The Highest Quality Telephone Answering Service in the United States

Centratel

Telephone Answering Service

A property manager meeting people with the help of his telephone answering service

The Answering Service: Enhancing the Property Manager’s Bottom Line

September 10, 2021
Property Management
By Sam Carpenter

It’s a no-brainer: to grow, and yes, to show a great bottom-line, property management companies must always be reachable. 24/7/365.

Partnering with an elite-quality answering service provides valuable assistance in numerous critical service areas. So, what exactly can a telephone answering service do for your property management business, and why should you consider using one? And if you’re already using one, ask yourself this question: today, am I truly satisfied with my service? Keep this question in mind as you read about all the ways an elite-quality answering service can positively impact your business.

A Telephone Answering Service operator smiling while helping the Property Manager
  1. Provide complete call coverage during the day when staff is busy showing properties, meeting with vendors, or investigating on-site issues. No incoming calls will ever be missed or go to voicemail…and urgent calls can be instantly delivered to management/administrative staff no matter where they are or what they are doing.
  2. Process after-hours calls to provide “front office” quality call coverage when office staff (or the Property Manager) are not working. This includes screening for emergency maintenance issues, handling lock outs, taking referrals, and more.
  3. Screen and dispatch emergency maintenance Issues. Urgent maintenance messages will be dispatched in an escalated fashion ensuring timely and accurate message delivery to the right people for their immediate response. Non-urgent maintenance callers can be screened with the information stored for later delivery. No more at-home fielding of non-urgent calls at 11:00PM because there is no way to determine who is calling and what they are calling about.
  4. Dispatching security issues, noise complaints, etc. that fall outside the scope of the management business. These issues can be handled immediately and transparently by referring or transferring the caller to onsite security, the police department, and others.
  5. Untangling corporate messaging complexity: Multiple properties with multiple on-call personnel? No problem. Messages from callers of various properties can be triaged to different property managers or on-all personnel with ease.

It really is a simple thing. Your property management business is a 24/7/365 operation. Someone has to be available to take calls. After-hours, is this person too often you, the property management company manager or owner? Across the United States, elite-quality answering services handle a limited number of vertical markets, with property management companies perhaps the most numerous.

Give Centratel a call for more information, or check our online information here.

A Telephone Answering Service Representative taking calls at Centratel

Centratel is an elite national telephone answering service headquartered in Bend, Oregon. Across the United States, Centratel’s Property Management Answering Service assists hundreds of property management operations handle overflow calls, screen after-hours inquiries, capture leads, and forward calls. Whether you’re managing rental homes, renting out apartments, managing an HOA or operating a senior living facility, an elite-quality property management answering service such as Centratel is the ideal solution. Call us today. Your first 30 days are free.

Taking the Next Step

For more specifics on cost, to start the onboarding process, or if you have questions, 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
March 1, 2025

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 brand new relationship—you and Centratel—plenty of 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 can 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 (October through December, 2024) was 1 customer-reported error for every 5,470 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, often foreign-owned multi-nationals, 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 will be instantly acted upon. It’s a work ethic that stands in stark contrast to the general quality decline in human-to-human business-customer communications nowadays. You’ve seen it yourself, all around. At Centratel you will know by name the customer service people you’re working with, appreciating their special listening abilities as well as their take-action-now comportment. 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 and/or cost problems. However, if you have not used a service before, you are not familiar with the options, benefits, and pitfalls. 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 $100 per month, our rates lie in the mid-range of the industry. Note that we charge by the “transaction unit” rather than the duration of time spent handling calls. Large “mega-services” operating in the U.S. prefer time billing because it ensures the company is compensated for lower-paid/high-turnover — and thus slower — agents. No matter the quality or how long they keep your callers on hold, they still make a profit. And yes, it can also get expensive, especially if caller on-hold time is also billed.

In any answering service, it takes a long time for a new agent to become fast, efficient, and stable. At Centratel, we pamper and reward experienced agents (via higher pay and great benefits) and therefore have extremely low staff turnover. Needless to say, experienced agents make fewer errors than trainees who learn on-the-job. And, transaction-unit billing is easy to understand. There is no room for fraudulence as in time-billing. We can easily document and explain any monthly billing we send you.

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 agent “time” while a few still charge by “transaction units. Some 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. With Centratel you get 30-days.

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 don’t ask for a term contract for service because you should be able 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 just released in its 5th edition. We’ll send you a copy just for contacting us. (Sam is Centatel’s (very active) CEO. December 1st 2024 marked his fortieth year of ownership.)