By now everyone has most likely heard about the biannual St. Joseph’s Health and Wealth Raffle, which has now become the largest raffle of its kind in the United States!  The Fall 2010 raffle has just begun, with the final draw entry deadline of September 23^rd. For $100, you are entered to win amazing prizes such as a Million Dollar Penthouse, or His and Her Mercedes plus $37,000 in cash, exotic vacations or even a road trip for two with the Phoenix Suns or Arizona Cardinals. This doesn’t even mention the THOUSANDS of other prizes you have a one in eighteen chance of winning! Proceeds from the tickets sold benefit programs and research at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Barrow Neurological Institute.

So How Does AnswerNow fit in?

We have been an integral part of the Health and Wealth Raffle since it was founded in 2003 by taking all calls at their 1-866-390-9034 number. AnswerNow is the voice and high-quality service behind the phone! We offer bilingual, around the clock service to their callers, having taken over 500,000 calls to date for the Health and Wealth Raffle since its inception. We train members of our team specifically on the Health and Wealth Raffle account so that we provide each donor with a warm and professional greeting, assisting them with any questions they have and also to help purchase their raffle tickets. Our service allows the organizers of the raffle to focus on other important duties pertaining to the event and also save them time, energy and the money it would cost to staff phone personal for these phone calls 24 hours a day – especially on high call volume days such as the Early Bird and Appreciation Cutoff. We are dedicated to this cause and believe in its purpose, which makes it that much easier to provide the quality customer care that is evident in AnswerNow’s fantastic team.

Since we believe so much in this cause, we encourage our readers to also become involved. You can learn more about the raffle at www.healthwealthraffle.org or call 1-866-390-9034 for any questions or to purchase your raffle tickets. We’d love to hear from you.

Let’s face it; the graveyard shift is not usually the most popular shift in the mix. Does your company have volunteers lining up at the door to answer those 2 AM phone calls? Probably not. However certain industries cannot avoid having this shift’s phones covered. Insurance companies can and will have people get in accidents at all hours. Retailers who run late night commercials need someone to be ready to answer the phones to respond to the midnight shopper.

Whatever your situation, the phone has to be answered, so why not leave it to the experts who are here around the clock? No need to hire or manage that graveyard shift! No more rotating schedules for your employees. No more having to worry about staffing your internal call center in the hours between 5 PM and 8 AM and having to pay higher wages for graveyard shifts. You can offer your staff better hours, while spending less time and money.

Not only can we handle your graveyard shifts, but we can also take calls for holidays, weekends, or whenever you need! A 24-hour service company can still offer their employees a Monday through Friday, 8 AM – 5 PM work week with the help of highly trained and professional answering service like AnswerNow.

Outsourcing your call center and customer service calls may just be the best idea an entrepreneur could have. It does not matter the size, age or revenue, every company can benefit from partnering with the right call center partner. More and more, small and medium sized businesses are realizing that outsourcing their call center will help grow their business quickly since you can focus on what you do best; business development and not answering day-to-day questions on the phone!

We Do More than Just Answer the Phone!

AnswerNow! can offer you a large selection of call center services to assist your business. We can take orders and even process orders after typical business hours. AnswerNow! also offers help desk and product help lines to answer customer questions before they order your product or service. Do you need assistance with appointment setting and reminders? AnswerNow! can not only handle your schedule and appointment book, but we can make sure your customers are reminded of their appointments and avoid no shows. Our services will give that final polish to your business that will keep your customers happy and give you an edge on your competition.

Professionalism is our Middle Name

AnswerNow! has a reputation for delivering quality, professional call center outsourcing services that will exceed our customers’ expectations. We train our team members to be an extension of your staff and treat your customers as if they were our own. All services are completely customizable by you and you have complete control over how each of your calls are handled. There is no list of details too long for our representatives and we pride ourselves on attention to detail.

As our company grows and expands, we are constantly looking for new technologies, concepts and trainings that will help us improve our service. This includes new marketing and networking strategies involving the use of social media tools, including this very blog that you are reading (feel free to retweet this article).  Since AnswerNow! is relationship focused, whether it is with our customers or our employees, what better way to build relationships than through a strong online presence? Our company has come a long way since 1976!

Follow Us on Twitter!

Are you on Twitter? If so, we invite you to follow us on Twitter @AnswerNowInc. AnswerNow! is using Twitter as another outlet to connect to our customers as well as other great people in our network. We provide informative information, article and blog posts, as well as fun and informative tweets on what is happening in the AnswerNow1 offices. We would love to “talk” with you on Twitter, hope to see you soon!

Like Us on Facebook!

Not too long ago, AnswerNow! started a Facebook fan page on to connect with current customers and our employees. We are starting to build up our fans and would love for you to join us for discussions as well as other pieces of information. Plus we have the occasional contest for prizes, but you can’t win if you don’t “Like” us! Stop by, join in the conversation and let us know what you’d like to see on our page, we want to hear from you. AnswerNow feels very strongly about connecting and communicating with our clients. A strong client-vendor relationship builds a great business!

Kay Mornes: Center

AnswerNow! is pleased to recognize Kay Mornes for her achievements within the organization over the last eight years. When Kay first started with our organization, she had never worked in the healthcare or call center industry. Kay, however, had amazing determination during her training, and worked diligently to perform her best work. A truly loyal employee, Kay maintained perfect attendance with AnswerNow! for over eight years before retiring in August 2009. We were sad to see Kay leave, but knew she wanted to spend more time with her family. When Kay called us in December 2009 and asked us if she could come back to work part time, we were delighted to welcome her back to the team. For almost nine years now, Kay has continued to maintain perfect attendance, a perfect 100% quality assurance score, and nearly flawless work. Kay is frequently recognized by callers for providing outstanding service, and has received multiple client compliments on a monthly basis. We are so pleased to have Kay as a part of the team, and hope she will continue her position with AnswerNow! until she makes a decision to retire, again.

A Word from Kay:

I have been employed by AnswerNow! as a Team Member for. I was hired in April of 2002 and retired in August 2009. Then, in December 2009, I applied for a part time weekend position and was graciously allowed to return. I moved to Arizona from Western Pennsylvania after my husband passed away to be with my only daughter Diana. I had never worked in the medical operations field before; however, with excellent training, I found this opportunity to be the best fit for me in Arizona. I thoroughly enjoy my day to day duties. I have been offered promotional positions, however I truly enjoy assisting callers on the phone and helping them with whatever problem they may need solved or solution they may be seeking. It has been rewarding, knowing I am helping others by providing this service. AnswerNow!’s incentive programs are awesome! Through different incentives available, I was afforded the opportunity to take my four year old granddaughter Samantha to Disneyland – not once, but twice! Since December 2009, I now spend my time with family during the week, and work part time on the weekends. Thank you to Margo Weiss and the AnswerNow! Team for acknowledging me, and for truly being the best.

Despite a “bad” economy and low job ratings in the state of Arizona, AnswerNow is continuing a natural growth and is expecting a large expansion over the next few months. This includes adding team members to handle the influx of business. So that means AnswerNow! is hiring! Our plan is to add 20-25 new people to our team, with applications being taken immediately! If you are interested in becoming a member of our team you can apply online at www.answernowinc.com. All jobs are a result of natural growth, and are not replacement positions.

AnswerNow!: Best Places to Work

Many businesses will tell you they are a great place to work, but we have it in writing. AnswerNow! has been a recipient of The Phoenix Business Journal’s Best Places to Work several years in a row. In order to win the award, we had to submit our nominations and then we were picked based on employee surveys submitted to Quantum Workplace. Our employees have spoken, they love being a member of our team! As hard as we work, we play equally hard. Our break room has satellite television, Wii gaming consoles, computer with internet access and a Ping Pong table that has been the center of many employee competitions focused around winning the coveted Ping Pong trophy. AnswerNow! also holds fun company competitions, where winning teams are rewarded with fun evenings at places such as Dave & Busters.

Your business is on the rise and you’ve made the decision to hire someone to start fielding all your calls, a true sign of prosperity. Before you begin the lengthy interview process of hiring the right person to be your in-house receptionist, have you considered what it’s going to cost you? Are you going to be able to provide enough hours and work for someone who is relying on this job for stable income? There is a lot more to hiring a receptionist than most people realize, so before making that decision, ponder these next few thoughts.

Is it Cost Effective?

There are many advantages to partnering with an answering service for your virtual receptionist, beginning with being more cost-efficient than hiring a receptionist. A staffed receptionist is another person on a payroll, which could affect the percentage you pay to an outsourced human resource company. Another staff member affects the taxes you pay on a business and will also cost you more in providing benefits. Does your company also require overflow calls or after-hour phone service? Are you meant to be available 365 days a year? That is a lot of overtime to be paid to a receptionist or you may need to hire several receptionists to be on staff. Partnering with an answering service for your virtual reception will guarantee that you will be provided with their answering service whenever you need it. It does not matter if you need it part-time, for overflow calls, after-hours or on a full-time basis, 24/7, even 365-days a year. At AnswerNow! we never call out, ask for vacation, or require constant management time.

Will You Be Paying a Receptionist to be on the Internet?

Before hiring a receptionist, you also need to consider if you truly have enough work to keep them busy 40 hours a week? A receptionist will need to be available to answer the phone any time it rings, but what will she do in the meantime? Perhaps you don’t have enough call volume to keep your receptionis busy 40 hours a week so you provide them with other tasks to complete. When you do provide work to be done like data entry or other office management jobs, she could be overwhelmed with handling all incoming calls and other important work does not get . Hiring AnswerNow! as your virtual receptionistyou will essentially fill three job positions for less than the cost of one! You will have a personal assistant, a receptionist and high quality customer service representatives. While you are out doing what you do best, AnswerNow! will be busy covering your calls, taking messages, registering people for an event you are having, or scheduling appointments. AnswerNow! includes multiple shifts of live team members, who are fresh and ready to handle your business.

Recently it has become a trend for call centers to allow their agents to work from home. It’s cost effective for the agency and it is easier for the center to find employees who are willing to work shorter and more flexible hours. But is this the smart choice? There are several concerns that arise with call centers that employ home-based agents, and these challenges can end up costing your business valuable customers and impact your bottom line. It is imperative that when you hire a company to answer your phone calls, your customers do not know that they are not speaking to someone in your office. While home-based agents may be the trend for now, there are flaws to the system that you should be aware of.

What Do Your Customers Hear?

How are companies finding the right people to staff these work-at-home positions? Just because an employee is a hard-working, focused employee in the office does not mean that the same employee will be as effective working from home with daily distractions. Yes, a center can require that their home-based agents work from a home office without interruptions from children, pets or delivery people, but how is it truly enforced? You never know what your customers might hear in the background of a home-based agent’s home office. At AnswerNow! each of our team members are in a sound-proof cubicle, and there are never radios, televisions or employee chatter in the background. This also makes certain that each of your customers receives undivided attention.

Security, Training and Technical Difficulties

Another challenge that answering services may face when employing home-based agents is how to handle training. Suppose an agent receives a call that is out of their realm of capabilities? How long will it take them to reach a supervisor from home, putting your customer on hold for longer than AnswerNow’s “seconds” policy? Our team leaders are behind our agents at all times, and are ready to assist as soon as need be. There is also an issue of security. It is extremely difficult to constantly monitor what an agent is accessing on their home computer while during working hours. This could jeopardize customer information as well as your business information. Finally, in the case of technical difficulties, what happens to customer calls if a home-base agency loses power? At AnswerNow!, we have backup generators and phone lines to ensure that you never lose a call.

July 1, 2010 will mark AnswerNow!’s 34^th anniversary and we are celebrating with expansion and looking toward the future with new technologies while preserving the values that AnswerNow! was established upon. AnswerNow! was founded on July 1^st, 1976 by Margo Daley-Soll when she suddenly became widowed and had to support and raise 10 children on her own. Margo, a doctor’s wife, noticed a need for a medical call centers that focused on maintaining positive human interaction while serving doctors, their staff and their patients. Over the years, we expanded to also include other business industries that had a need for outsourcing any inbound answering service needs. Our company has been operating under the same management since 1976, and continues to focus on quality service for our clients and an enjoyable workplace for our employees.

34 Years of Quality Service for our Clients

As you read last month, AnswerNow! won the ATSI Award for Excellence for our fourth year in a row. Not only did we achieve this award, but we also ranked number one nationally. Our anniversary will mark 34 years of our daily pledge to provide businesses like you with the best service possible. Our team members are continually learning new technologies and policies to improve our dedication to you, including HIPAA guidelines all the way down to a new keyboard that allows for us to serve your patients in an even timelier fashion.

34 Years of Caring for Our Employees

AnswerNow! believes that taking care of those who work for us will provide better service for our customers. Happy employees creates a happy work environment, which will resonate in the quality of phone service we provide you and your customers. AnswerNow! holds quarterly team competitions, as you saw mentioned in an earlier blog post. The same team that won last quarter’s competition also won the first quarter competition of 2010. They were awarded a BBQ and pool party at the home of Michelle Weiss, Director of Business Marketing. The team was able to choose what they wanted to do, and they felt it would be fun to just be together on a friendly basis, celebrating their victory.

Then to celebrate our top ranking for ATSI, AnswerNow! awarded the hard working team members by placing a new Wii Gaming System with multiple games in the employee lounge/break room, which also contains a ping pong table, air hockey table, employee computers and other items for relaxing on break. The Wii was brought in on June 25^th, in which we also held a party where employees were given additional paid breaks to play Wii games, enjoy company provided food and beverage and just relish in the fact that we are the number one call center in the United States, thanks to their hard work and achievements.

The main meaning of outsourcing services for business owners is to save time and money, leaving room for you to do what you do best. You can outsource almost anything: answering service, accounting, design work, the list can go on and on. There are, however, several misconceptions when it comes to what outsourcing really means. We would like to go over a couple main points of what outsourcing should mean for your business.

Outsourcing really is “In”sourcing

And by “In”sourcing, we mean within the United States. It has been a popular notion that Asian countries are the greatest outsourcing destinations because of the cheaper rate over American or European. But what do you lose? Can you communicate with your overseas outsourcing partner as easily as someone within the United States? We are starting to see that keeping your outsourcing in the US is becoming more of a trend, and in fact many companies that outsourced overseas at one point in time are now changing their philosophy and searching out US based call centers. It not only helps with the US economy, but it helps maintain more a personal feel with your business. AnswerNow is an Arizona based answering service with all of our team-members in house.

Outsourcing Should be a Partnership

Just as you wouldn’t hire someone that you didn’t have a good report with, you shouldn’t choose an outsourcing partner with whom you couldn’t have a solid relationship with. Whatever aspect of your business that you choose to outsource, the service provider should be able to perform the business requirements the best way that YOU see fit. Your clients should never be able to realize that they are not dealing with you or your team personally because your service provider essentially is a part of your team. AnswerNow consults with every client to get a better understanding of how the business is run and we then train our staff in your specialty in order to guarantee call success.