Call diversion can persuade callers an empty office is teeming with life
A BUSINESS telephone answered by a machine makes a company seem amateur, understaffed, incompetent or casual. None of that inspires confidence in potential customers or suppliers. Many callers are paralysed with fear or affronted by being forced to talk to a machine and ring off. Either way, the business and public image are damaged.
Small businesses are particularly vulnerable. It takes only one person to be on holiday, another off with flu, a third out visiting a customer, the fourth checking stocks and the fifth at lunch, and nobody is minding the shop. Modern technology can solve the problem.
On most exchanges, calls can be diverted to another number, even a mobile. Another solution is to hire a company which organises to divert incoming calls and then answer the phone using the company's name and take a message. It then passes details into an answering machine (or voice mail as the vogue phrase has it), or calls somebody on a pager. Brian Dunn, marketing director of Infoaccess, said about 8.5m people use such a service in the US, but Britain was only just waking up to the facility. He believed the potential here was for about 1.8m customers. His company charges £25 a month; a pager is £10 extra.
Christopher James, marketing director of Message Pad, said there might be up to half a dozen companies now vying for this market. He said the service operated not only when the office was unmanned. Calls not answered within 15 seconds, lines engaged and a peak-load time could all trigger diversions. Mr James's charges start at £20 a month which includes 30 free messages on voice mail, plus 50p a message above that.
There is a range of services, costing up to £100 a month, which take up to 200 messages free and retransmit them to a pager with a message display. To duplicate that on to a tape would cost another 25p per message, plus an additional charge for operating outside the main working day. Answerlink is probably the largest operator. Owner Malcolm Harris said most of his customers were professional practices-solicitors, architects, accountants, estate agents. About 62pc of customers were women, perhaps indicating a woman starting a company thought decorative receptionists were a waste of money.
Charges are £25 a month for a 24-hour a day service, plus 75p amessage stored on voice mail. If each message is also faxed, the cost is 25p a time; for one fax a day the charge is £10 a month.
Pagers are £10 a month.
Infoaccess: 0171 896 5000; The Message Pad: 0800 614416 or 01926 484600; Answerlink: 0171 231 5000
