Telephone Answering - Frequently Asked Questions |
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2 weeks (or £50) free calls, is that correct? Yes. When you join we will give you £50 worth of free calls or 2 weeks free service, depending on which expires first. Why must I add £25 call credit when I'm getting 2 weeks free? We do this to prevent time wasters signing up and then never using the service. It takes a while to set each client up which has salary cost implications. It is very annoying when we invest the time and the client never even tries it out, and we have found this an effective filtering method. If you are dissatisfied with the service in any way, please let us know and we will refund your £25 credit immediately. How do I set up my Free Trial? Go to www.yourcallpartner.co.uk/officelifeline, click the “SIGN UP” button in the top right menu and complete the online form, ensuring you enter Promo Code 'OLL' for your free trial. It takes about 2 hours to become operational. We will send you a telephone number to use for diverting your calls, as soon as we have logged your details onto our system and performed necessary line and email tests. How much does the service cost? We charge a flat rate 99p per call but you can buy call credit at up to 15% discount, providing call costs as low as 84p. Optional text messages cost 20p per message (up to 3 standard text messages long). How much Call Credit do I buy? This is purchased in blocks of £25, £50, £75, £100, £150 & £200 depending on your need. There are extra % discount options available on each block if the account is still in credit at the time of purchase. We operate a pre-pay service. Credit can be purchased through our website and our system notifies the client when the balance is getting low. Is there any contract period? No. You have the freedom to leave the service at any time. We're sure that if we do a good job you will be happy to continue the relationship over time. Can this be used just for holiday cover? Yes. This can be used for any short term cover, although we do charge an additional setup fee of £25, which covers the setup administration cost. Clients found attempting to use the Free Trial period for holiday cover will forfeit their initial £25 call credit. We do not charge a setup fee for our regular service because we recover the cost from ongoing revenue over time, which cannot be achieved on short term contact. What are the operating hours? We operate 24/7 as standard. Normal working hours are Mon - Fri, 8.00am-6.00pm. Calls outside of office hours are processed with an additional service premium of 50p per call. However, you can choose to have calls go to voicemail outside of normal operatinghours instead for free. You will receive voice messages via email like your normal messages. Is there a service minimum charge? There are no fixed monthly fees. However, there is a minimum account turnover of £5.00 per service number. This covers our cost of providing a dedicated line to our data centre. Therefore, if you had spent £3.49p in call charges over the month you would pay a top up of £1.51 to cover the shortfall. Are there any other charges I should know about? Only the small charge your telephony provider will make a diverting your calls - please check the cost with your provider. We issue geographic 0161 numbers so you still benefit from low cost VOIP telephony services and you can use the free minutes on your mobile. Who will be answering my calls? When you sign up you will be assigned to a small team of 4 people who will primarily be responsible for your calls. If they are all busy your call would overflow to another group, but typically the same four people will be answering your calls. We find this approach works much better than anyone of 100+ handlers answering because it provides a more intimate relationship. Your customers and suppliers will be typically speaking to the same people and we truly become an extension of your team. Can messages be sent to different people? Yes. You can set up multiple contacts (i.e. accounts, sales, etc.). Each one can have different forwarding and messaging instructions. What Routing Numbers do you issue? We provide you with a 0161 number to divert your calls into our data centre. We strongly recommend that you own your own Business Telephone Number and do not advertise the number we issue – this way, should we need to re-issue you a number for any reason, the change will not affect your business. I already have an advertised telephone number, will this work? Yes we provide a DDI number to route your 08xx service or any other telephone number to us, either for all calls or just on busy and no reply, even your mobile phone. We issue 0161 numbers. Can I use 0844 or 0845 numbers? We recommend a trading partner www.yourfreenumber.co.uk which easily integrates with our 0161 routing number for a total call management and messaging solution. What are the payment terms? We operate a pre-pay service to avoid the costs associated with chasing smaller users for money. Top up payments can be made through our website and our system will notify you by email when funds are running low. Do I get a payment invoices? An invoice is generated at the time of purchase of call credit. There is an option to print the receipt but the system also sends email confirmation. At other times you can log on to your account at www.call-message.co.uk and view usage information and download call details etc. If I recommend Twitter friends, when do I get paid? You will earn £10 for every client you recommend who subsequently signs up and adds call credit to their account. This can be paid to your bank or PayPal account and will be credited within 7 days. How do I change my message settings? You do this via the Online Message Centre. This is located at www.call-message.co.uk . Passwords are provided at sign up and you can request reminders by using the original email address used to sign up. You can change call settings, message routing and view your financial information. Do your offer call transfers? Due to low use and high support costs we no longer offer call transfers to mobiles or landlines (Dec 08). Call routing to a mobile can be achieved using our partner site www.yourfreenumber.co.uk with our answering service as a back up if the call cannot be answered. How robust is the service? We have structured our business around Co-Location Data Centres so the service will continue to operate should we lose services to our main site. We have multiple servers to continue service in all but the most extreme situations. What are Non-Std Call Charges? We charge (as advertised rates) for calls received, and a lower fee of 39p for non standard incomplete calls like answering message recordings, caller didn't speak, etc. You can use our optional 'Junk Filter' to avoid calls of this nature. What if I receive Fax Calls? If a fax comes through on your main line we will transfer to our own fax server & forward to you by email. Will I be charged for Sales Calls? We are happy to request any cold callers do not call again without prior contact from you. We offer a TPS registering service to help stop nuisance callers. We also have a unique filter which identifies multiple offenders and sends them to voicemail instead of a live handler. Voicemail is forwarded by email as an attached .MP3 file and is free. What is the charge for Outgoing Calls? We charge outgoing calls on behalf of clients at 50p on top of std call charges. How does the Junk Call Filter work? We have an optional filter that sends 'known' junk call offenders direct to voicemail instead of a live handler. Answering thousands of daily calls, we can easily identify the main companies responsible for this type of activity (e.g. Switch Energy Providers, Indian Call Centres, etc). You still receive the message as an MP3 email attachment, but don't have the cost of the call. |
