https://www.vetsurgeon.org/f/non-clinical-questions/25560/any-experience-of-external-telephone-answering-services Do any of you use an external telephone answering company to take any calls on behalf of the practice such as calls that either haven&#39;t been answered quickly enough, clients have received an engaged tone, or any other reason why a outside service woulden-USTelligent Community 10https://www.vetsurgeon.org/thread/176320?ContentTypeID=1Wed, 22 Mar 2017 11:24:25 GMT146601cc-3922-4be7-9974-7e1d4e45a66b:4fbe7b06-b309-454b-89d1-3a96c815b8e7Thomas Johnson<p>[quote user=&quot;Wren&quot;]We used Kernow Message Handling Service (KMHS)[/quote]</p> <p>When I was in my first practice they used Kernow to answer calls out of hours, I left over 10 years ago so my experience with them isn&#39;t recent but for the three years I was there I found them to be very reliable. We diverted out phone line directly to them so the clients didn&#39;t have to call a different number.</p><div style="clear:both;"></div>https://www.vetsurgeon.org/thread/176309?ContentTypeID=1Wed, 22 Mar 2017 09:07:32 GMT146601cc-3922-4be7-9974-7e1d4e45a66b:44e4ab2a-6c20-43a4-9890-271b9977aaedStephanie Wellings<p>We used to use one for all appointment booking (leaving receptionists free to deal with face to face clients) and slowly phased it out so that now only calls not answered within six rings are put through to the external service.</p> <p>I wasn&#39;t a fan of it - it definitely highlighted how good our veterinary receptionists are and how much we rely on them to manage the workflow and triage the calls effectively - with the external system we got emergency appointments booked for five hours&#39; time, appointments booked in the past, on the wrong day, euthanasia booked for a single appointment, angry clients who had been lost on hold, etc etc! (despite providing lots of written guidelines and advising they should put any calls they weren&#39;t sure about through to the nurses line).&nbsp;</p><div style="clear:both;"></div>https://www.vetsurgeon.org/thread/176306?ContentTypeID=1Wed, 22 Mar 2017 08:48:04 GMT146601cc-3922-4be7-9974-7e1d4e45a66b:1e203276-616f-46c7-9644-6098c8484c97Wren<p>We used a service at my last practice to handle out of hours calls when we couldn&#39;t replace the member of staff who had previously done it when they retired. We were very apprehensive going in to it as a rural practice with a lot of farmers who liked to get someone they knew on the line straight away (the lady who did it previously had done so for 30+ years and literally knew everyone!)&nbsp;and we really didn&#39;t like losing the personal touch. However as it turned out we needn&#39;t have worried. Service was very very efficient and professional, they answered using our name etc. and as far as I remember we didn&#39;t have one slip up while I was there. In fact it was a lot more efficient than our lovely old lady in the end. The only problem we had initially was that some people didn&#39;t want to dial an area code they didn&#39;t recognise as they were sure it couldn&#39;t be right, but we did a bit of publicity and they soon cottoned on to the fact that it was still &#39;us&#39;.</p> <p>We didn&#39;t use them during the daytime other than the very odd occasion (an hour over lunch for a staff meeting etc.) so can&#39;t comment on that. And I can&#39;t comment on the financial side as that wasn&#39;t my problem! They did send us detailed lists of all the calls they had answered though, which was great for checking that all the OOH visits had been billed!</p> <p>We used Kernow Message Handling Service (KMHS).</p><div style="clear:both;"></div>https://www.vetsurgeon.org/thread/176303?ContentTypeID=1Wed, 22 Mar 2017 08:13:25 GMT146601cc-3922-4be7-9974-7e1d4e45a66b:28372e7b-5a5a-4407-b36f-37df1c1e347eJ G Wray<p>Why not ask the telephone answering service for customer testimonials and give the practices a ring?</p><div style="clear:both;"></div>