Beware of scams offered by "Budget" answering services. When you stop and think about the components of an answering service, you'll understand why a cheap solution can cost you thousands of dollars, and why quality is worth the investment.
Many answering services entice clients with fixed-rate deals such as, "unlimited calls answered for only $29.95." The arrangement is simply too good to be true. Cheap answering services are ill-equipped to deal with a high call volume. If you do receive enough calls to get your money’s worth, your callers will have to wait for up to five minutes for their calls to be answered - they may even be disconnected.
Discount answering services must operate on extremely tight budgets. Limited funding results in obsolete technology and low-quality agents. Companies are not selective in choosing their operators and, once hired, agents are poorly trained (if they are even trained at all). Such operators are certainly ill-equipped to answer your calls appropriately and professionally. There is also the issue of outsourcing, whose low-quality has become clichéd: sending calls overseas is an apparent deception to the consumer and gives a poor image to any business that uses this tactic.
So, before you think about settling for the cheapest offer on the market, consider how you'll really save money. How much revenue will that important lost call cost you? And how much will you gain when potential clients' calls are always answered quickly and every caller is greeted by a professional, competent agent?