Posted by
Emily Land on Tue, Nov 01, 2011 @ 10:33 AM
Outstanding Service Brings National Award
Answer Center of Virginia Beach, VA has been honoured with the exclusive 2011 Award of Excellence. The Award is presented annually by the Canadian Call Management Association (CAM-X), the industry’s Trade Association for providers of call centre services including telephone answering and message delivery. Answer Center was presented with the Award recently at the CAM-X 47th Annual Convention and Trade Show held at the Hyatt Regency, Montreal, QC.
Independent judges are contracted by CAM-X to evaluate message services throughoutNorth Americaover a six-month period. The criteria for scoring include courtesy, response time, accuracy and overall service to their clients. If the company scores 80% or better in ALL categories, they are presented with the coveted Award of Excellence. The program is now in its 22nd year.
“Every business needs an answering service” says CAM-X president Tom Sheridan. “Participation in the CAM-X Award of Excellence program helps make for a great first impression for all callers, even when contact is made after regular business hours. A live agent simply provides a better customer service experience than automated systems or callers having to wait until the office reopens for business. The CAM-X Awards of Excellence program raises the bar for the best customer service experience possible. We congratulate Answer Center for their achievements.”
Founded in 1964, CAM-X began as a national trade Association representing live answering services. The Canadian Call Management Association now encompasses companies across North Americaoffering specialized and enhanced operator based services including: call centres, contact centres, inbound telemarketing (order entry), paging, voice messaging, emergency dispatch, fax, and Internet-based services, among others. Please visit www.camx.ca for more information.
CAM-X extends its congratulations to the staff of Answer Center on their proven quality service to their customers.
Posted by
Emily Land on Tue, Nov 01, 2011 @ 10:33 AM
Outstanding Service Brings National Award
Answer Center of Virginia Beach, VA has been honoured with the exclusive 2011 Award of Excellence. The Award is presented annually by the Canadian Call Management Association (CAM-X), the industry’s Trade Association for providers of call centre services including telephone answering and message delivery. Answer Center was presented with the Award recently at the CAM-X 47th Annual Convention and Trade Show held at the Hyatt Regency, Montreal, QC.
Independent judges are contracted by CAM-X to evaluate message services throughoutNorth Americaover a six-month period. The criteria for scoring include courtesy, response time, accuracy and overall service to their clients. If the company scores 80% or better in ALL categories, they are presented with the coveted Award of Excellence. The program is now in its 22nd year.
“Every business needs an answering service” says CAM-X president Tom Sheridan. “Participation in the CAM-X Award of Excellence program helps make for a great first impression for all callers, even when contact is made after regular business hours. A live agent simply provides a better customer service experience than automated systems or callers having to wait until the office reopens for business. The CAM-X Awards of Excellence program raises the bar for the best customer service experience possible. We congratulate Answer Center for their achievements.”
Founded in 1964, CAM-X began as a national trade Association representing live answering services. The Canadian Call Management Association now encompasses companies across North Americaoffering specialized and enhanced operator based services including: call centres, contact centres, inbound telemarketing (order entry), paging, voice messaging, emergency dispatch, fax, and Internet-based services, among others. Please visit www.camx.ca for more information.
CAM-X extends its congratulations to the staff of Answer Center on their proven quality service to their customers.
Posted by
Paula Ford on Thu, Oct 27, 2011 @ 12:29 PM
A plumber is sleeping. The phone rings at 11:30 PM. It's a homeowner with a broken pipe. "My bathroom is flooding and I need someone over here RIGHT NOW! Oh... and how much will it cost?" The plumber sleepily explains, "My nighttime rate is $125 an hour, the daytime rate after 7:00 AM is $75 per hour. Now what is your address?" The customer responds, "Can you tell me how to shut off the water at the curb and come out after 7:00?" The plumber complies, groggily takes the caller's name and phone number, and falls back to sleep.
The phone rings twice more that night from customers with other emergencies, but all three decide to wait for the lower rates.
At 7:00 AM the plumber calls each of the homeowners to get directions and schedule the work. One has found another plumber, the second has left for work leaving the phone unanswered, but the third wants the work done, and is upset that the plumber needs another half hour of drive time.
THIS IS THE PLUMBER - with ANSWER CENTER
Late night calls come in, and are answered by an alert wide awake secretary who explains the pricing options and offers practical advice on how to shut off the water at the affected site, or for the whole house. The secretary gets the home address, owner's home, cell and work numbers, and the approximate age of the plumbing, even asking if it's copper or PEX. She then schedules the plumber to go to the job, only waking him up IF the caller has agreed to pay the higher night rate.
Most mornings the plumber has gotten an uninterrupted sleep of seven to eight hours and is alert, focused and ready to work quickly and without making mistakes. He's only had to wake up and GO when he's being paid a premium rate.
Most importantly, the operator at Answer Center has scheduled all three appointments!
Posted by
Emily Land on Mon, Oct 24, 2011 @ 03:41 PM
A great way a new business can trim costs is to forgo the pricy name-brand software packages and use open source software instead. You may also see it called Freeware or Shareware. In our busy telephone answering service we have used many such products with great success. The following is a list of the ones we have found that are extremely useful.
Office Use - Open Office http://www.openoffice.org/
This no cost software has a word processor that will open or save as a Word document, a spreadsheet comparable to Excel, slideshow function and database. The program is very similar to the MS products, but there some minor differences. For the fine price of $0, I've learned to adapt to the small changes. The one thing this software bundle doesn't offer is a pdf converter.
No worry, Primo Pdf will cover that need. http://www.primopdf.com/index.aspx
This handy program will allow you to covert any document to .pdf as easily as printing. Select Primo PDF from your print options and it is converted. Simple!
Bookkeeping - Gnu Cash http://www.gnucash.org
I recently discovered this wonderful program while looking for a new bookkeeping program for Answer Center. It has a checkbook-style entry and allows you to easily designate between expenses, liabilities and income. Reports include balance sheet and profit and loss statements. It took very little time to set up the check book register and so far I haven't run into any quirks or problems. I will be sure to update this post if that changes.
Website Design
If you want to get your company out there on the information superhighway and don't require a complex site then why don't you do it yourself? Too hard? That's what the webdesign people want you to think. First find a template that suits your needs. You can find lots of free templates here http://www.freecsstemplates.org/ Next, download and unzip your choice. Next, download Kompozer http://kompozer.net/ This software will allow you to change the template you just downloaded and then you can upload it with Core FTP Lite http://www.coreftp.com/. The only thing you will have to pay for is the hosting and url name. (If you don't have a program to unzip the css template with, be sure to check out 7-Zip, an open source unzipping program http://www.7-zip.org/). I will post another article soon giving more detailed instructions on how to use Kompozer.
I have a few more free/open source software solutions I will share with you. Also look for a more in depth explanation on using Kompozer for your small business.
Posted by
Paula Ford on Mon, Oct 24, 2011 @ 03:31 PM
Disclaimer: This is shamelessly self-serving - I'm promoting Answer Center, but I promise there is money in it for YOU if you read this.
How many people have called or knocked on your door, promising to increase your business's profitability if you let them redesign your website, do radio, TV or print advertising with them, engage in marketing research, join a networking group, the BBB or the Chamber of Commerce, etc.? Now...How many of them are willing to be paid on commission... out of the new income your company actually generates? I don't know whether I'm brilliant or just have an evil sense of humor because I've offered to pay several of them DOUBLE their normal fees if they'd do the work on commission. All but one retreated at the speed of sound.
So, what the heck do I think I know that they don't? Frankly - I have a deep respect for what a real marketing pro can offer, and I don't discount the importance of anything they've offered, but there are actually one or two ways to immediately increase profits for almost any business.
The first is obvious - raise prices - but be sneaky about it. "Regular" Coffee used to come in 1lb. can's or bricks - now it's in 13 or 14 oz. bricks.
The second is even more obvious. Give your existing customers more time and more channels to give you money!
- Keep your business "open" 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. It only sounds expensive and impossible. You can be "open" by using Answer Center to catch business opportunities you never realized existed. We have a new contractor who does siding and windows. This business tried us for one month - against their solid belief that they didn't get calls from new customers at night or on weekends. They only got 2 "good" calls in their first month, but those closed over $23,000 in business. The extra cost to use Answer Center for the month was less than $150... and now this client has signed a 1 year contract.
- For years almost all plumbers have charged extra for night calls. The customer gets the choice of which level of service they want. A same night appointment will have a 50% premium - or the customer can commit to have the work done early the next day and save money. The plumber CAN take his own night calls and negotiate the day call/night call price, or he can sleep soundly while we do the negotiation and either way he wins. He gets a job schedled for the morning... and only gets awakened if he's getting extra pay.
If you own a small business, you either constantly update your skills or you... and your business... stagnate. A very good friend of mine, Michael Vernon, volunteered to lead a class in marketing and consultative selling. He said something profound today which I just have to share:
Over time, many small businesses accidentally create barriers that limit their customers' ability to spend money with the company.
Examples? A first time customer needs an estimate, but the receptionist isn't allowed to schedule one for Saturday so the new business goes to another company; a past due customer calls in to pay his bill with a charge card but the office is closed; an online customer abandons her order because the website's checkout is so cumbersome.
The economy stinks, and many businesses are just holding on because they are still running their offices as if it were 2007 when they had more work than they could handle. We are cross selling our existing clients - but without new customers we would gradually slip backwards - so we've found ways to be more available to our customers and to gratefully accept their dollars.
Take down your barriers to your customers. Make them welcome with a warm, helpful telephone receptionist. Call Answer Center today for a free consultation.
Posted by
Emily Land on Fri, Aug 26, 2011 @ 07:40 AM
Will your business be open during the hurricane? Answer Center will! Here is a checklist of items to have on hand that have proved helpful during previous hurricanes.
Food - Provision your staff with food items that don't require refrigeration or need to be heated. Peanut butter, chips, granola bars & nuts are easy to store. Don't forget to get bottled water. Juice boxes are also handy.
Water - Fill a large trash can with water (for flushing). Better to have too much than not enough in a situation where you may be without city services for a while.
First Aid Kit - You can get a nice one at the wholesale club for about $20. If they are out, have isopropyl alcohol, peroxide, antibiotic cream and bandages on hand at the very least.
Flashlight, batteries and battery operated lanterns
Battery powered radio - don't forget extra batteries!
Plastic sheeting - If you can't find any large trash bags will do. Just in case you lose a window or if the roof starts to leak. Move and cover your equipment.
Make sure someone knows you plan to wait out the storm at work. Charge up your cell phone before the storm and remember cell service usually goes first. If you can't get a call out, try texting. Often a text will get through when a call can't.
If the authorities tell you to evacuate then do so! Have a place to go planned before and route your evacuation now. Your office things can be replaced, people can't! Be safe everyone!
Make Answer Center a part of your disaster plan backup. Contact us today for a free, no obligation quote.
Posted by
Emily Land on Tue, Aug 23, 2011 @ 09:19 AM
We consumers hear and use various technical acronyms everyday. How many of us actually know what they mean? Here's a list of acronyms used in the telephone answering service business on a fairly regular basis. If you have one that you've been wondering about, please leave it in the comments and we'll be sure to pass along the definition.
DID – Digital Inward Dial is a service of a local phone company (or local exchange carrier) that provides a block of telephone numbers for calling into a company's private branch exchange system.
DSL - Digital Subscriber Line is a family of technologies that provides digital data transmission over the wires of a local telephone network.
FTP – File Transfer Protocol is a standard network protocol used to transfer files from one host to another over a network, such as the Internet.
HTML – Hyper-text Markup Language the authoring language used to create documents on the World Wide Web.
HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the set of rules for transferring files (text, graphic images, sound, video, and other multimedia files) on the World Wide Web.
IVR - Interactive Voice Response is a technology that allows a computer to interact with humans through the use of voice and keypad inputs.
P2P – Peer-to-Peer sharing On the Internet, peer-to-peer is a type of transient Internet network that allows a group of computer users with the same networking program to connect with each other and directly access files from one another's hard drives.
POP - Post Office Protocol is an application-layer Internet standard protocol used by local e-mail clients to retrieve e-mail from a remote server.
PBX – Private Branch Exchange is a telephone system within an enterprise that switches calls between enterprise users on local lines while allowing all users to share a certain number of external phone lines.
TCP- Transmission Control Protocol provides reliable, ordered delivery of a stream of bytes from a program on one computer to another program on another computer.
USB – Universal Serial Bus is a complete interconnection technology for input/output devices, including: keyboards, mice, game port, serial port devices, digital audio, printers, scanners, modems, joy sticks, and other telecommunication devices.
VoIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol is a technology that allows you to make voice calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line.
Hopefully these definitions will help you keep up in this ever increasing technological world of ours. If you would like to speak with one of our staff about how Answer Center can assist you with your messaging needs, please click below
Posted by
Paula Ford on Sat, Aug 20, 2011 @ 04:12 PM
We're all trying to save money, but one false economy is to choose a phone company that offers service for $29.95 per year - or anything like that price. I'd include Vonage, Magic Jack, Smart Jack, Google Voice in the "not brilliant choices" list. Why not?
Vonage et al DO advertise to home consumers - and they're great for families and home use. The problem is that they aren't reliable enough for a business. Many calls come through crystal clear, but quite a few don't go through at all, or get "snap crackle pop" voice connections. Imagine a first time customer calling your business and getting a bad connection. They hang up and call someone else. Save $50 per month on your phone bill, but losing a customer who might spend thousands isn't a bargain.
Additionally with some, you cannot keep your current phone number when you change. How many of your current customers can you afford to lose?
Vonage, et al are great, low cost ways to avoid long distance charges, and are wonderful for families separated by college, travel, or immigration. They aren't bad as "backup phones" for a business, or for making overseas calls. Even in a home situation though, I'd be reluctant to have one of those as my ONLY phone. Specific weaknesses:
- No SLA - with a "service level agreement" your telco has to guarantee 99.999% to 99.99999% uptime, and once notified of a problem has to start working on it almost immediately. Without an SLA, your phone service could be out for days - and you just wait until someone fixes the problem.
- No internet - no phone. No electricity - no phone. A Katrina like event could leave your business or home without phone service for days or weeks. For business, a higher priced cell phone or a land line is a better choice as the primary line.
- Public internet - voice travels on the internet cloud as digital packets - which can get scrambled or lost if the transfer speed drops. With any public internet based phone, the call quality is dependent on traffic. If you talk to any internet phone vendor and they don't guarantee "private backbone internet" and an SLA of at least 99.999%, they're really selling home phone service.
- A word about Google Voice. It's really inexpensive - and you get exactly what you pay for. Not a whole lot of reliability. Can you live with 10% to 20% of your callers getting disconnected? If you're using it for your employees or your family a failure rate may be acceptable... for customers, not so much. Many office phone systems have almost all of the capabilities of Google Voice. In essence the technology of "follow-me forwarding" has been around for years, though traditional "dialing trees" are usually less flexible than the Google product. Many answering services including ours can offer this same product if your office phone system doesn't include centrex functions.
Before you think about choosing a telephone company - think about how your customers reach you - then decide how important that phone connection is. If you run a pizza restaurant or are a plumber, probably 99.9% of your customers first meet you over the phone, and rely on continuing to spend their dollars with you via phone. A Hardee's or Burger King that rely on walk-in and drive-in business... those businesses might get away with having a cheaper phone carrier.
Capacity - Many very small CLEC's (competitive local exchange) providers have only one switch in an area. If that switch has a problem it could take a long time for phone service to be restored. I don't really like praising Verizon, but they are "Ma Bell" and have had switching centers set up all over the place since the 1880's. On 9/11 two Verizon offices were destroyed or heavily damaged... But Verizon was able to restore most of Manhattan's phone service within 48 hours by rerouting hundreds of thousands of numbers to other central offices. Another provider located in the twin towers NEVER restored service to local customers. You can save a lot of money by going to a "Ma Bell" competitor, but ask a few questions first. The first question is: "How many CO's (central offices) do you have, where are they located and what kind of disaster plan do you have in case the local one burns or is flooded? Another good question is: "Is the CO manned 24/7?" Most aren't, but customer service can often reset or fix situations remotely.
A good phone system - or a good answering service for that matter - is something you rely on every day you are in business, so choose something you don't have to worry about!
Posted by
Emily Land on Wed, Aug 17, 2011 @ 08:52 AM
If you stopped by to pick up some scandalous gossip or uncover a HIPAA violation I'm afraid you will be sadly disappointed. My goal with this series of posts is to give the business owner a glimpse into the telephone answering service world and offer insights and suggestions on how we can work together more effectively to our mutual benefit.
I started in this industry over 25 years ago and have seen many businesses, small and large come and go. I have also seen many grow and flourish. A critical key to the successful business is their willingness to communicate with the customer. A business that makes it easy for their customer to reach them, then keeps their customer informed and connected is a business that can ride out these difficult economic times.
Make sure you have a warm and friendly voice answering your business calls. An answering machine or voice mail is such a turn off to customers that you will be passed over and forgotten in an instant.
Don't ignore your after hours market. We live in a 24/7 world now. Not everyone can call your office between 9 and 5. Make sure your customer has access to your company at any hour.
Keep the customer in the loop. If there is a problem or delay it is much better to tell the customer early than to let them stew in confusion and unhappiness.
These guidelines are incredibly simple, but very important. Keep the lines of communication open and accessible so you don't make it difficult for your customer to get to you.
Posted by
Emily Land on Tue, Aug 02, 2011 @ 01:32 PM
A reader responded to Bob's original post with:
"I too have purchased Identical Computers thinking I could use the mirrored image on the other computer to replace/resurect the failed computer drive. It just does not work that way. Every computer, even identical computers, store information differently."
Bob's response:
I don't think it would be possible for me to disagree with your statement more. When I say identical computers. I mean identical. Same mother board, video card, memory, same size harddrives. Everything the same. All expansion cards are placed in the same slots. This insures that the BIOS settings on both machines match. However, if necessary it's not rocket science to make a minor change to your computers BIOS settings.
Regarding the light bulb issue. I was referring to the fact that a harddrive like a lightbulb could be working fine one minute and the next it could blow. No warning, just gone. Jut as the lightbulb, one day your hard drive will fail. It is a mechanical thing, if you run it long enough it will fail. You might be lucky and get some early warnings but maybe you won't.
I have two removable hard drives in each computer. Both drives have their jumpers set for cable select. So whichever drive is attached into the Primary Slot becomes the Primary and Vice Versa for the Secondary.
I use Norton Ghost to clone an identical copy of the working primary drive to the secondary drive. At this time I can place either drive in the primary slot and the machine works fine and has up to date data. I can also take either drive and place it in the identical backup computer and it also boots and works fine. I know this is true because I have done this many, many times. It does and will work.
Perhaps you have never used Norton Ghost. It makes identical clones of hard drives. That includes boot sectors and information.
My normal mode of operation is to have the clone secondary drive in the working computer but not inserted all the way or turned on. It's just there for backup. Once a week I will reclone it with Norton Ghost. I also have 2 more drives in the backup computer that are also identical clones of the primary drive on machine 1.
Nice thing about the second computer if I want to try a new program or run tests I can do it on the backup without damage to the main computer.
This scheme protects me from an Operating System failure but I could end up with a computer that has lost a week's worth of data. This problem is solved by a daily backup of all database files that change everyday. I send a copy of these files to the harddrive on another computer on the network and also backup a copy to a tape drive that can store 20 to 25 daily backups. With this scheme I will only lose 1 days data at the most on a worst case failure.
If the operating system on the main machine fails during the day I do have the option to insert the backup drive in the primary slot and put the damaged drive in the secondary slot. Once the computer boots I may be able to transfer the database files from the damaged drive to the backup drive. There are risks in doing this and you must be very careful if you try to move the data files between hard drives. But if you are successful you will be back up and running in less than an hour and will have lost little or no data.
As I said this works I do it all the time. When my office manger calls and says there is trouble with the server I don't have to panic. I know I can get it backup in an hour or less.
Make sure you turn off these programs on all computers on your network prior to backup. If your backup program gives you a report at the end of the backup better read it to see what files were skipped. Windows XP has fixed this problem in some cases you can backup busy files with XP pro.
Only way to be sure is to check and see if your backup is really working. Pretend the main drive in your computer just failed. How long will it take you to get a new hard drive in the machine up and working with current data. For some of you it could be days. In the telephone answering service industry we cannot risk being down for any length of time. This scheme has served us well for years.
Bob Krause is owner and IT expert for Answer Center Nationwide Telephone Answering Service in Virginia Beach, VA