Frequently Asked Questions

An answering service is a call center that acts as a third party to your organization’s inbound customer/patient calls.  Answering services can act in a number of different capacities. 

1. The call center can act in an overflow capacity, handling calls that can’t be handled in a timely fashion by an internal call center.   
2. The call center can increase the availability of your company to your customers from 9-5 to 24 hours a day.
3. The call center can act in an emergency or backup capacity by taking after hours emergency calls and routing them accordingly.
4. The call center can act as the complete front end to a business, answering customer questions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. 
5. The call center can provide automated call routing through voice mail menu boxes and transfer boxes.

Our pricing model is designed to cater to your specific needs and requirements, ensuring that you get the best possible value for your investment. By offering a usage-based pricing structure, we make it easier for you to stay on top of billing and expenses, as you only pay for what you use. This means that you have more control over your costs, and you don’t have to worry about being locked into a fixed contract that may not offer the flexibility you need. Additionally, with our usage-based model, you can easily scale your operations up or down, depending on your business needs, without having to pay exorbitant fees or face penalties. So, whether you’re a small business just starting out or a large enterprise seeking a flexible and cost-effective solution, our usage-based pricing model is the perfect choice for you. Click here to request a lightning fast quote!

Answerphone of America believes that the quality of our services should encourage our customers to stay, not a piece of paper.  Answerphone of America does not force customers to sign extended contracts.  Our service agreement is month to month, and we actually prorate the day you join and the day you leave based on where we are at in the billing cycle.  Our policy of no long term contracts alleviates the risk of trying our call center services.

Answerphone of America’s headquarters is situated in Statesville, NC (about 30 minutes north of Charlotte, NC).  All employees of Answerphone of America are based right here in the United States.  About half of our agents work in our headquarters and the other half of our agents work out of their homes. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2021, for precautionary purposes we allowed our agents to work remotely. We now employ remote agents across multiple states including NC, VA, SC, and TN. 

Call center outsourcing’s greatest benefit is obvious.  Compared to the costs of operating an in-house call center, an answering service will be a fraction of the cost, saving thousands of dollars every month.  Even having an in-house call center, many businesses don’t staff their operations center 24 hours a day.  With Answerphone of America, we can take clients calls at any time, day or night!

Setup varies based on the complexity of the account.  For a standard account, we can have the account up and running in a matter of hours.  For more complex accounts, it can take a few business days.

There are 4 methods for transferring your calls to the answering service:

1. No transfer – Answerphone of America allows you to advertise the phone number we assign to your account.  The answering service can then take and route calls for your company all day long. 
2. Call forwarding – Whenever a client wishes to have the answering service take their calls, they’ll punch a sequence of keys along with the call forward number to transfer calls to Answerphone of America.  When the client wishes to take their calls back, they’ll punch another sequence of keys to turn off call forwarding.
3. Call forwarding while busy – A highly recommended feature for any business that doesn’t want to miss a single call.  If a phone line is having problems, or all phone lines currently already have calls on them, the call is automatically rerouted to Answerphone of America.
4. Call rolling – Call rolling allows the call to ring into an office a certain number of rings (typically 3), and then be transferred to Answerphone of America.  This is a handy feature for anyone who may have trouble remembering to call forward their lines when leaving in the evening.

Answerphone of America offers numerous ways you can receive your messages:

1. Answerweb Online Account Access
2. 3 Way / Call Patching
3. Digital Pager / Alpha Pager
4. Text Messaging
5. Email
6. Operator Calling
7. Fax
8. Database Integration

Our pricing is all inclusive.  You can send a message out via any method you choose using as many different message delivery mediums as you would like.

One of our most popular ways for delivering emergency messages is by keeping the caller on the line, and directly connecting the caller and operator to the on call.  3 way calling or call patching allows our operators to keep emergency callers on the line and directly connect them to the person they need to speak with.  This is also our fastest method of message delivery.