Virtual Offices
AnswerNow Offers Answers for Downsized Companies
Published January 29th, 2009 by Jennifer LeClaire
Here’s another take on virtual offices: telemessaging services.
AnswerNow is pushing that take on the masses. The company is playing off unemployment figures – the rate recently reached 7.2 percent, the highest it’s been in about 16 years – to communicate the benefits of its virtual office services.
As AnswerNow sees it, the bleeding job market not only affects workers – it also affects the ability of businesses to get their work done. AnswerNow figures companies need extra help despite the layoffs – even because of layoffs – and is looking to get a foot in the door with its telemessaging services.
“If businesses can’t handle their existing call load because they’re short-staffed due to the economy, they may not be able to meet customer demand,” says AnswerNow President Margo Soll Weiss.
“Without outsourced services to handle call overflows, companies can lose potential customers. Lost customers can mean lost profits, which makes it difficult for the business to grow and recover from economic difficulties,” he continues. “Virtual office services, like handling overflow calls, can make the difference between a company’s ability to thrive rather than simply survive.”
Filling the Communications Gaps
That’s a dramatic outlook on the situation. But there’s some truth it in. Telemessaging services can certainly help companies fill the personnel gaps through answering services and virtual call centers, often at a fraction of the cost of a full-time employee.
AnswerNow is not just targeting corporations that have downsized. The company is also focusing on home-based business with “virtual company representatives” for entrepreneurs that don’t want to accept business calls during off-hours, as well as independent professionals that need to maximize their billable time by avoiding repetitive phone calls.
Specifically, AnswerNow’s customized virtual office solutions offer traditional answering service – dealing with 24-hour messaging, appointment scheduling, overflow calls, and emergency dispatch – or as more of a full-service call center – operating as a product hotline, help desk, live chat line, or order processing center. AnswerNow can also handle e-mail support inquiries for clients, and automated services such as voicemail, appointment reminders, and market surveys.
More About AnswerNow
But what about quality? AnswerNow promises fully-trained, qualified call center specialists. And what about the differentiation? It seems most virtual offices offer the same set of bullet-pointed benefits. One of the differences is AnswerNow a new kid on the block – and we’ve seen a lot of those in the past few months. The company claims more than 20 years of experience in the telemessaging services industry. AnswerNow also says it can relate to small business owners because it has grown from a one-man shop to a 90-employee business.
AnswerNow serves clients like Pulte Homes, St. Joseph’s Hospital, Deer Valley Unified School District, Wow! Enterprises. The company also offers several strong case studies on its Web site if you want to get a better picture of how it is serving these and other clients. The prices aren’t listed on the website, so we’ll check on that and get back to you all when they get back to us.
Related posts:
- Phone.com Helps U.S. Companies Go Global So you want to do business overseas? Well, that doesn’t...
- Make sure to select the right virtual office service With today’s economic conditions, many businesses are looking for creative...
- xPert Office offers virtual collaboration tools It’s been said teamwork makes the dream work. Indeed, collaboration...
- Office space for the mobile professional Many executive office suite companies are pouring more focus into...
- Officescape focuses on virtual office technology I recently wrote about Worktopia and their simple application to...
- Is RingCentral Music to the Mobile Professional’s Ears? The virtual PBX business is growing more competitive – and...
- Global Virtual Office Solutions Sets Record Straight In an effort to demonstrate how virtual offices are making...
- GoVirtual Launches Virtual Office in D.C. Metro GoVirtual. It’s yet another new virtual office upstart. When I...
About the Author
Elizabeth Sanchez January 30th, 2009 at 4:06 am
I don’t hear the term telemessaging much anymore. That sort of shows how long AnswerNow has been around.
This virtual call center and virtual office provider has done some good work for some respected organizations. That’s always a good sign.
Jennifer LeClaire February 2nd, 2009 at 6:20 am
I promised pricing information for AnswerNow… I e-mailed the company about its virtual office solution, asking it to spell out the cost. Instead of replying, the company assigned me to a sales agent who continued to call and leave messages during the weekend.
To me, this is a major turnoff. I don’t want salesmen calling me all weekend, first of all. Second, if I was in the market for virtual office services, I wouldn’t want to deal with a company who couldn’t provide simple answers to simple questions via e-mail.
I still don’t have an answer on pricing. Perhaps if the salesman calls during business hours instead of on a Sunday morning, I’ll have better luck. Though my suspicion is I’ll get a long sales pitch with a lot of ‘it depends.’ I’ll keep you posted.
Elizabeth Sanchez February 2nd, 2009 at 8:47 am
That’s sort of ironic, no? The company’s name is AnswerNow, but they didn’t “answer you now.” Looks like they waited a couple of days and contacted you in a way you didn’t prefer. There’s a lesson here for virtual office providers – respond timely and according to the preferred means of communication the sender offered. If the sender e-mails, e-mail back unless otherwise instructed. It’s sort of difficult to understand why they would call and leave messages on the weekend, too. I guess, in one sense, this virtual office company is zealous. But we still don’t know the prices.
Maggie Correta February 3rd, 2009 at 5:19 am
Hmm. I am going to e-mail them to and see if they do the same thing to me. I guess the “call everybody multiple times” is one approach to selling virtual office services. It reminds me of the life insurance quote I put out on the Internet last year. 13 months later, the agents are still calling me.
Elizabeth is right. There is a lesson here. In the Internet age, when folks e-mail you about the price of a virtual office, they expect an e-mail answer, not a slew of phone calls trying to sell the benefits of the virtual office brand.
Marcus Hester February 4th, 2009 at 9:31 am
What struck me as a UVP for this virtual office provider was how they positioned the billable hours issue.
The story says, “The company is also focusing on home-based business with ‘virtual company representatives’ for entrepreneurs that don’t want to accept business calls during off-hours, as well as independent professionals that need to maximize their billable time by avoiding repetitive phone calls.”
I can relate to that and I’m sure it resonates with many other would-be virtual office users. I can’t tell you how many times I get interrupted with phone calls in the middle of an intense project. It can really throw you off track.
Melanie Jones February 5th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
AnswerNow seems to have a fitting name. Looks like if you want a virtual office provider that will answer every call, every time, this might be a good option. It’s funny to see how virtually every virtual office story is playing the economic angle. It’s a good hook, but ultimately it’s not a competitive differentiation.
AnswerNow Offers Multi-Lingual Call Service February 19th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
[...] no word on pricing from AnswerNow. This is the same company that I tried to get a response from a few weeks ago to no avail. Just repeated phone messages at [...]