FAQ

Between 9am-11am and 2pm-4pm. Our peak calling times are early in the morning, during lunch hours and after 4:30pm when clients’ offices are closed. If you call during our peak calling times, our service to your callers and other accounts is degraded since a Telephone Receptionist is taken out of call rotation updating your account. A better alternative is to fax us your on-call list each week or month.

Call forwarding is a feature of your phone service from your telephone company, usually AT&T, Century Link, Verizon or Comcast. Here are the two most popular types of call forwarding.

Call forward busy or don’t answer:

Calls are automatically transferred to Business Connections when all of your lines are busy, or after a preset number of rings. (+) Everything is automatic. You never need to activate or deactivate call forwarding. If all of your lines are in use, calls will be transferred to Business Connections. A GREAT way to prepare for a disaster (i.e. contractor digs up your phone line, Ice Storm, Earthquake, Wind Storm, Tornado or Flood eliminates electricity at your office)…remember multi-line phone systems need electricity to operate. If the above disaster occurs your phones will still be answered 24 hours a day by a Helpful Human at Business Connections since the call forwards to us after the 3rd ring and this is done at the phone company central office.
(–) Unanswered calls will ring three to four times at your office before transferring to Business Connections. If you’re in a meeting and don’t want to answer your phone, the calls may disrupt the meeting, since you’ll hear the phone ringing before it transfers to Business Connections.

Variable call forwarding:

Allows you to choose a number to which all incoming calls will be directed. Once this feature is activated, you cannot answer calls. When activated, multiple calls can be answered by Business Connections, even if you only have a single telephone line. (+) Calls are immediately transferred to the answering service; therefore, your customers are greeted A.S.A.P…fewer rings means better service. (–) You need to remember to activate and deactivate call forwarding whenever you leave your home or office.

For more information, please check out our Call Forwarding page.

Call and ask for Dirk or Stuart. We can also run detailed statistics on any call providing us with the following data:

How many times your phone rang before we answered, if the call was put on hold, total hold time, total time we spoke with the caller, amount of time taken to contact on-call people, what time we answered the call and what time the call was delivered, etc.

Yes. Any activity on your line is counted as a call (i.e. calling emergency messages to on-call personnel, paging, giving out information to the caller, etc…). Even though you’re not getting a message, your caller is provided personalized service, which generates work for the Telephone Receptionist.

Our goal is to answer your telephone within the third ring or less. We achieve this goal within a 95% confidence level every day. Another statistic we look at each day is how many calls do we put on hold.

Staffing enough people at the right time is the key to success. Every day we print out a graph that shows the number of calls we took in 30-minute increments and we are able to forecast our staffing requirements for the next day. We utilize the fastest, most state-of-the-art equipment and employ 28 Telephone Receptionists. During the last 15 years our Telephone Receptionists increased productivity 63% due to new technologies, and we’re providing much better service to your callers today.

We’ve designed the call center to minimize background noise. Each Telephone Receptionist uses a special noise-canceling microphone on his/her headset – when he/she isn’t speaking and is listening to the caller, the microphone automatically stops transmitting.

There are four methods for receiving your messages:

1 Receive your text messages to your Mobile Phone. After our telephone secretary has completed taking the message from the caller, he/she enters another keystroke and sends your complete text message. We can also send a copy to your office e-mail address. You benefit because you can immediately review your detailed message and decide exactly what response is appropriate without calling in. Beat your competition by responding to new business immediately.

2) Email Messages – your messages can be delivered to you via Email. You may use this service as your primary message retrieval method, or to simply have back-up copies of your messages archived at your location on your PC.

3) Fax Messages – copies of your messages are faxed to you at a set time each day.

4) Call in at your convenience and listen to messages from voice mail. Benefits – you can call from any telephone and listen to your messages, and the secretary who takes the message also delivers it…better accuracy and detail.

If the On-call person doesn’t answer his mobile phone or confirm receipt of a text message, we set a “timer” on the message to alert the receptionist to take further action if the On-call person hasn’t checked in after a preset time (usually 10, 15 or 20 minutes).  Further action might entail attempting to reach the On-call person again and if still no answer, then to move on to a Back-up person.

YES! This is very popular. You know more about your business than anyone, but if you’re not available to talk with the caller, Business Connections operators are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Callers are greeted by our voice mail system and press Zero if the call is urgent.

Example greeting… “Thank you for calling XYZ company. Your call is very important. If you need immediate assistance, please press Zero and you’ll be transferred
to our 24-hour telephone receptionist. Otherwise leave your name, telephone number and detailed message and we’ll return your call during regular business hours.”

The caller presses Zero and is immediately connected to our Telephone Receptionist. “Good Evening XYZ Company”. The Telephone Receptionist takes the caller’s name, telephone number and detailed message and contacts the On-call person for
XYZ Company.

We have a back-up battery system that is connected to a generator. Once a week the generator automatically runs for 20 minutes to exercise the starter and engine. The generator can run for over a week before needing refueling. For those clients who manually activate their call forwarding, it would be wise to also subscribe from your local phone company to “Call Forward Don’t Answer”.

In the event of a power outage at your location, your phone system may not operate. With the use of both types of call forwarding you can manually activate or deactivate call forwarding; in the event of a power outage the “Call Forward Don’t Answer” would automatically transfer calls to Business Connections after a preset number of rings.

To add “Call Forward Don’t Answer”, contact your phone company (i.e. AT&T, Century Link, Verizon or Comcast).

Yes, all our workstations are Web Enabled. We have several accounts where we enter the orders directly on their web site. It’s also helpful for the Telephone Receptionists to see pictures of what the caller has questions about.

Yes, we offer a 7-day free trial for prospective new customers evaluating our services for the first time. This offers a no-obligation way to try our services, no credit card or deposit required.