After hours call out companies

[lea5843]

Hello everyone!  I wanted to ask if anyone had experience finding remote workers for after hours or worked with a company for after hours.  I see lots of people work with call Centers in the states -but I was wanting something a little closer to home

[KhianaKlatt]

@mmontgom Has anyone brought this subject up in your Sparks groups by chance, particularly the Canadian one? Do you know of any reputable Canadian based call centres?

[mmontgom]

Great question Khiana!

So I have heard of folks using call centers like Dexcomm, Schedule Engine, and Nationwide Inbound even in Canada. However, a while back, I did hear of folks using one in Canada - Big Sky Call Center. I honestly don't remember any specific feedback around them other than perhaps that they were in-line with other big places like Nationwide Inbound, you still have to provide feedback to them but it works. I also don't know if they book directly into ServiceTitan, as I don't think they have a direct integration with them currently so that may be a difference there as well. 

So if anyone else has used Big Sky feel free to add your thoughts as well, but I hope this helps! 

[KhianaKlatt]

I haven't heard of Big Sky Call Center. Thanks for sharing this one with us! 🙂 

[KhianaKlatt]

Love this question and conversation!

We had used a call centre at one point but we didn't love them so did not use them for long.

Last year we hired someone who was from our local town however, he had relocated to India. So with the time difference, our night was his day and it was perfect. Although he was remote, he was from our small town so he knows the area well when clients call in which was extremely helpful. I know this was a rare find haha. He has now just moved back to Canada, so we lost this convenience. 

Currently, our techs are on a rotating on call schedule. Whoever is on call answers phones after hours. They receive a "bonus" for being on call. They only take calls from existing clients or that are emergencies. The boys are pretty good to take turns. There was one week where our managers and our lead techs were on vacation at the same time so I, as our main Customer Service Representative, answered phones after hours for that week. So this is a back-up option for us as well and it worked well. 

I'd love to know if there are Canadian call centres that are good. Curious to hear others answers/experiences!

[TimWall]

I take all the calls and dispatch the techs. We are also looking for a an on call answering service that is Canadian based. One of the issues that we are running into is that our techs don't have the ability to schedule their own calls so we are trying to find an answering service that will be able to schedule the calls into Service Titan for us. If anyone knows of a company we would be interested as well in knowing.  Great question!

[MorganNovelli]

Hi Lea, 

We use a local (Vancouver Island, BC) communication company that does this service for us. Our phones auto forward at 4:30pm each day and come off at 7:15am. They forward from Friday 4:30pm to Monday 7:15am unless there is a statutory holiday (like today) where they cover those days. At the start of each week we just advise which technician is on call and they will call contact them if any emergencies come in. If it is not an emergency and is just a call back we get a email to call customer during regular business hours. We also get all emergencies emailed as well to confirm with our techs which ones they have attended. 

[KhianaKlatt]

How long have you been using this company? Do they only service BC or are they a Canada wide company?

[MorganNovelli]

Hi Khiana, 

They only service sections of Vancouver Island and we have used them since 2016. We are going to be rolling out the ability for our tech's to book jobs, for On-Call only. We will be experimenting with one technician first and seeing how it goes. This tech has also used ST at a previous company so he knows a little bit more than everyone else. 

[MirandaMel]

I have experienced AnswerPlus, Select Call and am currently looking into Sunshine Admin.  I have also worked at a place where the CSR's take the on call phone home on rotations and they are paid bonuses for what they book.