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Communications Protocol for the Traveler

March 31, 2013
Answering Service
By Sam Carpenter

You are the one with the great lifestyle but, on the road, lousy interpersonal communication with those back home will compromise everything you have accomplished. Be cavalier about it and you will lose your colleagues and your customers. Because you are on-the-fly and often in different time zones, it’s up to you to make up for the obvious negatives: When traveling, you are not available for one-on-one/face-to-face conversations and therefore you have a substantial decrease in office-cachet. (It’s amazing how much blame one can receive when not available in the flesh to defend oneself.) And, more to the heart of the challenge, it’s just more difficult to coordinate with those rooted in their home turf. You must counter these deficits by being a hyper-proactive communicator.

These guidelines suit the office-bound too. I recommend you share these parameters with your co-workers and customers. This list can serve as the basis for a “contract for communication” in which all parties understand the expectations of everyone else. Tweak it to suit your particular needs…and especially remember to see your communication process as a recurring system that will improve with time if you use glitches as red flags for improvement. -sc

  1. Clearly inform your colleagues/clients back home of your limitations and expectations. They have agreed to deal with you despite your traveling lifestyle but must know your patterns in order to know what to expect. Be upfront.
  2. Back-home business associates will naturally assume the worst if there is little contact. So, think “frequent communication equals good communication,” and “quantity as well as quality.” Anyone who has extensively traveled knows that distracting time-sucking glitches are numerous and unexpected. Check in with those back home with frequent “all is OK” messages even if things aren’t exactly perfect on your end. (Assuming the worst is actually a very useful management/defensive positioning).
  3. Most people in the western world expect business to happen between 8-5 Monday thru Friday. For you, working at night may be the price-to-be-paid.
  4. Keep colleagues posted regarding your location. It helps them gauge things. Back-home people envy your traveling and want to know you are OK. Let them know the time/day difference: “I’m in Hong Kong and 12 hours ahead of you.” Remember that the international dateline confuses things for most people who don’t travel.
  5. POS (point of sale): Return calls and messages ASAP.
  6. It’s OK to not have an instant answer to every question, but immediately indicate to the other party when you will have an answer.
  7. Do what you say you are going to do.
  8. Make meeting deadlines a quest. If something comes up which is going to prevent a deadline from being met, warn colleagues/clients beforehand. In giving this alert, set another deadline and then, no matter what, meet it.
  9. In any context, always remember your client or vendor hates prodding you. Be proactive. Stay ahead of things. If you are consistently being nudged to perform, the relationship is doomed.
  10. From the beginning, get clear about who is in charge of what.
  11. Avoid emails that scold. Take care of sensitive issues in one-on-one telephone conversations so people can defend themselves or argue a point real-time.
  12. Use voicemail for longer, drawn-out explanations or messages in which you must convince someone of something. The human voice is a very good thing.
  13. Give more info than is required. No one can mind-read. Too much info is better than too little.
  14. Poor communication can ruin relationships. Note the “Communication Formula for Success or Failure.” This equation compares one’s effectiveness to others who provide the same service. Let’s say you are better at what you do than 95% of your competitors(X), but you are average (50%) in your communications quality(Y) because of your traveling. Multiply X by Y and you find you are at less than 50% effectiveness compared to your back-home competitors. (It will be hopeless if you aren’t very good at what you do. Stay home and work in an office. For you, the mobile lifestyle is not going to work long-term).
  15. If a communication error occurs, it should not happen again. Slipups must not accumulate like toxic waste. Combat this by using errors as prompts for incremental system improvement.
  16. Know that if you really “get” the systems strategies for operating your business or job (see Work the System, Part 1), you will find most problems will be system-problems, not people-problems.

Taking the Next Step

For more specifics on cost, to start the onboarding process, or to just talk to us, fill out this form with your basic information and if it’s during regular working hours (M-F 8am to 8pm EST or 5am to 5pm PST), we’ll get back to you within minutes. Or, during the above hours, you can simply call us at 800-664-7159 or send us an email to inquiry@centratel.com.

(And note: for a quick orientation on how we operate, take a moment to review one or more of the key points listed below.)

For more specifics on cost, to start the onboarding process, or to just talk to us, fill out this form with your basic information and if it’s during regular working hours (M-F 8am to 8pm EST or 5am to 5pm PST), we’ll get back to you within minutes. Or, during the above hours, you can simply call us at 800-664-7159 or send us an email to inquiry@centratel.com.

(And note: for a quick orientation on how we operate, take a moment to review one or more of the key points listed on the right.)

Terms of Service

Why Choose Centratel

BY SAM CARPENTER
September 1, 2024

1.CENTRATEL’S UNIQUE 30-DAY FREE TRIAL

Why is this important? Because it will provide you a truly accurate estimate of cost (we bill monthly), it will demonstrate our quality, and it gives both sides of this equation—you and Centratel—the necessary time to refine and perfect operational details.

Here’s a testimonial from a new medical client that had just finished their 30-day trial: “Of course, I love the cost as it is close to the amount I was allowed by the president of the company. I told him that if we did not continue with Centratel, I would resign as the Director of Customer Service, and I meant it. It’s a great fit. We have had NOT ONE complaint from a patient or in-house which, as you know, we received daily with our former answering service. I love you, Centratel, and the price. I’m ready to sign whatever documents you require. Thanks for the great service, and the free month! To a great partnership! -KB, Phoenix“

2.STATISTICALLY, THE BEST IN THE U.S.?

Answering service quality is 100% dependent on human action and reaction, and in the course of a single day a multitude of human decisions are made by the people who process the calls: Telephone Service Representatives, or TSRs. (Some answering services refer to them as “agents.” Others, “operators.”)

Like any other answering service, at Centratel we’re dealing with real live human beings and so human errors occur. But within this labor intensive service industry that is historically known for marginal quality, Centratel’s error rate is light years ahead of established standards. Our most recent Customer Reported Error Rate (April through June, 2024) was 1 customer-reported error for every 6,491 message transactions processed. That statistic is unmatched.

There’s no artificial intelligence manipulation, we do not offshore calls, and we were founded and have always operated within the United States. (Note that since early 2020, the COVID six-foot social distancing mandate drove thousands of small-to-medium sized answering services out of business. Large, foreign-owned multi-nationals, often disguised by the name of the local answering services they acquired, now thoroughly dominate the industry. Hence, an even further decline in general service quality. See this analysis.)

3.CUSTOMER SERVICE EXTRAORDINAIRE

Your concerns and requests will be instantly acted upon. It’s a work ethic that stands out in stark contrast from the general quality decline in human-to-human business-customer communications. You’ve seen it yourself, all around. At Centratel you will know the customer service people you’re working with by name, appreciating their special listening abilities as well as their take-action-now comportments i.e. see the testimonial in point #1 above. ‘Nuff said!

4.GETTING STARTED: IT’S SIMPLE AND FAST

Getting your new Centratel answering service 30-day free trial started is accomplished within 24-48 hours. From the start, your “onboarding” customer service representative will be with you every step of the way, listening carefully to your concerns, answering questions, and offering suggestions.

5.NEW TO USING AN ANSWERING SERVICE?

A majority of our current answering service accounts switched to us from another service because of quality problems. However, if you have not used a service before, you are not familiar with the options, benefits, and pitfalls. As noted, our 30-day free trial provides you—and us—plenty of time to precisely refine your desired message-taking and delivery protocols; to get things exactly the way you want them to be without any financial risk, undue pressure, or obligation. 

6.PRICING

Starting at $89 per month, our rates rank in the mid-range of the industry. For call processing, we charge by the “transaction unit” rather than the duration of time spent handling calls. The three “mega-services” in operation in the U.S. prefer time billing because it ensures the company is compensated for lower-paid/high-turnover —and thus slower— agents. In any answering service, it takes a long time for a new agent to become fast, efficient, and stable. At Centratel, we have always sought to retain experienced agents (via higher pay and great benefits) and, therefore, engender low staff turnover. Needless to say, experienced agents make fewer errors than trainees who learn on-the-job.

7.ACCURATELY COMPARING ANSWERING SERVICE PRICING IS COMPLICATED

It’s apples and oranges. There isn’t an industry standard for billing, and each answering service has its own formula. Also, as noted above, some services charge by “time” while others charge by “work units.” Others combine the two. At Centratel, we charge for the work we do, not by the time we spend. The raw truth is that the only reliable way to determine monthly cost for a new service is to use that service for a solid month. Most answering services offer a 7-day free trial or no trial at all.

8.BEWARE: MONTHLY OR 28-DAY BILLING?

Important! At Centratel, we use a “monthly” billing cycle in which invoices are compiled from the first day of a month to the last day of that month. When soliciting quotes from other services, be sure to ask if the base-rate charges are billed monthly or on a “28-day billing cycle.” There is no good reason for a 28-day billing cycle! It’s bait-and-switch: customers billed on a 28-day cycle actually receive thirteen billings per year and therefore the overall cost is higher.

9.NO CONTRACT AND SIMPLE TERMS OF SERVICE

We do not require a yearly contract for service because we believe you should have the opportunity to evaluate us real-time, without restraint. Our terms of service are simple and straight-forward.

10.VALUABLE FREE GIFT FOR CONTACTING US

If you take the time to discuss answering service with us, on the same day we will ship you a hardcover copy of Sam Carpenter’s bestselling book, Work The System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less, now in its 4th edition…but soon to be released in a 5th edition (August 2024). We’ll send you a copy of this 5th edition, too, when it’s released. (Sam is the founder and President of Centratel. December 1st 2024 marks his fortieth year of ownership.)