Answering Service vs. Voicemail Greeting

Has anyone ever split-tested the leads he got when having calls answered by an answering service such as Patlive vs. having calls go to voicemail? I am sure you lose some deals when having calls go to voicemail. You could of course call people back that hung up when they heard the voicemail but that way you will probably end up having some of those angry calls that all of us want to avoid, and also some of the people that hang up when hearing "just" a voicemail will already have a negative perception of you.

It probably also depends on the kind of properties you aim at. Having calls answered by an operator will presumably be more important to sellers of more expensive properties.
What do you guys think?

I have. And my mailers got significantly better when I went to a live anseering service over a voice message. Also easier for me to log them and filter when I get an email form with info from the call.

From what I've seen with PATLive so far (Disclaimer: I've only used them for a few months at this point... so my experience is still limited), it definitely seems to be catching more callers, whether they're angry, curious, ready to sell or something in-between. Most humans are more likely to stay on the phone if they're talking to a person rather than a machine (and honestly, this isn't a big surprise).

That's not to say a recorded message can't work, because a lot of truly-motivated sellers will listen to the recording and leave a message... but not everyone will, whether they're on-the-fence or they just hate listening to recorded greetings.

If it weren't for the huge cost difference, I'm sure most of us would easily spring for a virtual receptionist if the money isn't an issue, but again, not everyone is operating on the same budget... so everyone has to decide where they want to spend their limited working capital.

Thanks, guys, that's pretty much what I was expecting. The good thing about Patlive is that there are no long-term contracts involved so you can always go back to the voicemail. I'll also have a look at other call centers. I guess when you have the choice between a US-based answering service and a voicemail, the answering service would be preferred (if that is within your budget). I am wondering if the same applies to an answering service based in the Philippines...

@johannes Check out Lex Reception, I saved money going with them recently. They also do not use an contract but a month by month fee that you can adjust up or down depending on your call volumes. On top of that , i really and I mean REALLY love their user interface over PatLive, they also have a dedicated crew that works on interfacing their portal with your CRM. I have had great customer service as well, I really can’t say enough good about them. Contact Manni Sandoval at lexreception.com she’s super helpful. I compared the pricing across multiple US based answering service companies and at the time, just a few months ago, they had the best rates. Good luck and let us know what you end up with

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@spencer-anderson said:

Johannes Pieper Check out Lex Reception, I saved money going with them recently. They also do not use an contract but a month by month fee that you can adjust up or down depending on your call volumes. On top of that , i really and I mean REALLY love their user interface over PatLive, they also have a dedicated crew that works on interfacing their portal with your CRM. I have had great customer service as well, I really can’t say enough good about them. Contact Manni Sandoval at lexreception.com she’s super helpful. I compared the pricing across multiple US based answering service companies and at the time, just a few months ago, they had the best rates. Good luck and let us know what you end up with

seems like Lex is focused on legal market---but apparently that was no obstacle for you? thanks for the tip!

@sean-callahan Actually, they started off as an answering service for legal offices but their services fit our methods like a glove. I'm telling you, this has made my business so much easier to field responses and gather lead information! I had a long conversation with them the other day about how much better they are than PAT LIVE and told them they need to be marketing to real estate investors cause there is a huge market for them in this space alone and they have the tools necessary to pick up a lot of customers with their level of quality. I was told they just raised their rates which surprised me because when I signed up they were the best and most affordable option. She was responsive to me telling her that they should offer discounts to groups of land investors through the coaches (i.e. @retipsterseth) and others to give an incentive for folks to use them. Give them a try, and call Manni Sandoval. I know I sound like a infomercial for them but I'm telling you, they are hands down better than PATLIVE.

@spencer-anderson, can I ask which CRM you are using that Lex Reception interfaced with? And are you as happy with it as you are Lex Reception?

@spencer-anderson thank you---talked to Manny earlier this week and likely to try them out. first hand feedback like yours is gold!

@dl7573Hey David, yes, I am using TRELLO for now. Not really using it as it should be used for the following reasons. I have been sending large batches of mail usually around 2,500 to 3,500 blind offers all at once. When the leads call LEX RECEPTION, Lex will send the information to my TRELLO board. A LOT of calls I dont even return the call or capture the data since they are not happy or they are threatening, more on that note in a sec. Since the LEX app works so well on my cell phone, and the info they gather get sent to my email I never even look at TRELLO any more. I literally just field the responses from LEX app and if Im interested in the lead, then I will copy ONLY the GOOD leads into an excel spreadsheet where I begin my due diligence. I am still working out the kinks in this process. Now, "CIRCLING BACK"(haha, I had to say that!), to the angry callers who leave a message. The LEX app has a feature to listen to the call and I can tell from the notes they take when someone is unhappy with me, this is where the LEX app helps me to recover a possible lost lead. I have had angry callers leave messages about me trying to take advantage of them and others, or they just want to talk to me and not a receptionist. I will sometimes send an email if they are pissed and explain that I am in NO WAY TRYING TO TAKE ADVANTAGE of them or anyone else and my offers are to get a conversation started. I pretty much make myself human to them and most of them time people are very receptive to that. I have had folks praise me/ the company after sending this email and they are more than happy to talk to me then and even spread the business to friends who may be looking to sell. I'm telling you, a simple phone call goes a LONG way.

Here is an email that I sent to a guy who told me he and his wife, who had an untimely death just 4 months ago, had plans to build a cabin in the mountains and he was very offended by my offer. After this email, he totally dropped his guard. Ultimately, we are in the business to HELP people move land and we ARE NOT predators, if you can convey that to folks it will speak to the sellers and will be good for you, your business and the sellers in the end.

"

Hey, thanks for letting me know you received our letter and I apologize if we offended you with our offer price. My intentions were in no manner meant to offend or take advantage of anyone, I promise that. So let me give you a quick rundown of what we do. My wife and I run a small business on the side where we invest in vacant land all over the Southeast. We find areas that we want to own land and we choose a market, we chose the area surrounding *****. We use a formula to find the average market price of land from 1-2 acres in this area and we offer a percentage of that average market value. We sent about 3,500 offer letters to everyone with a vacant parcel size between 1-2 acres, while some prices are close, others such as yours are very low. Please do not be offended by this low offer, it’s really just a conversation starter, and here we are!
If you are still interested in selling this parcel or another piece of land, please let me know and we can entertain a new offer price.
Thank you again for reaching out Mr Cabaniss and I am truly sorry for the loss of your wife, my deepest condolences sir.

Spencer Anderson

Pyramid Properties "

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Thanks, @spencer-anderson. I love the approach, and totally agree. I too am most comfortable going with honesty versus some slick sales pitch when dealing with prospective sellers.

I am curious, though. You mention sending an email to the angry responders. Are these people who gave their email address to the Lex phone rep, even though they're disgruntled, or are you finding their email addresses some other way (included from your list source, or skip tracing, etc.)?

I appreciate the info about Trello. I'm still 100% based on Excel at this point, but am starting to think about CRM. I think what I'd be most interested in at this stage, though, is a database solution that's at least as much geared towards the properties that I'm mailing for, as it is the owners, if that makes any sense. For example, I'm still routing people to a voicemail greeting, and I often get messages where people will leave the parcel ID in their response, but no name (and often no county). I'll also pull a list for a county that I mailed to last year, and have to go through and figure out who I might have already mailed to, or chosen not to mail to for a specific reason, or maybe even had some post-mailing interaction with that wasn't positive and isn't worth repeating. It's not a huge deal at my current scale, but I've been thinking it would be nice if I had something with a better interface than Excel where I could track all of the property details (as well as the owner details) that currently live in umpteen tabs on a Master Spreadsheet, in various formats depending on the data source for that particular list. I don't know if that makes sense or not. Maybe I need to check out some more widely-used CRMs to get a better idea of how they work.