If you are considering using a call answering service for your real estate business, you might be wondering about the different cost factors that determine the pricing. Telephone answering service does more than answer your customer calls. There are several supplemental tasks that call center agents need to do. The telephone answering service provider takes into account all services that your business would need and charges accordingly. Here are some of the pricing factors for telephone answering services in the real estate management business.
Call Volume
The call volume is one of the important factors for telephone answering services. Most answering services have tiered plans which are based on a number of minutes. For example, the basic plan is 100 to 150 minutes. This is a monthly plan where you have to pay a fixed fee and you purchase the number of minutes. If the call minutes exceed the monthly limit, you have to pay a separate charge for every additional minute. The 100 to 150-minute plans are ideal for real estate management businesses which have low call volume.
If you have a high call volume, you can consider higher tiered plans like 200 to 250-minute plan, 500 minutes plan, or 1000 minutes. These are general plans which differ with each answering service. If your call volume is extremely high, you can ask the answering service for a custom plan.
Appointment Scheduling
Many time people calling answering service want to book appointments for property dealings. Such activities are considered as supplemental tasks which are separately charged. To provide appointment scheduling feature, the answering service integrates a web-based appointment scheduler in their software. Whenever a prospective customer seeks an appointment with your real estate management company, the call center agent books an appointment. The real estate management company also gets a notification about the appointment.
Bilingual Service
Sometimes, the people calling a real estate management company belong to Hispanic community who can speak both English and Spanish. If a large number of people calling your real estate management company speak in Spanish and English, you would need a bilingual phone answering service. In the bilingual service, the call center agent speaks in the language the customer desires (English or Spanish). The call answering service charges additional fees for bilingual service. These fees can be monthly or call based
Capturing Leads
Real estate management companies also use a marketing campaign to generate leads. After a successful marketing campaign, many people call the real estate management company inquiring about properties for sale. The telephone answering services capture the information about the caller and create a database which is then used by real estate Management Company for following the lead for conversion.
These are some different pricing factors used by answering service companies when providing services to real estate management companies.