Pay-As-You-Go billing is the easiest and most efficient way to spend your dollars with an answering service or contact center – it creates a true win-win relationship.Īt AnswerFirst you pay a low monthly fee to gain access to all of our platforms and services 24/7/365. Is it a complete message (caller’s name, who he or she is asking for, how do you reach them back, what it is regarding), or is it as little as “caller hung up” or “caller did not leave a message.” Most commonly, it’s any of the above. Is it an inbound call, an outbound call, an email, a chat, a text, a fax, a social media communication or the very common answer, all of the above? When considering a service that bills per call, it’s important to know what they consider “a call.” What is a message? Who wants to pay for an entire minute when a caller hangs up or a solicitor calls and takes 5-15 seconds of the operator’s time? What is a call? Many services round up to the next minute, charge in 6 or 15 second increments, charge for ring and hold time, etc. Since call lengths are rarely equal to an exact number of minutes, answering services have several methods of accounting for partial minutes and most of them do not benefit the customer. While most of the world defines a minute as 60 seconds, most of the answering service industry doesn’t. Here’s where it’s really important to read “the fine print” and understand what you’re actually being billed. One of the largest challenges in evaluating answering service and call center pricing is understanding how each provider defines calls, messages and minutes. For more information see the following section “Defining Calls, Message and Minutes.” While this seems straightforward enough, all services have their own definition of what a “minute” is and many may surprise you. Every time an invoice for usage is generated, volume discounts are automatically applied. At AnswerFirst, Pay-As-You-Go means you do not have to forecast your changing and fluctuating usage to ensure you get the best rate each month. ![]() This is AnswerFirst’s preferred method of billing. Many services charge a low “base rate” or “access fee” and then only bill further when actual work is being performed on an account. Pay-As-You-Go Billing means that the call center or answering service charges its clients only for what each client has actually used. For more information see the following section “Defining Calls, Message and Minutes.” Pay As You Go While this seems straightforward enough, all services have their own definition of what a “call” or “message” is and many may surprise you. ![]() For example, the service will advertise a “Per Call” rate of $1.20. With Per Call & Per Message Billing the answering service or call center charges a certain amount per call or per message. Using additional minutes over the pre-purchased allotment means you’ll be hit with high overage fees and using less means you pay a higher per minute rate for the minutes you used. To choose the right plan, businesses need to know how many minutes they will use each billing cycle and to get the best value they will have to consistently use exactly that number of minutes. For instance, you might have the option to choose 150 minutes for $199, 275 minutes for $329 or 500 minutes for $549. Flat Rateįlat Rate Billing requires businesses to pre-purchase a packaged bundle of calls or minutes each billing cycle. Below we briefly cover the most common pricing models. Common Answering Service Pricing Models & How They Affect YouĪnswering service pricing is confusing because there is no standard way to bill for services.
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