before csr answered or auto answer welcoming caller and a very quick pick up by csr.

3. Close rate seems like its up from my prev. service.

4. Follow up and accountability on calls is awesome and many times better than what we experienced with prev. service. Every call is documented with standard caller info (name, lead source, phone etc..), detailed account of the call and action taken on call, ie. job booked in SM or AJ needs to call back. this info is instantly emailed and sent by text to us for non emergency calls.

5. Service providers effort in fulfilling our specific needs is a A++. During our set up period with Answer phone the reps called me on several occasions when a caller called in with a situation that is not covered in our SM. They quickly update our profile so the situation is not a problem in the future. Things are running pretty smooth now and they haven't called me in days.

6. Call patching is a bit more caller friendly than the prev. service we had. ie. csr stays on the phone and verbally confirms that both caller and I are connected. 7. handling of emergency callers is extremely redundant. ie. immediately a call, text and email goes out to me asap- if I am not avail. 2 min they try me again- if still I am not avail. same protocol to my tech and if he is out they move to 2nd tech and so on till they get a hold of some one. They will not stop till they get to one of us.
8
. Additional services and benefits compared to our prev. service provider. 24/7 answering, instant on-line access to live call logs (with full details of calls), 24/7 tech support, call plans include more minutes and cost less when compared to our prev. service provider, customization and programing of our SM was done and at no charge. Overall, if you have tried any other answering service and gave up because of bad results or if you have been thinking of having some one answer your phones or just want to save a few bucks and get more services over what you are paying now. I would highly recommend Answerphone.

 

[AJR]

I hate to beat a dead horse but I have to let you guys know this. These guys at answerphone are great. the closing rate is awesome. my SM is lit up like a Christmas tree lol. Jeff communication is key and you guys are really on target keep up the good work.

 

[Answerphone]

I hate to beat a dead horse but I have to let you guys know this. These guys at answerphone are great. the closing rate is awesome. my SM is lit up like a Christmas tree lol. Jeff communication is key and you guys are really on target keep up the good work.

That's great to hear, and we've been seeing similar results across all of our appointment setting accounts. So far, no one has been able to touch our conversion rates and pricing.

 

[hogjowl]

You're getting a bit chatty, so I tuned you out a page ago, but let me say this:

I hope you can make this work, cuz I will be needing a GOOD answering service soon. Good luck to you .... PLEASE!

Another thing: don't offer Mikey any free services so he will sing your praises, cuz everything he touts turns to dirt at some point. Like FC and Vortex ...

 

[Answerphone]

You're getting a bit chatty, so I tuned you out a page ago, but let me say this:

I hope you can make this work, cuz I will be needing a GOOD answering service soon. Good luck to you .... PLEASE!

Another thing: don't offer Mikey any free services so he will sing your praises, cuz everything he touts turns to dirt at some point. Like FC and Vortex ...

I already banned Mikey from our services

 

[AJR]

I hope this is a joke. I give Mike two thumbs up. I honestly believe that most other chat/forums would have given into their advertiser's interest by now. Mike, from what I can tell, and this from a guy I have never met or shook his hand is pretty good about not censoring. Then again with name like "Whatshisbutt" what would I know.

I already banned Mikey from our services

 

[Answerphone]

Oh yeah. Just kidding about that AJ Mikey seems like a pretty ok guy...except he told me all my ads sucked. Which is true lol. So at least I know the guys honest

 

[AJR]

I don't see that happening here Marty. I was having problems with FC from day one. I have years worth of saved emails to prove it. AOA is on a completely different level than what anyone here has experienced with this type of service so far. Once we got up and running I really haven't had any issues. Jeff I suggest you post a sample AOA call report like the ones you sent out to us by email and text. I get those reports almost instantly after any call comes in, even if its a sales call I know every call and what it was about. If you can, post a screen shot of the answerweb too. Just those two features of the service are reason enough to look into your deal. I haven't seen your ad so I cant comment. No more post from me in this thread Your on your own from here on buddy, if I continue I will need a stock option lol. P.S. Jeff, can the avatar its creepy lol..

Another thing: don't offer Mikey any free services so he will sing your praises, cuz everything he touts turns to dirt at some point. Like FC and Vortex ...

 

[AJR]

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, it did. These guys are all about customization and adapting to their customers needs. Thanks again for a great job Answerphone.

 

[renegade_cowboy]

I agree with you, been using them for about a month. Very happy with the service.

 

[Ron Lippold]

I have a question. Will they go through old estimates and make calls to try to get back in the door, and possibly call old customers that are between 2-3 years old.

 

[KevinL]

Jeez Ron, do you want them to go out and clean carpet for you too?

 

[Ron Lippold]

Well heck yea that sounds like a good idea. I should have thought of that.

 

[Ken Snow]

Lol- they could become the industry subcontractor.

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[renegade_cowboy]

That is actually a good idea Ron.. I am going to talk to them today to find out if they do and do it for me, I can't imagine why they wouldn't.

Just to let you know they are a very good company that has a great interface that FC can't match. They are also 24/7 and a great tool for your business if you are getting to many calls going to voicemail.

I will let you know after I chat with them later.

 

[Mikey P]

Thanks to this thread I've noticed Full Circle doing their job better.

Thanks AJR!