The Highest Quality Telephone Answering Service in the United States

Centratel

Telephone Answering Service

Trade Service Answering Service for Contractors

Improving Productivity and Client Satisfaction with Centratel’s Answering Service

October 4, 2023
Trade Service
By Centratel

Navigating the world of trade services isn’t merely about ensuring timely repairs or installations; it encompasses managing countless emergencies, addressing real-time challenges, and, above all, delivering impeccable service. Amidst these vast responsibilities, one tool emerges as a quiet workhorse in driving efficiency and augmenting client satisfaction – an answering service. Here, we delve into how Centratel, the paragon of answering services, plays a pivotal role in transforming the landscape of trade services.

Emergencies: The Unanticipated Disruptors

A day in the life of trade service professionals is fraught with potential emergencies. How these are addressed can be the defining line between a thriving business and a crumbling one.

Equipment Breakdown: A Silent Productivity Killer

Every piece of equipment has its day of reckoning. When machinery falters, it’s not just the equipment at stake, but ongoing projects, client trust, and looming deadlines. With Centratel’s 24/7 answering service, the moment a piece of equipment shows signs of failure, technicians are alerted, and preventative measures are activated. This proactive approach not only salvages the situation but protects the business’s reputation. More about our streamlined alerts on our trade service specific page.

Hazardous Material Spills: Averting Potential Catastrophes

In the realm of trade services, dealing with hazardous materials is commonplace. A spill or mishap can spell disaster. Centratel’s system ensures that, in the face of such emergencies, relevant safety protocols are communicated, and clean-up crews dispatched with alacrity.

Data Loss or Corruption: Guarding the Intellectual Arsenal

For a trade service business, data isn’t just numbers. It’s client information, project specifics, inventory details, and a cache of intellectual property. A breach or data corruption can be debilitating. Centratel acts as an early warning system, ensuring immediate action, be it in the form of data retrieval or breach containment.

Challenges: The Daily Dance

Beyond emergencies, daily challenges are the rhythm to which every trade service business moves.

Skilled Labor Shortage: Navigating the Human Resource Conundrum

In a sector where expertise translates to quality, a shortage of skilled labor can cripple productivity. Centratel’s answering services, with their swift communication protocols, ensure that project managers are kept abreast of staffing needs, allowing for timely interventions and strategic reallocation of resources.

Regulatory Compliance: Staying a Step Ahead

With regulations being a dynamic entity, staying compliant is like hitting a moving target. Missing an update can have dire consequences. Through Centratel’s professional answering service, businesses are ensured timely notifications about changes, ensuring they’re always in the regulatory green zone.

Cash Flow Management: The Lifeblood of Operations

Managing the ebb and flow of finances is crucial. Unexpected expenses can disrupt even the most well-planned budgets. Centratel’s meticulous communication mechanisms ensure that financial teams are instantly informed of any deviations, allowing for nimble financial recalibrations.

Centratel: The Unseen Pillar of Trade Services

For trade service businesses, every call is a symphony of challenges, emergencies, opportunities, and solutions. Centratel’s answering services stand as a steadfast pillar, ensuring that no call goes unanswered, no emergency unattended, and no challenge unaddressed. By aligning processes, enhancing communication, and elevating service standards, Centratel is the unsung hero, driving businesses forward. To explore how we can be your strategic partner, do visit our price-quote page for a bespoke solution.

As trade service professionals grapple with the manifold challenges of maintenance, repair, and installation, amid unforeseen emergencies, it becomes imperative to have robust support systems in place. Centratel’s unwavering commitment to excellence, genuine human engagement, and unparalleled efficiency ensures that businesses are not just equipped to manage the present, but are future-ready. Every call answered, every emergency addressed, and every challenge met head-on – that’s the Centratel promise.

Image by pressfoto on Freepik

A Telephone Answering Service Representative taking calls at Centratel

Centratel is an elite national telephone answering service headquartered in Bend, Oregon. Centratel’s Trade Service Answering Service assists hundreds of businesses, during and after-hours. By a variety of statistics, Centratel is the highest quality answering service available anywhere.

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
December 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 (July through September, 2024) was 1 customer-reported error for every 6,077 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. 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 get expensive.

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.

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 others charge by “work 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.

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 5th edition. We’ll send you a copy just for contacting us. (Sam is the founder and President of Centratel. December 1st 2024 marks his fortieth year of ownership.)