Overhead expenses are a usual problem to most companies. These expenses pertain to all costs except from direct labor costs, direct material costs, and direct expenses of a company. Overhead expenses, therefore, encompass all other fees that a company has to include on their budget, such as fees on accounting, advertising, insurance, interest, legal fees, rent, repairs, travel expenditures, utilities, and telephone bills. While some, of these costs, or in some cases most, are impossible to cut down, certain fees can be avoided when you invest on services externally that could help your company not just be financially, but efficiently as well, reducing overhead expenses while providing a better service to a company internally and externally. Take for example the call answering service. The basic function of this service is to answer a client’s call, handle their concerns, and provide answers and solutions on one’s company’s behalf. Since first impression is crucial in businesses, hiring a call answering service helps customers to contact a company easily. This is essential especially when a caller is a prospect client. Call answering services are also available in Singapore to help out companies and businesses that are established in the city-state. Hiring a call answering service is easily comparable to hiring a receptionist, although a virtual receptionist in this case.
Why invest on a call answering service
- Every call, especially sales call, will be attended to. With call answering service, a company can be assured that an agent will attend to all calls. If a call is received after business hours, it will still be forwarded to a local number to be attended to. When every call is attended, a company can be secured that prospect and old clients will be serviced excellently.
- For smaller businesses, hiring a dedicated call answering service that is professional and skilled can help their companies gain a professional image while incurring a low cost service that fits the budget. As for bigger companies, hiring this kind of service will help them maintain the professional image they have imparted already to their clients.
- A company can avoid additional expenses on hiring a receptionist. Instead of paying someone, for smaller businesses, a salary, or several people for bigger companies, hiring a call answering service is a more practical option for businesses. A company can skip training someone as well to do the call answering when business opt to hire instead an outside business to do this task.
- Instead of having the taking of calls in-house, companies should opt to hire a call answering service so that the staff can really focus on their day-to-day tasks. Ideally, when the team is able to focus on the tasks designated to them, a company can further maximize their potential, growth, and productivity. By doing so, a company can also maximize their profit and grow their business more along the way.
- A company no longer needs to invest on PABX Systems and telephone wiring in their office premises. By off-shoring this task, a company can save on costs on buying several telephone lines, as well as saving on office space that could be used instead for other tasks to maximize the company’s growth.
Packages available and their terms of service
Call answering services in Singapore come in three types of packages which vary mostly on the length of service that one wants to invest on.
- 12 months of Call Answering Service – When a company opts to invest on a 12-month service, monthly rate will be only at S$95 per month (plus one-time payment of S$50 for setup fee). A dedicated phone number for a company will also be provided, as well a personalized call answering service following the company’s preferences from 9:00H to 17:30H on weekdays. Outside these working hours, during weekends, and on holidays, the service provider will forward the calls received for free to a designated SG number. Faxes received by the service provider will also be forwarded to the email address of the company or person-in-charge for free. Furthermore, call-answering agents will be the ones to take down important notes and information on another person’s behalf when this person that has been contacted by the client is not available or is taking a different call. Company and business owners can also pay online using Master, Visa, Paypal, and Amex for their own convenience.
- 6 months of Call Answering Service – If a company wishes to avail this service for 6 months, they will be paying more in the monthly fee as charges per month will be S$130, with a one-time fee of S$50 for setup fee. Although prices may be higher with this package, a company will still get the services that will be provided on a 12-month contract.
- 3 months of Call Answering Service – For those who want to commit for a longer period of time, or those who are still testing the efficiency of this service, a 3-month package is also available. Priced at S$165 per month, with a one-time fee as well of S$50 for setup fee, one can already available of this call answering service. Services for this contract are also the same as those with the other two packages available.
In conclusion, hiring a call answering service is a great investment one can make for their company and business. In doing such thing, companies can save money and time that they can invest instead on a more profitable and fruitful tasks and projects. The time one can spend on when answering calls from clients can be dedicated instead on working passionately on a certain project or task. Moreover, when a team is dedicated to just answering calls from clients, they are likely to focus more on the task, giving an exceptional service to the callers who might be a prospect client of the company. Uniform and professional call answering service can be a big help for one’s company. Clients are more confident to place a phone call knowing that they will be attended to and assisted with great service.
