Top 10 Answering Services for Small And Growing Businesses
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When searching for the right answering services for small business, comparing various features, prices, and offers, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. Especially when every company says they are the “leading” and “the best” in the industry.
Hiring an answering service to support your business and improve your customers’ experience may take money out of your pocket. Still, with the right service provider, your investment will pay off by improving brand image and customer trust.
To help you decide which service provider to hire, here is our list of top 10 answering services in 2020.
If you confused about what features do you need for your business, we covered it in our article Answering Service Price And Types.
Top List of Answering Services for Small Businesses
Answering Service Care
Answering Service Care offers the most competitive price plans. Their per-minute charges are among the cheapest of our list. Valuable features are included in plans starting as low as $39/month + $0.95/minute.
Pricing Plans:
- Starter (40 minutes)
$39/month + $0.95/minute (price incresed to $49) - Business (150 minutes)
$129/month + $0.85/minute (price incresed to $149) - Premium (250 minutes)
$199/month + $0.79/minute (price incresed to $229) - Corporate (500 minutes)
$395/month + $0.78/minute (price incresed to $449) - And Up…
Even with the low price, service, efficiency, and features aren’t compromised. Answering Service Care has many positive reviews online, praising their quality. With trained, professional, and 100% US-based agents, Answering Service Care assures, your calls are well taken care of.
Features:
- Appointment Scheduling
- 24/7 Live answering service
- Bilingual answering service
- Personalized greeting
- 100% US-based agents
And many more…
1888GoAnswer
1888GoAnswer’s highly trained answering agents taking care of your calls will make your prospective callers feel special. By providing remarkable customer service, a small business can now compete with big companies.
Pricing Plans:
- Pay-as-you-go
$50/month + $1.15/minute - 100 minutes
$110/month + $1.10/minute - 250 minutes
$250/month + $1.00/minute
Affordable prices with feature-packed plans, 1888GoAnswer, together with Specialty Answering Service, offers the best value for your money. With pricing plans only differs in minutes’ allocation and overage rates. No long term contracts, and you only pay for the time the receptionist is on the phone assisting your customer. 1888GoAnswer offers a 30-day trial of their services, no credit card involved.
Features:
- 24/7 live answer
- Dedicated account manager
- Custom scripting
- Client web portal
- Full monthly billing
PATLive
PATLive offers many vital features essential to a small business, bundled at competitive prices.
Pricing Plans:
- Basic
$39/month + $1.95/minute - Starter (75 minutes)
$149/month + $1.50/minute … (price drop to $134) - Standard (200 minutes)
$269/month + $1.25/minute … (price drop to $242) - Premium (350 minutes)
$399/month + $1.10/minute …(price drop to $359)
A unique feature of PATLive is that you are only billed for the actual call time the agents log when speaking with your customers. Call wrap-up, and anything else they do after the call is not billed.
PATLive provides basic features and services most small businesses need in their basic package. For growing and expanding your business, the more robust packages offer valuable features like order placement and lead collection.
Check out PETLive’s free 14-day trial plus get 5% discount and see how their features and services can serve your company.
Features:
- 24/7 live answering service including holidays
- Order processing
- Lead collection
- Phone numbers included
- Full month billing
And many more…
SIGNIUS Communications
SIGNIUS Communications offers cheap packages comparable to Answering Service Care. With top-notch, professional agents, SIGNIUS Communications can provide your business an edge with its customer service department.
Pricing Plans:
- 50 minutes cost $45 + $1/ additional minute
- 125 minutes cost $109 + $0.95/additional minute
- 250 minutes cost $213 + $0.92/aditional minute
Customized answering service coupled with affordable plans gives your business the advantage over other answering service providers. For a company with low call volumes, you can take advantage of SIGNIUS’ great service and low price without compromising quality.
Basic services don’t have a setup fee. Advanced features like call forwarding or bilingual service have additional charges.
SIGNIUS Communications offers a free consultation with no obligation. You’ll get a quote for the services you need and can make adjustments from there.
Features:
- 24/7 live answering service
- Order placement
- Bilingual receptionists
- Full month billing
And many more…
MAP Communications
MAP Communications provides custom scripting capabilities tailored to every type of business. With plans starting at $39, and low overage charges, MAP Communications offers some of the most competitive packages on the market.
Pricing Plans:
- Standard
$39/month + $1.15/minute - Business (125 minutes)
$149/month + $1.09/minute - Executive (225 minutes)
$249/month + $1.07/minute
MAP Communications offers many types of answering services and features. Selecting the right service for your business ensures that your callers are directed to a knowledgeable receptionist every time.
Answering service type:
- 24-hour answering service
- After-hours answering service
- Call overflow answering service
- On-call answering service
And many more…
Features:
- Appointment scheduling
- Proprietary Technology
- Emergency response specialists
- Full month billing
And many more…
You can see for yourself how these features and services perform by trying their 7-day free trial.
Live Message America
Live Message America offers customized answering services tailored to your budget and requirements. With affordable and flexible plans and features, Live Message America is an answering service worth trying.
Pricing Plans:
- Small
$39/month + $1.15/minute - Medium (125 minutes)
$149/month + $1.09/minute - Large (225 minutes)
$249/month + $1.07/minute
With a fully customized answering service and professional and respectful agents, Live Message America is a total customer service solution.
Live Message America offers a 7-day free trial with access to every feature and service they offer.
Features:
- 24/7 live answering service
- After hours/overflow calls coverage
- Appointment scheduling
- Tech support
And many more…
Specialty Answering Service
With years of experience in the answering service industry, SAS has a solution for all types of businesses, big or small.
Specialty Answering Service understands the problems and situations that small business owners encounter. They can work with you to come up with flexible and simple pricing plans depending on your business needs.
Pricing Plans
- Economy
$31/month + $1.19/minute - 100 minutes
$117/month + $1.09/minute - 220 minutes
$199/month + $1.09/minute
What sets Specialty Answering Service (SAS) apart from the competition? All of their features are included, even with the cheapest plan.
SAS provides a web portal and mobile app where you can manage schedules, reports, and give instructions to answering agents, keeping business management simple.
Specialty Answering Service offers a free trial for 14 days, during which you will have access to most of their services.
Features:
- 24/7 live answering service including holidays
- 1-second increment billing
- Bilingual receptionists
- HIPAA compliant
- Full month billing cycle
And many more…
Abby Connect
Abby Connect provides live answering services with a personalized call flow to fit your business. More than just an answering service, Abby Connect carries your brand with reliable, professional, and courteous customer service.
Pricing Plans:
- Abby 100 minutes
$279/month + $2.79/minute - Abby 200 minutes
$499/month + $2.49/minute
Abby Connect’s high price may be a drawback for some business owners, but the level of service you receive goes well above the cost.
Features:
- Dedicated account manager
- Dedicated receptionist team
- Custom call structure
- 24/7 answering service including holidays
And many more…
With a dedicated account manager and receptionist team, you can expect professional, reliable, and courteous support services whenever needed. Abby Connect treats your prospective callers as their own and your business’s success as their success.
Abby Connect offers a free 14-day trial, during which you have access to most of their services.
AnswerConnect
AnswerConnect offers a reliable and consistent answering service. A major selling point of their service is that all calls under 30 seconds are completely free. Small business owners will find this feature very practical.
Pricing Plans:
- Standard (100 minutes)
$149 + $1.49/minute - Best Value (325 minutes)
$299 + $0.99/minute - Business (225 minutes)
$269 + $0.99/minute
Features:
- 24/7 Live answering service including holidays
- Lead generation and voicemail
- Order management
- Appointment Scheduling
And many more…
AnswerConnect offered the best plan with 325 minutes for $299. This package outclasses other packages on this list.
What you want to consider before hiring AnswerConnect is their billing cycle. Every call is billed in 1-minute increments, which is more than other answering services and may not be the best fit for some businesses.
LEXReception
LexReception offers simple, dedicated, and cost-effective answering solutions to your business.
Pricing Plans:
- Small (75 minutes)
$99/month + $1.47/minute - Medium (175 minutes)
$199/month + $1.29/minute - Large (350 minutes)
$349/month + $1.15/minute
LexReceptions also features the policy that “all calls under 30 seconds are completely free”. With this feature, you won’t be charged for short calls, wrong numbers, and hang-ups.
Having 89% positive reviews on Trustpilot, you can be sure that you and your callers are well taken care of with LEXReception.
Features:
- 24/7/365 availability
- Schedule appointments
- Assist callers with their purchase
- Relay messages
Honorable Mentions
These answering service providers just missed the cut on our top 10 list but still provide excellent service.
Who we are
We browsed the web for hundreds of answering services, carefully analyzing their websites and reading through their FAQs and terms and conditions, and sending emails to ask about pricing, billing cycles, holiday fees, etc.
Most of them replied quickly with a warm greeting, always courteous and polite in answering my questions. And we choose best ones for small businesses to cover in this article.
We narrowed down the list by comparing their features, especially in terms of price and service hours, as these two categories are essential for startups and small or growing businesses.
Finally, we looked at their customer ratings and reviews across different websites. Through this, we can see how well they perform, what features they offer, and how satisfied their customers are.
Conclusion
Each business is unique and will have different needs from their answering service. With this list, you should have a great understanding of what features are available to you at each price point.
Consider each option before settling to any answering service. Just fill up our free quote. There may be custom deals or flexible packages that can uniquely fit your business structure. This way, you can build rapport with your answering service provider and work out the best deal for your business.