15 best answering services for small business in 2024
15 best-answering services in 2024
- AnswerConnect
- VoiceNation
- RingCentral
- AbbyConnect
- Ruby Receptionists
- PATLive
- Davinci Virtual
- Go Answer
- AnswerFirst
- Vonage
- Answering Service Care
- MAP Communications
- AnswerForce
- Specialty Answering Service
- Nextiva
An answering service can be a great asset to small businesses. As these companies start, they must prioritize efforts to serve customer concerns and brand expansion equally.
Answering services for small businesses take some of that load away so startups can focus on building their name. These services are usually very affordable and offer professional expertise.
Though AI has found its way into many industries, people still prefer the human touch.[1] This is why many answering services with live agents can produce astounding results.
In this article, we’ve compiled a list of the 15 most popular answering services for small businesses.
How does an answering service for small businesses work?
An answering service for small businesses provides callers with a professional, courteous, and efficient receptionist who can handle client concerns and manage schedules.
Answering services for small businesses are particularly helpful for those that don’t have the means to hire full-time receptionists. Their services can be used similarly to a part-time employee while the business grows.
The main services provided are telephone answering and messaging. Incoming calls are answered and forwarded to the appropriate clients.
These answering services for small businesses can also be used to screen calls and act as a functioning contact center.
Answering services for small businesses are present in various industries as part of growing technologies meant to transform the customer experience.[2]
These include:
- Medical offices
- Retail stores
- Restaurants
- Real estate offices
- Engineering contractors
- Financial and banking
- Legal and law firms
An answering service for small businesses may still be needed even if your office is full of people. Outsourcing this work allows your in-house teams to focus on your core business processes.
Why you need an answering service for your small business
If you’ve hit any of the following situations, it’s probably a good sign that you need an answering service for your small business.
- You’ve lost sales due to lost calls. Lost calls happen when employees are too busy performing core functions while catering to customers. Unanswered calls lead to revenue loss.
- Your business has stagnated due to too much focus on calls. Alternatively, paying too much attention to calls has taken you away from business opportunities.
- You may have tried automated voicemail, but it just led to customers hanging up. People prefer live agents, and an answering service for small businesses provides that.
- Your customer service has been criticized. It’s not a skill everyone has, but answering services for small businesses provide professional agents trained in customer experience.
- Your resources are too limited for your requirements. Hiring in-house receptionists may be too expensive, but your current staff is already busy. In this case, affordable answering services for small businesses can help.
Top 15 answering services for small businesses
We’ve outlined the most popular answering services for small businesses that you can look into this 2024.
1. AnswerConnect
Pricing: Get a free quote on their website
AnswerConnect keeps your business human with 24/7 live answering. They aim for a more personalized experience with their services.
Through this answering service for small businesses, you can keep your operations running every day of the year. Your customers will appreciate the availability, and it opens more sales opportunities.
AnswerConnect works with you to build responses to customer inquiries. Afterward, you’ll receive notifications of the call interactions so you can stay in control.
2. VoiceNation
Pricing:
- Lite: $30/month
- Basic: $59/month
- Business: $115/month
- Pro: $279/month
- Executive: $499/month
VoiceNation employs a 100% American workforce for their callers and enjoys a position as a top answering service for small business in America. Supported by custom scripts, their live agents always add a personal touch.
Customers may also download the VoiceNation mobile app to better track calls and data for seamless mobile connectivity.
3. RingCentral
Pricing:
- Essentials: $19.99/user/month
- Standard: $27.99/user/month
- Premium: $34.99/user/month
- Ultimate: $49.99/user/month
RingCentral is a leading business cloud phone system. From a single app, you get a world-class cloud phone system.
This answering service for small businesses is easy to use and comes with advanced features. Use interactive voice response (IVR), call queues, and built-in multi-site support to manage unique needs.
4. Abby Connect
Pricing:
- 100 Receptionist Minutes: $299/month
- 200 Receptionist Minutes: $549/month
- 500 Receptionist Minutes: $1199/month
Convert more callers into customers through Abby Connect’s professional live receptionist team.
The best answering service for small businesses has customized customer experiences. Abby Connect offers this personalized solution for every type of business.
With its strong focus on extensive training, customer service, and focus on happiness, Abby Connect is dedicated to standing out.
5. Ruby Receptionists
Pricing:
- Call Ruby 50: $230/month
- Call Ruby 100: $365/month
- Call Ruby 200: $660/month
- Call Ruby 500: $1595/month
Ruby believes that every conversation is a business opportunity. They help you make the most of it with human-powered virtual receptionists and live chat solutions.
Their answering service for small businesses is flexible enough to adapt to your business needs. Their teams act as extensions of yours, 24/7, invested in your long-term success.
6. PATLive
Pricing:
- Basic: $59/month
- Starter: $199/month
- Standard: $349/month
- Pro: $799/month
- Pro+: $1279/month
PATLive has over 30 years of experience as an answering service for small businesses. Across the US, they offer trusted solutions for growing companies.
PATLive has worked hard to build an answering service with robust capabilities to allow its receptionists to work seamlessly with your business.
They even have an extensive suite of integrations so that you can adjust operations quickly.
7. Davinci Virtual
Pricing:
- Business 50: $129/month
- Business 100: $239/month
- Premium 50: $249/month
- Premium 100: $319/month
While primarily a provider of virtual office space, Davinci Virtual also offers answering services for small businesses. Add a professional voice to your calls with their solutions.
First impressions count, so Davinci ensures their agents are intelligent, friendly, and available when you need them. They provide call routing, voicemail management, and even bilingual receptionists.
8. Go Answer
Pricing: Get a free quote on their website
Go Answer specifically caters its answering service for small businesses. They empower your company with a team of virtual receptionists to handle calls, emails, texts, and virtual messages.
Go Answer’s all-in-one service offers a 30-day risk-free trial, HIPAA compliance for healthcare, 24/7/365 bilingual options, free access to their app, and the fastest pickup times in the industry.
9. AnswerFirst
Pricing:
- Pricing starts at $30/month, per minute rate decreases as usage increases
AnswerFirst is dedicated to creating a work environment that empowers its employees. This, in turn, leads to exceptional customer experience for their thousands of calling clients.
They provide a 24/7 live answering service for small businesses, with 100% US-based staff. AnswerFirst is the perfect partner for handling overflow and special projects.
10. Vonage
Pricing:
- € 0.0127/minute for Voice accounts
Vonage connects your employees from everywhere to power your customer experiences. Their Business Communication platform also serves as an answering service for small businesses.
Utilize a Vonage virtual receptionist for customized call routing. You can set up their schedule and ensure calls are never missed.
11. Answering Service Care
Pricing:
- Starter: $49/month for 30 minutes
- Small Business: $149/month for 100 minutes
- Pro: $249/month for 250 minutes
- Enterprise: $529/month for 500 minutes
Answering Service Care is an efficient US-based answering service for small businesses. You can have the system set up in a day, and you’re not trapped in a long-term contract.
This answering service for small businesses outshines its competition by offering multiple features.
Answering Service Care’s team schedules your appointments, records calls, conducts email marketing, integrates with Salesforce, and even offers custom on-hold music.
12. MAP Communications
Pricing:
- Pay-As-You-Go: $47/month
- Business: $177/month for 125 minutes
- Enterprise: $296/month for 225 minutes
MAP Communications serves answering services to businesses of every size, helping small businesses grow and enterprises maintain quality.
Eliminate hold times and voicemail reliance, and benefit from their free online tools and reporting. MAP Communications works closely with you to customize your customer service accordingly.
13. AnswerForce
Pricing: Get a free quote on their website
AnswerForce’s answering service for small businesses includes a tech stack in all plans. Their tools are designed to grow and scale your organization.
AnswerForce equips your company with a range of services, including 24/7 call answering, live chat, appointment setting, bilingual call handling, and sales software integration.
14. Specialty Answering Service
Pricing:
- Economy: $34/month
- 100 Minutes: $128/month
- 220 Minutes: $219/month
- 500 Minutes: $539/month
- 1000 Minutes: $999/month
- 2500 Minutes: $2400/month
- 5000 Minutes: $4599/month
- 10,000 Minutes: $8599/month
Specialty Answering Service (SAS) has an answering service for small businesses that combines all your work communications with excellent virtual receptionists.
SAS brings 30 years of experience in the industry. Their 24-hour live operator availability and dynamic software integrations have made them one of the best answering services for small businesses.
15. Nextiva
Pricing:
- Essential: $18.95/user/month
- Professional: $22.95/user/month
- Enterprise: $32.95/user/month
Nextiva provides a complete communication system for growing your small business. The platform is very friendly to non-technical owners tired of juggling multiple applications.
Their answering service for small businesses contains VoIP phone numbers, voicemail, call recording, and other great phone service features on a budget.
Nextiva gives you the right tools to optimize call management for stronger customer satisfaction.
Does your small business need an answering service?
The main advantage of using an answering service for small businesses is that it frees up time for them to focus on other tasks. Interacting with customers and running the business itself require more personal attention.
If you’re a small business with few employees or limited resources, an answering service will benefit you.
If you’re still considering, here are a few questions to ponder:
- What type of business do you run? Personal service calls can make or break your business depending on how high-touch it is.
- Do you have the budget for a full-time or even part-time employee to handle all incoming calls?
- When your regular employees are out of the office, what will your plan be for receiving calls?
- What times and days do your calls tend to come in? When is the volume of calls the heaviest?
- What are your long-term goals for gaining and retaining clients and customers?
References:
[1.] Human touch. Følstad, A. and Skjuve, M., 2019, August. Chatbots for customer service: user experience and motivation. In Proceedings of the 1st international conference on conversational user interfaces (pp. 1-9).
[2.] Growing technologies. Hoyer, W.D., Kroschke, M., Schmitt, B., Kraume, K. and Shankar, V., 2020. Transforming the customer experience through new technologies. Journal of interactive marketing, 51(1), pp.57-71.
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