After Hours Call Answering Service
Below, you'll find a list of suppliers providing an after-hours call answering service for Australian businesses from either a local supplier (in Australia) or offshore.
Regardless of the location, engaging an after-hours call answering service provider will ensure your customer enquiries, sales, and support calls can be answered 24/7 by a live person, as well as optional email support and live chat services.
In modern times, most businesses' traditional opening hours of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. are no longer enough to service their customers.
Society is now becoming used to businesses' high availability, and if you're not open, the next business they contact will be the competitor who is.
How After-Hours Call Answering Services Work
For larger businesses, you may be seeking a supplier to continue offering the same level of service offered during the day and extending that across a 24/7 period.
If your business has large call volumes after hours, this can be achieved with by the call answering service provider have full-time dedicated staff just to answer your calls.
For businesses that only have low call volumes, your calls may be combined with other campaigns run by the after-hours call answering service provider based in Australia to save you money.
But it's not always required to provide the same level of service to your customers.
Many businesses operate a message-taking service, enabling the call to be answered by a live agent who takes a message and relays that to the day shift team for follow-up the next day.
Ultimately, there is no "one size fits all" solution—most providers of after-hours call answering services have flexible models to help you achieve the right solution for your business.
How to choose the right after-hours call answering provider
Engaging any business to handle your customers is a big decision. If you are looking to use a call answering service provider to answer some or all of your after-hours calls, some of the questions you can ask include:
- Are they currently handling any after-hours campaigns for other clients?
- How many staff work on the night shift?
- What level of security is available at the centre?
- Do they have experience in your industry vertical?
- Do they specialise in B2B or B2C?
- Can they offer either onshore or offshore solutions (or both)?
- What type of technology do they have?
- Can they handle more than just telephone calls? Many providers now offer social media and live chat support 24/7.
- How do they relay messages for further actioning?
- How do they charge?
- Are calls recorded?
How much does after hours call answering cost?
It's difficult to provide an accurate estimate because a number of variables, such as the ones mentioned above, can greatly influence the price.
But one thing you can be sure of is the relationship in price between the location of the after-hours service providers and employees.
Having your after-hours calls answered here in Australia is invariably the most expensive option, with offshore solutions ranging from 20% to 80% cheaper.
The other influence on price is what type of commercial model the service providers offer.
Some providers are happy to provide a 'per call price', others charge a fixed hosting fee plus a per-call rate, some may offer a fixed hourly rate, etc.
It will also heavily depend on whether your business needs full-time resources or if they can spread your calls across calls for other businesses to reduce your costs.
The best thing to do is contact the suppliers listed below, or you can use our free Call Centre Outsourcing Wizard to help you articulate your requirements and have meaningful discussions with suppliers to obtain accurate quotations.
It can also provide you with a recommended shortlist of suppliers to save you a lot of time, money, risk and stress.
Where to learn more
We have lots of free resources on the Australian Customer Experience Professionals Association website, including:
- The Complete Guide to Call Centre Outsourcing
- The Real Cost Guide to Outsourcing Your Call Centre
- Call Centre Calculator (learn how to calculate how many staff you need to answer calls)
Search 24/7 Call Answering Service Providers
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Some related categories you may also be interested in are:
Virtual Reception and Message Taking services | Overflow Calls Solutions