In the service business, you need your phones professionally answered 24-hours per day, 7-days per week by live human beings. To handle that task, you should employ an answering service with extensive messaging management experience. All of the answering services operators should be professional, courteous and well trained.

There is a huge responsibility that goes along with answering your phones. Your answering service provider should recognize the importance of taking accurate messages and delivering them to the right person at as soon as possible.

Typical Services Provided by Professionals

Live Telephone Answering Service

Friendly, professional, live answering service representatives are available to answer your phones 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. They should be assisted by a state-of-the-art computer system, which presents them with detailed information about your office every time a call is received. This includes the phrase you'd like to use when answering your phone, your address, office hours, fax number, website and nature of your business. The goal is to personalize your service and sound more like your receptionist than an answering service.

Text Messaging to Your Cell Phone or Pager

Have your messages, in their entirety, emailed to your cell phone or pager shortly after our representatives hang up the phone. It's a great way of staying in touch with your callers while at the same time eliminating having to "check-in” for messages. All cell phones are capable of receiving text messaging so make sure to ask about this efficient feature.

Virtual Receptionist

Have your phones ring to us all day long. Our operators can answer incoming calls and screen them for you. Those you want to speak with are "transferred" to your cell phone or office number. If you don't want to speak with a particular caller - no problem - we'll tell the caller you are unavailable and we'll take a message and email it to your desktop or "text-message" it to your cell phone.

Message Delivery by Voice Mail

Callers are greeted by a live operator and are then told "I'm sorry, Mr. Jones is not available right now, would you like his voice mail?" Callers are then transferred to a personalized voice mailbox (provided by us but recorded by you) after which a notification can be sent to your pager, cell phone or email address.

Message Delivery by Fax or Email

Messages can be sent to your fax machine or email address as they are received (instantly), at predetermined times (scheduled) or when you call in (on demand). The choice is yours.

Message Delivery by Pager

Messages can be sent to your alphanumeric or digital pager when they are recieved. Within a minute or two after our operator hangs up with your caller, the message is on its way to your paging service.

Operator Revert

Great for screening non-emergency calls! Callers are greeted by voice mail which provide them with basic information yet allows them to press "0" for an operator. As an example, "Thank you for calling Dr. Smith's office. Our office is currently closed. If this is an emergency please press "0" now and a representative will assist you."

On-Call Schedules

Our computer system keeps track of the most complicated on-call schedules, including those that change daily. Your schedules can be faxed to us, e-mailed to us or phoned into us as much as a year in advance!

Express-Check In

We can provide you with a special “check-in” phone number that expedites the message retrieval process. Upon entering your security code, our computer system instantly tells you whether or not you have messages. If you have messages, you can have them faxed or e-mailed by pressing a few buttons on your phone or if you prefer, one of our friendly representatives will gladly read them to you.

Wake-Up Service

Any time of the day, any day of the week, we can provide you with a wake-up call. Rest comfortably knowing we'll wake you up at the appropriate time.

Patching

If someone needs to speak with you right away, our representatives can “patch” the caller through to you. A “patch” allows you to speak directly with your caller without either of you having to make an additional call. Patching is also known as cross connecting, transfering, or bridging.