Pagers ?????

jackchips_2

I work for uses a 24 hour answering service. It may be more because of the 70+ personnel in the field rather than the 4 service people we have.

If your interested I'll see if I can get more information out of our General Manager.

ScottMP

What do you guys use ??

I have always used a pager for night service calls. The number is on our phone machine.

Its getting hard to find pagers anymore, everyone use's cell phones.

What do you all use to provide service to your customers.

Thanks

Scott

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Dana

We use a medical paging service, they are the best. They provide us with a pager, they page out all the emergency's, we have them ask the customer if they feel its an emergency. The page comes thru with name, address, phone and nature of the call. 70 % are not paged thru and are faxed to us at 6:00 AM the next business day for our office personnel to handle. The calls are forwarded to the answering service from our office at the end of busieness each day.. It's a very simple process. The customers love the fact that they get a live person on the phone 24/7. Only the office personel rotate on the pager so when the return call goes out it is handled proffessionally. The service guys have cell phones. If their phone rings they know that they are going out on a call. No questions asked.

Bill Nye

Scott

Take two asprins, flush 'em down the toilet and call me in the morning.

You don't want Chris piling up that new truck at 3AM because some a----le can't wait for a hot shower.


We had pager numbers on the answering machine at the office. The customer was supposed to call and enter their #. Many , many old people are technologically illiterate and some even have rotary phones. I like the live answering service to screen the calls. Like every service , some are better than others.

Paul Mitchell

Map Mobile

Is the place we use Scott. They give you a pager that will show name adress phone of customer, etc. You pay based on the volume of calls you might get. You can always raise or lower the amount of calls. Cost is very reasonable for after hour coverage.
Paul.......Still thinkin about your trucks!

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Glenn Harrison_2

We have a 24 hour answering sevice...

That takes all non office hour calls. They then page the calls to a on-call night dispatcher using a paging to text messaging program to a special night service cell phone. The night dispatcher then takes the calls that wanted a call back, gets their info and quotes rates as neccesary. If they still want service then the dispatcher calls the on-call appropriate tech (Res or comm HVAC, Electrician or Plumber), and dispatches them with info.

Another cool thing we do with our cell phones is all day calls are dispatched using the same paging to text messaging program. This way we get our call info more quickly and accuratly, and don't have to tie up the dipatcher. Another thing is we use the e-mail service to send messages to the office, mainly when we are done with a call, we send a "10-8" e-mail to a office e-mail address which then pops up on six different terminals, and the first available office personel calls us back and gets our times, parts, and payment info while the dispatcher is calling the next customer and paging the call info.

jim lockard

I'm with Bill

Call 911 thats the emergency number with 30 years on the truck there very few things that can not wait til morning.
Not to say we do not do nite/evening calls we do, but on are terms. The answering machine is hooked up 24/7 and contact is made the next morning but out running the streets at midnight just ruins the next day.
There is yet to be a service call worth wrecking the truck over-J. Lockard

Frank_15

answering service

Try Odonovans answering service. 617-666-5336. It's in somerville mass. They are very good.

ScottMP

How about the

The fifteen year customer who's expansion tank let go and has water pouring out of the relief valve out into the finished basement ?

Tell em to wait ? I'll be there in eight hours ?

How about the customer who just installed a new Viessmann boiler and has a hot water pipe burst on the 3rd floor and her husband is away and she dos'nt know how to shut off the third floor bath ?

Get a bucket ?

Its the nature of our business. I just would like a cleaner way of responding to the call. And many times thats at it is ... a call. " Has the water stopped ? Do you see the valve at the bottom of the stairs ? So this can wait untill the morning ? Great, we'll see you then. "

Scott

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Paul Mitchell

Its 9pm

and a customer gets home and the house is 50. Tough sell to wait till am....They dont remember easy stuff they do remember the cold late nights though

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B. Tice

Scott, I don't like that......

Pager numbers over the machine just does not cut it. I would use a good answering service and have the on call guy called at home, then paged if no answer. I do more night/weekend calls than most and this is what I use. I just use a simple numeric pager, less problems that way. You call your service and get the call. I greatly admire your stance on emergency calls. It's amazing how many large companies(let alone joe hackjob) are totally non contactable sometimes.

jim lockard

oh I hear

yea. Over the years we had had our fair share of true emergencys xpan tanks fillling up and breaking there straps and falling out of ceiling, fires ,floods and all kinda stuff I know. Our regular customers know how to get service. My cell and business # are on my card and magnet in BIG LETTERS I wanted my cell in yellow pages no luck this year,I have caller Id. Still day or night if the house is filling up with H2O call 911. Once again very few real emergencys in this world that you can do much about at 3am. The asmatic cat will survive without A/C----J.Lockard

Dave DeFord

Used to work for a property mgt. company..

we rented student housing. We used an answering service and had 3 situations where we would come out:

1. No heat
2. Water running on floors, through ceiling etc.
3. Building open to outside or trespass.

The answering service was pretty good about asking these questions. If the answer was yes the call was made to the service personnel. If the answer was no the call waited until morning. I realize that all of these questions aren't appropriate to this business but the idea is. I would also let the customer know that your charge is $ XXX just to come out, and don't make it too cheap. I would have the answering service tell them this before they call you so there is no misunderstanding.

John@Reliable_5

Scott, Map mobile if.............

You are only going to use it for after hours calls. I have used aleast 5 different services over the years and they were the best.They are the pro's plus they will also fax calls daily. No background noise and they can't put a call on hold, pager will give tech> name,add,tel,and what is wrong or you can tell them what you want. John@Reliable

Dave Yates (PAH)

never

let a machine answer your line!

I've always used an answering service. Nothing like a real person on the other end.

We each had a pager. After hours for true emergencies only.

Times and technology change - no more pagers - all Nextel with two-way radio. The answering service has nextell too, so now the on-call tech is just a nano-second away!

No heat calls & flooding are legit mid-night calls. Previous customers only though & the service is good about screening those middle of the night call.

Every one is empowered to decide if the caller can wait till morning. If you call with no heat and it's 68 in your home and it's 3 AM, you can count on waiting unless it's 20 below outdoors.

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Bill_14

Quality Answering Service

Is the ONLY way to go Scott. They can be given customized instructions on how to get in touch with someone on call or can even call you at home if it is a serious issue. The good services are very good, so don't take the low price.

NEVER use an answering machine...it is better to just let the phone ring.

Bill

Bill_14

Forgot something...

You only use your main advertised business telephone number...no emergency numbers to confuse everyone. Just make certain you have "Call Forwarding" with your phone company and make certain there is always someone that will forward the phone to your service before the office closes.

Bill

Bill Nye

Hey Scott?

My comment was sort of tongue in cheek. There are legitimate emergencies. I am very responsible for any work I do. If I put a boiler in this afternoon and it is not running tonight, I want to be there , not the oil company.

I have seen 24 hr service get abused just because "WE have a service contract" I like Bill Russels idea of call forwarding to answering service after 5pm or whatever. Then the answer service can Nextel your on call man. The oil co I worked for last had this answer machine / beeper number hell that pissed off a lot of customers.

ScottMP

I have a phone system

Thats allows a message that says to leave amessage press zero, for emergencies press four. Pressing four tells the caller how to dial the pager.

Its worked well for years, but now you have me thinking I should contact our local service. I have called service that had a bad attitude or made me wait while they answered other calls, Nobody likes to be put on hold.

Thanks for all the input

Scott

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John@Reliable_5

Sounds like an old \"Friday\" system

Tom M.

Scott,

We got Alphapagers from UCOM (http://www.ucom.com/pagermanuals/truly.pdf). Our answering service can page out the name, address and phone number along with a description of the problem. We always call before going over. They don't page us with non-customers or non-emergencies and all messages are faxed in the morning. The pagers can also be emailed or phoned directly.

Tom M.

Steve Eayrs

We use a regular old message recorder, I know, I know, I read the previous comments.
On the message I state that if its an emergency and you want to to pay our overtime rates, then please call ------- number. Its usually my cell number, so I personally talk to the person, then I call which ever of the guys is on call for after hours work.


I don't know about you but I would rather talk to a machine and get such a message, than have the illusion that some answering service really cares I have a problem, or have some answering service waking me up, when its not a real emergency.
You would be surprised how many people will decide they can wait until the morning. Most such calls are a no-heat call, and many customers have some sort of backup, wood stove/space heater/etc...I only get a few calls a year, after bedtime.


At the same time I realize that people in most areas are not as independent, as most around here.
A good example: one old timer built his own airplane, and only stopped flying it, when the fed's wouldn't let it on the airstrip anymore. His only comments to not having any heat would most likely have been " I don't need any ##**#^%+## help get'in my boiler goin!


Even if I did have an answering service, I would bet most people in real trouble would choose to call my home phone, as the population is only around 15,000 or so, in 40 or so square miles.


Steve

Dave_8

So?

What is the problem with cell phones? After hours we just forward the phone to the cell # of whoever is on call. The customer gets to talk right to the tech, the tech can explain the cost of getting him out there at that time of the day, and in a lot of the cases we can fix the problem over the phone at least temporarily and the whole system is cheap.