How to Start an Answering Service & Wake-Up Service

Despite the appearance of low-cost recorded answering devices, there is still a thriving demand for answering services featuring a live person on the other end of the line. If you have ever called someone who used a recording device for an answering service you probably know why. People just cannot carry on a satisfactory con­versation with a machine. For doctors in particular the recorded message answering service was never an acceptable substitute. But now most small, one-person businesses that rely on telephone calls from potential customers realize the value of having a person answer the phone who can respond immediately to the caller's particular needs.

Basically the way an answering service works is quite simple. It is an extension of your client's telephone with the number ringing on your switchboard at the same time it rings on his telephone. After three or more rings the answering service picks up and says, for instance, "Dr. Thompson's office," and the person is answered just as if he had actually reached Dr. Thompson's office. The ser­vice takes a message and either gets in touch with the client im­mediately or reports with a series of messages at one time. For doctors this service is quite indispensable. For other professionals and small businesses the answering service acts as their office switch­board.

This is the kind of business you can run from one room in your home. For a fee, the telephone company simply runs lines into a switchboard they install for this purpose. In some states the tele­phone company requires you to have a minimum number of cus­tomers before they will set up this equipment. You will have to lay out an advance sum of money when the equipment is installed, just as you did when you were having new telephones installed in your house. You should check your telephone company's business office for specific rates.

To get customers for your service you should have a small listing in the Yellow Pages. You should also prepare a small brochure for specific customers, listing your rates. To start you should try to limit yourself to handling telephone messages during the business day. Anything approaching an 18 or 24 hour service will require a trained staff. The best training you can get for this kind of business is to work as an operator for someone else's answering service.

Bear in mind that when you try to solicit customers, especially doctors, you will be dealing with prospective clients who already employ an answering service. You will have to approach these prospective clients with the goal of winning them away rather than selling them on the service. The best way to win over clients is obviously to offer features that other services do not. Price is the most competitive feature of an answering service. Your pricing must be figured accurately, which you can only do once you have arrived at detailed rates with the telephone company business office. If you are in an area that has a limited number of message units for a flat rate with an additional charge for additional calls, you will have to base your pricing accordingly.

Stress in your brochure that your service will be tailored exactly to the needs of the client. Solicit customers who may not be using an answering service now possibly because they didn't realize how-helpful it could be to them. A local TV repair shop may be owner-operated. The owner may be in the shop much of the time but in­volved in work that does not allow him to answer the phone easily. Stress that you not only take messages but also make appointments and deal with TV repair customers, almost as if you were in the shop.

If the money necessary to run telephone lines into your home to a switchboard is beyond your means right now, there is another way to start your own answering service more modestly You can have your client list yourtelephone number as an alternative if there is no answer at the telephone listed for his place of business. In this way, you can avoid the immediate expense of sophisticated telephone equipment and still offer many of the same advantages to your customers. This means, of course, that you will have to star with a smaller nucleus of clients since you must leave your telephone reasonably free to receive as many messages as possible. For this more modest beginning consider having one telephone to receive telephone calls and another telephone to deliver messages. This way, of course, one phone remains free for incoming calls at all times.

Take the trouble to visit prospective clients personally. They will appreciate the attention and you will be much better equipped to discuss a client's needs if you can also see the setting in which your client works.

To supplement the income from your service, you can offer a wake-up service. Your fee for waking people nicely by telephone twenty times a month will be approximately $10 to $20 dollars a month, depending on local telephone rates.

The telephone is a valuable money-making instrument. It's a particularly good business for people who must stay at home during the day, such as a parent with a young child or a handicapped in­dividual. The versatility of the telephone means that you could offer additional services to your clients, such as reminders by tele­phone for important birthdays, anniversaries and other occasions. You might also offer a telephone solicitation business to your an­swering service clients.