Has anyone here ever had any experience with Answerconnect.com
- Thread starter AJR
- Start date
Mikey P
Administrator
never heard of them/it
Weebco
Member
http://www.youmail.com/
I use this , check it out.
I use this , check it out.
Answerphone
Member
Hi Guys,
I don't want to sound like I'm selling stuff to you, even though I'm the president of Answerphone of America. I did want to give you a few recommendations when you check out an answering service, and I'll give you some details on our involvement in the carpet cleaning industry.
Answerconnect is actually a competitor of ours.
You need to look at a few key elements when it comes to your answering service.
The first is what their average seconds to answer is (ASA) you can also look at the average hold times. The best call centers will have a time of less than 10 seconds, and the good ones will have less than 20. It's a key statistic to look for because it is the average time (including rings) that someone will have to wait before getting through to a live representative. At Answerphone of America, our ASA is right 15-16 seconds. Not where I'd like it to be because of a recent aquisition we just did that brought in 50 new accounts and we're still dialing in our operator hours, but not bad either. Our goal is to get that back down below 10 seconds.
Make sure that the call center uses what is called an "Auto-Attendant". An Auto-Attendant is a recording that plays a message (like the company name), and automatically places callers in a hold queue. Now, these aren't the most popular things in the world with our customers, but they are essential. First of all, anyone that says every single call will be answered by a live person is either lying, or they're letting the calls ring and ring and ring and ring. Their only other option is have their operators constantly bounce between calls putting calls on hold which creates a very poor customer service experience during peak times. At our call center, we staff close to a 2 to 1 ratio. In other words, for every call we expect to get, we staff 2 people to handle that call. Our operators are typically on the phone 50-60% of the time. From a pure profitiability perspective, a lot of call centers will have their operators on the phones 75-80% of the time. Having your operators on the phone can stress them out, and creates much longer hold times in the hold queue. This is where most banks are at when you call their call center - and inevitably - the reason you almost never reach a live person right off the bat.
Call Centers offer different features. Some only do general messaging, while others can be the entire front end to your company - fully replacing single or multiple employees you would normally have in your office. At Answerphone, we offer the whole enchilada. We can do job quoting/scheduling, and even truck route mgmt.
The last thing is make sure your call center specializes in your industry. MOST answering services specialize in medical providers. Here, about 50% of our calls are cleaning & restoration companies. We answer for a lot of the big names in the business - like Servpro, Servicemaster Clean, Coit, and a few others. The benefits are obvious - if one out of every 2 calls you take has to do with cleaning or restoration, you're going to be very familiar with many of the routine questions asked by callers.
I don't want to sound like I'm selling stuff to you, even though I'm the president of Answerphone of America. I did want to give you a few recommendations when you check out an answering service, and I'll give you some details on our involvement in the carpet cleaning industry.
Answerconnect is actually a competitor of ours.
You need to look at a few key elements when it comes to your answering service.
The first is what their average seconds to answer is (ASA) you can also look at the average hold times. The best call centers will have a time of less than 10 seconds, and the good ones will have less than 20. It's a key statistic to look for because it is the average time (including rings) that someone will have to wait before getting through to a live representative. At Answerphone of America, our ASA is right 15-16 seconds. Not where I'd like it to be because of a recent aquisition we just did that brought in 50 new accounts and we're still dialing in our operator hours, but not bad either. Our goal is to get that back down below 10 seconds.
Make sure that the call center uses what is called an "Auto-Attendant". An Auto-Attendant is a recording that plays a message (like the company name), and automatically places callers in a hold queue. Now, these aren't the most popular things in the world with our customers, but they are essential. First of all, anyone that says every single call will be answered by a live person is either lying, or they're letting the calls ring and ring and ring and ring. Their only other option is have their operators constantly bounce between calls putting calls on hold which creates a very poor customer service experience during peak times. At our call center, we staff close to a 2 to 1 ratio. In other words, for every call we expect to get, we staff 2 people to handle that call. Our operators are typically on the phone 50-60% of the time. From a pure profitiability perspective, a lot of call centers will have their operators on the phones 75-80% of the time. Having your operators on the phone can stress them out, and creates much longer hold times in the hold queue. This is where most banks are at when you call their call center - and inevitably - the reason you almost never reach a live person right off the bat.
Call Centers offer different features. Some only do general messaging, while others can be the entire front end to your company - fully replacing single or multiple employees you would normally have in your office. At Answerphone, we offer the whole enchilada. We can do job quoting/scheduling, and even truck route mgmt.
The last thing is make sure your call center specializes in your industry. MOST answering services specialize in medical providers. Here, about 50% of our calls are cleaning & restoration companies. We answer for a lot of the big names in the business - like Servpro, Servicemaster Clean, Coit, and a few others. The benefits are obvious - if one out of every 2 calls you take has to do with cleaning or restoration, you're going to be very familiar with many of the routine questions asked by callers.
been posting here about FC a few times and i just ran across answerconnect a few days ago. i am in the market for a new service like FC, since they just canned us. I just signed up with answerconnect for a 60 day money back guaranteed trial, my account is being set up. I can leave at any time during the first 60 days and get a full refund. They require 90 day commitment and after that its month to month. my question is why haven't we heard from you before lol. .
a few questions:
do you support service monster
do you have on-line scheduling that can be integrated into our website
do you have on-line chat that can be integrated into our website
do you have 24/7 answering service
what is your minimum second billing per call (1sec, 30sec etc..)
what increment of seconds do you bill (1 sec. 6sec etc..)
do we have instant real time access to all call logs
what are you hour of tech support
how much is your set up fee
and of course what kind of packages do you have.
a few questions:
do you support service monster
do you have on-line scheduling that can be integrated into our website
do you have on-line chat that can be integrated into our website
do you have 24/7 answering service
what is your minimum second billing per call (1sec, 30sec etc..)
what increment of seconds do you bill (1 sec. 6sec etc..)
do we have instant real time access to all call logs
what are you hour of tech support
how much is your set up fee
and of course what kind of packages do you have.
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Joe Appleby
Supportive Member
I use Answerconnect and they're doing what they said they'd do.
1st 3 months are free.
1st 3 months are free.
Joe Appleby
Supportive Member
Maybe it was 2 months free...
Are you useing service monster? there seemes to be an issue with sm only running in expoler. Answer connect uses firefox. if you do not use service monster what are you useing?
Joe Appleby
Supportive Member
We are using Mistral not Service Monster. Our messages come via e-mail or text.
ok its a no go with answer connect. they do not support service monster on INTERNET explorer platform. once sm is able to run on firefox they should be able to. i am supposed to get a full refund of the set up and first months billing. on the other hand i just signed up with Answerphone of America. they boast the same services as answerconnect but they do work with sm. They currently set appointments fo SS and others in our field, so far very attentive and eager to work with us. I am looking forward to 24/7 live answering service. At first i was a bit thrown off by their no bells and whistles website (compared to answer connect) but they are very professional. i will keep you all posted.
Answerphone
Member
Hi AJR. I'm happy to answer your questions.
Yes, we support multiple scheduling platforms. We use some proprietary platforms - like the platform Stanley Steemer uses. We also use other 3rd party software like UVC and even google calendars. We work around whatever our clients requirements are. The best part about our scheduling program is that only lead operators are allowed to schedule. It means you never have to worry about a trainee screwing up a job request. Lead operators are also required to have a minimum of 1 year of experience.
Yes, we do offer web chat services, though this is a relatively new feature for us.
We charge on a 1 second increment. We don't round our calls to the next interval.
Our call center is available 24/7/365. We never close.
Yes, we offer real time access to Answerweb - which refreshes automatically at intervals that you specify. Very handy for monitoring your account, updating on calls, communicating with the call center, and it's included free of charge.
We have a small setup fee that covers training, account setup, and programming costs.
We have a wide variety of plans that are very reasonable. The best part about our plans is we designed them to be easy to understand, and should be proportional to your monthly sales. The more calls you get, the higher your bill will be, but your sales should increase exponentially in proportion to our costs, but during the slower months, your bill would be minimal. We also have no contracts, and you can change your plan as you go along (it would just take effect the upcoming month).
Where most call centers specialize in medical accounts, our specialty is the C&R industry.
We've got some very big news coming out that we plan to announce while at the Servpro convention this year in Anaheim. I can't say much yet, but it's going to be big!
Cheers!
~Jeff
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Update. My Answerphone rep just contacted me today and spent about an hour going over the gazillion ways they will contact me with our calls. get this. emergency calls get booked then a text, email and call to me within 2 minutes or less. if they cant get a hold of me then my back up is my tech, he gets text and call every two minutes. if a no go there then my 2nd tech. basically the protocol is come to my house if that all fails lol. just kidding, they will keep going thru that calling cycle until they get one of us on the phone. every type of call scenario was set up with an action and back up action so that the caller gets taken care of no matter what 24/7. I am excited about this guys if they deliver on what they say they can do. i think i am on to something here.
Thanks for the info Jeff. Thanks for the time you took yesterday going over your services and for your accounts set up agent Pam she was very thorough.
Thanks for the info Jeff. Thanks for the time you took yesterday going over your services and for your accounts set up agent Pam she was very thorough.
Answerphone
Member
My pleasure AJ. Yeah, the setup process can get very detailed. With new clients we might hit a few bumps in the road during the initial 2-3 weeks of service while we dial everything in on the account (programming wise). The beauty of our system is once it's dialed in, it never changes unless you request it. After that, the account runs like a well oiled machine.
I think you'll be very happy with the service. Welcome to Answerphone!
I think you'll be very happy with the service. Welcome to Answerphone!
Ken Snow
RIP
Average time on call?
Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
Ken i know exactly where your going on this and i too am interested in the call time. i will say that at thier cost platform on plans compared to FC they have a lot of room to work on call time. The 24/7 answering and no holds bar on getting my custy to me on the phone have me very excited about this service. the SM has always been the bottle neck with other services we shall see. on the other hand SM has been a bit slow for us latley. not sure if its on our end our SM but it has been slow.
Ken Snow
RIP
Be interested to hear how they work for you AJ.
Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2
I will keep you guys posted. this could be an awesome opportuniy for answerphone if they can deliver. so far i am impressed.
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