On-Site Receptionist Vs. Outsourced Call Center: 4 Costly Comparisons

Time is money. Money is money. And hiring an on-site receptionist for your company? Well… there’s a good chance that’s just wasted money.

Here are just four ways that hiring an outsourced call center can prove to be a more economically-sound option for your small business:

1. Training: First things first: You won’t have to provide any training when you hire an outsourced call center. Telephone answering service agents have already been put through their paces and have honed their customer service skills in the trenches, so to speak. When you hire an answering service, you hit the ground running with a productive fleet of agents whose sole purpose is to provide stellar customer service and make you look good. That means you eliminate the lag time generally associated between hiring a staffer and actually seeing a return on your investment.
2. Coverage: While 24/7 service from an outsourced call center is not an insignificant expense, it beats a full-time receptionist hands down. Consider this: a full-timer on a 40-hour weekly schedule tallies an annual salary of $30K, on average – and only a small percentage of those hours per week are going to be spent on phone calls, while the remainder will be consumed with other office duties. Once you factor in the time your receptionist is not in the office – whether off duty, on vacation, or when using sick leave – and the myriad leads you could be missing, outsourcing your calls becomes a no-brainer.
3. Benefits: As the holiday season approaches, most employees begin anxiously wringing their hands over the prospect of a year-end bonus. Outsourced call center representatives harbor no such hopes (at least, not from your pocket). And bonuses aren’t the only benefit dollars you will save while outsourcing. With an answering service handling your phone lines, you can say “so long” to the following monthly expenses normally associated with a full-timer:
   • Social Security
   • 401k
   • Disability
   • Healthcare
   • Pension
   • Vacation/PTO
4. On-site receptionists are fallible human beings, just like the rest of us. They have their good days and their bad days. Unfortunately – a bad day for a front desk staffer can give customers entering your lobby a negative connotation of your business. And that can lead to lost revenue over time. Not only that but hiring an outsourced call center ensures that you aren’t forking over hard-earned funds for missed timecard punches, workplace tomfoolery, Internet surfing, and the like.

All in all, enlisting the services of an outsourced call center can save your small business a boatload of cash in the long run.

With Edwards Answering Service as your outsourced call center, you can free up company resources and redirect funds that would otherwise be spent on a full-time receptionist where they’re most impactful. Our answering service offers a comprehensive, cost-effective, and customer-focused solution for helping your company run more efficiently, saving you time and money.

Call us today at 800-606-3273 to learn more or request a free trial today.