What is a flat rate answering service?
Flat rate answering service is a service where a business pays for a certain amount of minutes spent on calls by the support consultants. The price is set and fixed for each month.
Flat rate live answering service ensures a business spends as many resources on a team as it needs and not a dollar more. Paying per call per minute can also help understand how much the customers really need to talk to the team and allows to decrease the cost of the call center team.
31% of businesses prefer hiring a flat rate answering service team as their customer support and service representative to decrease the overall costs. It can also ensure a high quality of the answering service provided to their customers.
What does live flat rate answering service include?
Flat rate answering service might include a team covering several channels of customers communication:
- Email — a business pays per each answered email
- Chat — a business pays per each chat conversation or per message. The pricing model depends on the chosen plan
- Phone — a business pays per minute spent in a call by a contact center operator
Flat rate answering service can handle both in- and outbound conversations. Flat rate pricing for answering service companies allows every business to assess and adjust their outsourcing budget and hire a partner that will suit their needs to a ‘t’.
What businesses need to hire one of the flat rate answering service companies?
There are several industries with urgent messages and calls per day that need to be addressed right away.
Flat rate answering service for lawyers
Often lawyers’ offices rely on an in-office receptionist, whose tasks are to take calls and messages and pass them on to the appropriate specialists. This system has a flaw — a single person with a fixed working schedule can barely take and process the entire scope of messages. As a result, some customers’ issues might be neglected or even missed. This can lead to several issues in the future.
A dedicated flat rate answering service can ensure 100% of customers’ calls are received and processed.
Flat rate virtual receptionist for an office
Offices have lots of incoming and outgoing communication with everyone — customers, clients and partners. Missing out on their calls and emails practically equals losing them. Especially when it is an occurring mistake of an answering service team. Moreover, 75% of callers say they are not prepared to wait on hold and 59% of customers have abandoned the purchasing process because they were forced to wait for too long.
Pay-as-you-go-billing for a virtual receptionist will receive and distribute the incoming communication, making sure no information slips through the cracks.
Flat rate answering and scheduling service for doctor’s office
24/7/365 availability of the doctors’ offices is a must. A flat rate answering service team demonstrates the full potential of its usefulness when it comes to the doctors’ and physicians’ offices.
Flat rate answering service for veterinarian
Just like physicians, veterinarians’ offices should absolutely hire a flat rate answering service to handle emergencies or after-hours callers. This will provide every calling customer with whatever they need, be it an answer to their questions, a set appointment or a connection with their pet’s doctor.
Order processing for delivery services
Orders and logistics might be difficult to set up, especially when a business has a lot of ordering customers. Answering services flat rate monthly rate can be a good solution for companies dealing with a lot of orders. It can come especially handy during a hot season, when shipping and orders get to the highest point — around Christmas, for example.
A flat rate answering service team can become one of the main assets for a business. Cost-efficient, it can take all after-hours or out-of-regular-workload calls and inquiries, which will ensure top-notch customer experience.