1-800-Number and Answering Service Questions.

Hello,
I am purchasing an 1-800 number and instituting the use of an answering service for my investment company.

1-800 Questions…
Does anyone have extensive knowledge of purchasing an 800 number? For example:

Who to buy from and why you chose them?
What roughly is the maximum I should pay per minute, when i transfer the number to a carrier?
How does one ensure they own 100% of the rights to it? Like is there a government controlled entity that governs this? Reason is some 800 numbers are cost upwards of $800 dollars, so once I get a great one, don’t even wanna lose it.

Answering Service Questions…
I have been told Patlive is a good company, but when there live person picks up the lady said (which, is optional) it is $1.00 per minute.

Any recommendations on who to use and why you chose them, please?

Have you had any luck with overseas answering services like in India?

I feel the $1.00 per minute is a bit expensive. But hey, 20k on a deal, pros can out weight the cons of expense. One thing i am learning about being in business for 5 years now is to watch overhead and expenses like 20k is a lot to make, but not if its eaten up in expense. And to take our business to the next level, one cannot be a one man show forever, and have any quality of life.

Any experience or advice you can share would be very much appreciated!

I got my 888 number from http://www.tollfreenumbers.com.

I used PowerNet Global for my incoming calls. I can’t recall the price, but it’s cheap.

I just have the calls forwarded to my cell phone. Unless there is some reason that you don’t have time to answer your own phone, I would never put my business in the hands of a message-taker or voice-mail (as the only option…obviously voice-mail comes into play when you can’t take a call).

Hi Guys,
I was asked what exactly we needed the answering service and 800# for, and below is what we came up with.

The Telephone Answering company
We need a service which will offer the following options so if a…

  1. Motivated seller calling they would put #1 NOW to sell,
  2. If they are a residential home buyer, then they would push #2 NOW to purchase.
  3. If they are a seasoned investor calling on a wholesale house push #3 NOW.
  4. Calls 1-3 only would go to live person at the service.
  5. Furthermore this service needs to be able to get one of us on the phone and or transfer it directly to us.
  6. For all other calls like vendors they would be transferred to the services recorder/transcriber line at which time they would email us the text of the call. It would go like this for all other calls push #4.
  7. The goal is to have as little phone time as possible for our staff unless it’s callers 1-3 calling, then we must receive it immediately.
  8. Most all other calls would likely go to recorder.
  9. The service would be able to log all calls name and number and send via email In real time.
  10. Log what time they arrived in Pacific Standard Time or anytime we deem.
  11. Add and remove telephone numbers easily.
  12. Add and remove messages easily.
  13. Use any voice we like easily, including there’s.
  14. They would have mellow on hold music.

800 number…
I need the vanity number (meaning like 800-sellfast), so it’s easy to remember for sellers, catchy and can use it on all my advertising.

Initially we were only going to make the service for motivated sellers or buyers, but I realize how much time is used up on the telephone answering calls when vendors called at there connivance. Running a business we need to call them back when its convenient for our business.

Therefore I really believe in a good service and paying for it, because I cannot tell you how much time has been used on calls when I could have been making business plans, networking, doing marketing and things like that. Versus the mouse on the wheel routine, I get it as a small biz owner we were many hats, and one cannot survive without organization…consistently.

My Originally Posted Questions Here…
1-800 Questions…
Does anyone have extensive knowledge of purchasing an 800 number? For example:

Who to buy from and why you chose them?
What roughly is the maximum I should pay per minute, when i transfer the number to a carrier?
How does one ensure they own 100% of the rights to it? Like is there a government controlled entity that governs this? Reason is some 800 numbers are cost upwards of $800 dollars, so once I get a great one, don’t even wanna lose it.

Answering Service Questions…
I have been told Patlive is a good company, but when there live person picks up the lady said (which, is optional) it is $1.00 per minute.

Any recommendations on who to use and why you chose them, please?

Have you had any luck with overseas answering services like in India?

I feel the $1.00 per minute is a bit expensive. But hey, 20k on a deal, pros can out weight the cons of expense. One thing i am learning about being in business for 5 years now is to watch overhead and expenses like 20k is a lot to make, but not if its eaten up in expense. And to take our business to the next level, one cannot be a one man show forever, and have any quality of life.

Any experience or advice you can share would be very much appreciated!

Good topic Bill. I’m also in the market for a 800# + outsourced answering system/receptionist.

I’d be interested to hear what some investors are paying monthly for their outsourced answering services. Like you said, $1/min can add up fast.

www.ringcentral.com

It allows me to pre-screen sellers (i.e. “separate the curious from the serious”). I paid for an annual subscription ($300) during my free trial. You get 500 minutes per month plus a 500 minutes/year rollover plus minutes for referrals. The setup is pretty intuitive and took a few hours to set up everything. PM me if you need more details.

When you say “pre-screen”, what do you mean? Does not look like they offer live operator service like Pat Live, or at least, I couldn’t find it on their website.

No it isn’t live. You record a message talking about what you do. I’ve come to find out that if people are interested they’ll call you.

I talk to all the Seller’s that call personally myself. If you can’t talk to them yourself do you have a family member or other friend who can take the names and numbers? That will save you a lot of money.

This is just a personal preference but I think setting up a whole recording system just makes things more complicated for a seller. They just want to talk to someone about selling their home. I want to make things as simple as possible so I can talk to as many sellers as possible but thats just my view.

On the other hand I let buyers go to a recording. I also prefer a local number to an 800 number but thats just me.

I use Patlive.com, but also like Freedomvoice.com for a toll free call solution. I usually check for vanity numbers at tollfreenumbers.com.