1-800 Numbers & 24/7 Call Centers

Affordable Toll Free Call Centers. Do they exist?

[tomld2]

I would like to offer a 1-800 number strictly for ordering purchases for my buyers. But I as the sole employee of my business, am not around enough to run an effective call center.

Are there any affordable 24/7 call centers that take orders? The best rate I found was around $1 per minute, which when selling a $25-$50 product doesn't seem affordable. I would imagine calls would range from 2-10 minutes. Even at 5 minutes, that's 25% of the sale!

Any ideas for a more affordable solution?

Thanks!

Tom

[buzzmaster]

Somewhere between .75-1.00/min is the market rate. However, some answering services can cut that figure in half by sending calls overseas.

Alternatively you could use an automated component that either provides "boilerplate" before sending the call to live answering or performs an automated q&a that can email the order session to you via a .wav file.

[fabfurs]

I'm a small shop also, but I just can't give up getting all that first-hand feedback about my site while answering all the 1-800 calls.

[lukasz]

When I see 1800 number I am expecting that when I call, I will need to go through menu, making choices, pressing buttons for some time and then wait in a queue for some time. So I dont bother.