Action Plan

Determine Your Service Packages and Billing Rates:

In determining what to charge your clients for providing them with telephone answering service (TAS), the first step is to know what your competition offers and what they charge.  Sometimes this information is readily available in their brochures or websites.  Often it is harder to come by.  If you need to dig for this information, exercise great care so that you don't do anything unethical or illegal.

Knowing what services are currently being offered, provides you with the basis for what you will need to offer.  Try to match or surpass your competition; never off less.  Often the services offered are a function of the answering service equipment that they own, so this list of services, will later become your "shopping list" when you buy TAS equipment.

When it comes to determining your answering service rates and fees, determine how you want to be perceived in the marketplace (premium provider, competitive, or low-cost solution). 

Bare in mind that virtually all start-up answering services dramatically underestimate what it costs to run their business and therefore drastically undercharge.  This hurts both the industry and the answering service.

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