The Highest Quality Telephone Answering Service in the United States

Centratel

Telephone Answering Service

Veterinary Answering Service

Save Time, Save Animals: How Centratel’s Veterinary Answering Service Makes a Difference

September 28, 2023
Veterinary
By Centratel

In the bustling realm of veterinary care, where split-second decisions make the difference between life and death, streamlined communication is paramount. From neurological emergencies to the strain of client relations, clinics tackle multifaceted challenges daily. When seconds count, professionals don’t have the luxury to grapple with operational mishaps. This is where Centratel’s veterinary answering service steps in, offering a lifeline that ensures veterinary experts remain focused on what they do best: saving animals.

Responding to Neurological Emergencies

Emergencies involving the nervous system—seizures, paralysis, tremors—require swift action. Delays or misunderstandings in relaying such critical information can spell doom.

Seamless Communication: Centratel ensures that your urgent neurological cases are swiftly communicated. With our 24/7 answering service, clients are guaranteed authentic human engagement, sans the inaccuracies that often accompany AI-driven systems. These genuine interactions ensure that vital details of the emergency remain uncompromised.

Urgency Over Interruptions: Through predetermined screening criteria, Centratel filters the wheat from the chaff, ensuring that non-urgent inquiries don’t eclipse the emergencies. This commitment ensures that critical neurological issues aren’t drowned in a sea of routine calls. Your staff remains informed and ready to tackle emergencies, unhindered.

Navigating the Maze of Client Relations

The bond between pet owners and their cherished animals is profound. Veterinarians understand this relationship’s intensity, often navigating a terrain rife with emotion, anxiety, and expectations.

Clear and Predictable Costs: Centratel’s fixed fee per call and monthly billing cycle ensure that clinics can communicate billing information to their clients transparently. Without the concern of a hidden 13th statement or unpredicted costs, clinics can manage client expectations effectively. Interested in our billing details? Discover more on our specialized service page.

Call-TSR Dialogue Reviews: At times, misunderstandings occur. By recording every client call, Centratel provides an invaluable resource for clinics to revisit conversations, ensuring that they remain on the same page with pet owners. WAV files of these discussions provide a foundation for transparency, quelling potential misinterpretations.

Overcoming Operational Challenges

Veterinary clinics, whether tending to feline, canine, or equine patients, are intricate operations where multiple gears turn in tandem. Operational disruptions, therefore, can be catastrophic.

Human Engagement Over AI: While the world rushes towards automation, Centratel champions the irreplaceable value of human touch. By eschewing AI technology for call handling, we ensure that the nuances, subtleties, and emotions conveyed by clients aren’t lost. For veterinary clinics, this means an unhindered flow of accurate information.

Online Access to Message History: Operational efficiency thrives on easy access to data. Centratel grants clinics online access to their message history, eliminating the need for cumbersome phone calls or staff inquiries. With this feature, whether it’s a question on orthopedics or ophthalmology, clinics can swiftly access past communications.

A Call to Action

In the realm of veterinary care, where radiology meets reproductive services and geriatric care intertwines with behavior counseling, clear communication remains paramount. Centratel’s answering service for small businesses is not just about answering calls—it’s about understanding the intricacies of veterinary care, saving time, and ultimately, saving animals.

Eager to explore how Centratel can augment your veterinary clinic’s communication? Seek a tailored solution and request a price quote. Your clinic’s mission is to focus on both small and large animals, let Centratel focus on ensuring your lines of communication remain impeccable.With a legacy spanning four decades, Centratel remains committed to impeccable service. From bovine to avian and dermatology to nutrition counseling, trust us to resonate with your clinic’s unique challenges and aspirations. Dive deeper, explore, and let’s embark on this journey together, ensuring that every call becomes a step towards saving another cherished life.

Image by Freepik

A Telephone Answering Service Representative taking calls at Centratel

Centratel is an elite national telephone answering service located in Bend, Oregon. Centratel’s Veterinary Answering Service assists hundreds of veterinary businesses during and after-hours, throughout the United States and is, by a variety of statistics, the highest quality answering service available among the approximately 800 services nationwide.

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.)