24/7 Answering Service
The Professional Exchange Service Corporation (PESC) operates the largest answering service in the San Joaquin Valley. We upgrade our systems and invest in new equipment and technology on an annual basis. Our customers reap the benefits of these upgrades as our services become faster, more efficient, and more cost effective. We put our customers and operations ahead of profits and have been rewarded with the steady growth and expansion of our business.
Our employees are all residents of the state of California. None of our operations are outsourced to overseas vendors. We train our employees to deliver prompt, professional, and competent customer service. A supervisor is assigned to every shift to monitor performance and quality to insure seamless operations. We hold our employees to a higher standard however, we give much in return. Our employees receive company-paid health, retirement, and other benefits. We're proud of the jobs that we create, the benefits we provide, and the employees who make our business possible.
- Alarm Monitoring and Emergency Dispatching
- Cell Phones
- Medical Answering Service
- Message Delivery Options
- On-Call Schedules
- Paging
- Payment Options
- Senior Citizen Wellbeing Check-In Calls
- Telephone Answering
- Technology
- Toll Free Phone Numbers
- Voicemail
- Accessing Voicemail Boxes
- Wake-Up Calls
- Why Use Our Service?
Alarm Monitoring and Emergency Dispatching
We monitor fire and burglar alarms for our clients. When an alarm is triggered, we follow the client's specific instructions. Some clients prefer us to call their businesses or homes first before dispatching police, fire, or private security guards. Others want us to dispatch emergency services immediately. Increasingly, police and fire agencies are charging for responding to false alarms so our clients appreciate the flexibility of our dispatching options.
When selecting an answering service to monitor alarms, clients should ask about insurance coverage. The trend has been to exclude property damage and bodily injury from answering service policies. Every year, we make sure our errors and omissions insurance policy covers these areas because we want to make sure our clients are protected.
Cell Phones
Some clients, especially Doctors, want to receive one consolidated invoice for their answering, paging, and cell phone service. We accommodate these clients with a range of competitive cell phone and text messaging plans. If cell phones need to be replaced, we arrange to transfer existing numbers to the new phone and will even deliver the phone to the doctor's home or office.
Medical Answering Service
We specialize in answering services for the medical community. Some unique features of our service include:
- High-priority doctor lines that are answered within 2 to 3 rings. This allows doctors to reach hospitals, patients, and other medical providers quickly and easily.
- Digital and audio record of all calls. Records are saved for 7 years. Increasingly, our documentation has helped in the defense of medical malpractice claims.
- Software that tracks on-call schedules to insure patients reach a doctor who can help them.
- Protocols for handling newborn calls, second requests, and other types of calls which are unique to the practice of medicine. Our protocols were developed by physicians to enhance patient care and streamline doctor-patient communications.
- Blocked caller ID on cell phones. Doctors receive their messages and can return patient calls without disclosing their personal cell phone numbers.
- HIPAA compliance. We can provide you with our template third-party agreement that insures confidentiality of Private Health Information, or we'll sign the agreement your practice uses.
Message Delivery Options
Our clients specify how their messages should be delivered. Messages can be delivered in a variety of ways, by:
- FAX (once a day, twice a day, or after every message)
- Calls or orders entered in an Intranet
- Voicemail
- Pager
- Cell phone text message
- Voice when clients call in or ask us to call them
Copies of messages are archived for 7 years and can be retrieved upon request.
On-Call Schedules
Doctors, property managers, plumbers, criminal defense attorneys, social service workers, and tow truck drivers all get calls after normal business hours. Our on-call scheduling software and protocols makes it easy for clients to share the responsibility for taking calls with colleagues and coworkers.
We maintain on-call schedules for our clients at no extra cost. Schedules can be changed as often as needed to insure that calls get to someone who can help. Our software allows on-call schedules to be entered months or years in advance. We know how important on-call schedules are so we call our clients when schedules need to be updated.
Paging
We provide our clients with their choice of digital or alphanumeric pagers. Clients "lease" their pagers from us. If their pagers break, we transfer their numbers onto new replacement pagers. We monitor pager reception inside hospitals and other buildings with shielded areas that might interfere with message reception. We also keep track of areas with limited service where our clients live or vacation so we can use alternative methods to deliver their messages.
Our system confirms that we sent messages out. It does not confirm receipt of messages by the pagers. Any number of variables can affect the delivery of messages to pagers including dead pager batteries, paging network overloads, and being out of range.
Payment Options
Invoices are generated on the first of each month and can be paid by check or credit card.
Senior Citizen Wellbeing Check-In Calls
We schedule daily, weekly, or monthly calls to check-in on senior citizens who live alone. Hearing a friendly, caring voice on the line is comforting to the elderly person and his or her family. Depending on how conversations go, we will advise family members if it sounds like additional assistance might be needed.
Telephone Answering
Our Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) answer our clients' calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, including holidays. Calls are answered with each client's name and personalized greeting. The CSRs can then:
- Take messages and send them to a client's FAX, Email, or cell phone.
- Send callers to voicemail where they can leave messages.
- Place callers on hold; dial a client's work, cell, or home number; and if the client wants to take the call, "patch" the caller and client together so they can talk.
- Page clients to "call in" so messages can be delivered verbally.
- Enter calls or orders into an intranet.
Our answering service allows for so many applications; we are unable to list them all. Here are just some of the solutions we provide to our clients:
- Virtual receptionist. We are a cost effective alternative to buying an expensive telephone system and paying a receptionist. When calls come in, we'll answer routine questions or route the calls to employees or departments that are best equipped to help.
- Customer service. By letting us answer routine customer service questions, our clients can handle the complex issues and focus on what they do best.
- Order entry and fulfillment. We take orders, process payments, and can even fill and ship orders.
- Member services. Members can call us 24/7 to get information about conferences and events or membership benefits.
- Extra call handling capacity. Clients may not have enough in-coming lines or people to answer all of their calls, especially during advertising campaigns or periods with high levels of publicity. We take care of these "overflow" calls quickly and efficiently.
- Eligibility screening. We screen callers and refer them to programs for which they qualify.
- Surveys. We capture callers' responses to surveys and report the results online or electronically.
- Restaurant reservations. People don't want to wait until a restaurant opens to make dinner reservations. We provide restaurants with a cost effective solution.
- Service dispatching. We dispatch the services that consumers need, from tow trucks and plumbers to city service and sanitation workers.
Technology
How Your Calls Get To Us
Clients must place call forwarding on the phone lines they want us to answer. There are three kinds of call forwarding:
- Busy Call Forwarding. If your phone is busy, it automatically forwards to us so we can answer the calls. Your callers will never receive annoying busy signals again.
- No Answer Call Forwarding.If your phone isn't answered after a predetermined number of rings, it automatically forwards to us so we can answer the calls. This is a great solution for small offices because calls are still answered even if the receptionist needs to step away for a few minutes.
- Manual Call Forwarding. You manually activate, and deactivate, call forwarding.
We provide clients with a Direct Inward Dial (DID) number to which their phones should be forwarded. If clients choose manual call forwarding, they dial 72# followed by their assigned DID number. To deactivate call forwarding, they dial 73#.
If clients choose Busy Call Forwarding and No Answer Call Forwarding, they should give the DID number we assign them to their phone company. The phone company will permanently call forward their phones to the DID number we provide. Most clients choose these call forwarding services so their calls are answered regardless if employees forget to forward their lines.
When Your Calls Ring In To Us
Our answering service system allows us to customize how calls are answered and handled for each client. When forwarded calls ring in, the client's instructions are automatically displayed on our Customer Service Representatives' screens. Our Customer Service Representatives see how callers should be greeted and what information to obtain for messages. Message forms are pre-formatted according to clients' specifications to insure delivery of complete information.
Reliability With Little Downtime
We house an inventory of backup parts for all computer systems. This allows us to repair and maintain our systems with minimal downtime. We also have a 40 KW backup generator so operations continue despite power failures.
Our in-house technicians maintain our computer and telecommunications systems. Our software vendors are also able to dial into our system remotely to diagnose and fix any problems that arise. We take every precaution because our goal is reliable service with minimal interruptions.
Statistics and Reports
We can generate reports that show ring, hold, and talk times. The reports show the days and times when calls arrived and the numbers to which they were delivered. These statistics help our clients plan their workloads and help us schedule manpower.
Toll Free Phone Numbers
We maintain an inventory of nationwide toll free phone numbers for our clients' use. Toll-free numbers have a low monthly service charge and nominal per-minute usage fee.
Toll-free numbers allow callers to reach our clients without long distance charges. Clients that aren't nearby can forward their lines to toll-free numbers and significantly reduce the costs of having us answer their calls.
Voicemail
We offer an integrated voicemail system with many powerful features and options including:
- Voicemail transcription. Our Customer Service Representatives can listen to your voicemail messages when they arrive, transcribe them, and send them as an abbreviated text message to your cell phone or wireless device. Clients know immediately who called and why. With a single stroke, they can return the call immediately. Or, they can listen to the entire voicemail message before calling back.
- Call Cascading. Our voicemail can be configured to call a series of numbers, such as work, cell, and home, until messages are actually delivered. This insures that clients never miss important calls.
- Follow Me Feature.Before callers can leave a voicemail message, our system will try to reach them on their work, cell, or home numbers. If calls are answered, callers are transferred through without ever realizing they reached voicemail first. If calls are not answered, callers are given the option of leaving voicemail messages.
- Message Distribution. Voicemail messages can be forwarded to multiple voicemail boxes. Clients can record messages and quickly distribute them to groups of employees, customers, or others who subscribe to our voicemail system.
- Voicemail "trees." Our voicemail system supports a single voicemail box or complex voicemail trees. It can facilitate business in multiple languages.... "For English, press 1, for Spanish press 2." Or, it can be configured to capture survey responses or a variety of other information.
- Operator assisted voicemail. Everyone hates voicemail purgatory. Our system allows callers to dial "0" to reach a human who can help them.
Our voicemail system is easy to use and inexpensive to set up.
Accessing Voicemail Boxes
Dial (559) 224-6500. After the prompt, enter your mailbox number followed by the # sign. (if applicable, enter your pass code number, too).
Menu #1 selections - Press one of the following
7- To play your messages
5- To create a voicemail message (leave yourself a message)
8- To access the OPTIONS menu
1- To change temporary status information
0- For operator assistance
9- To disconnect
PLAYING MESSAGES - Menu #2:
3- To DELETE the current message
5- To SAVE the current message
7- To REPLAY the message
4- To SEND the message to another voice mailbox
0- For operator assistance
9- To EXIT
OPTIONS - Menu #3:
4- To change your greeting
3- To edit distribution list
7- To change or to establish a PASSCODE
0- For operator assistance
9- To EXIT
CHANGE GREETING - Menu #4:
2- To begin RECORDING your new greeting
3- To delete your greeting
7- To replay your greeting
0- For assistance
9- To EXIT
Wake-Up Calls
We offer the same, convenient wake-up calls that hotels do. Our clients rely on us to make sure they get up when they don't want to miss flights or important meetings. They know that power outages can put their alarm clocks out of commission but we'll continue calling until we're sure they're awake.
Why Use Our Service?
- People call because they want to talk to a human, not a machine. We make it possible.
- People want the phone to be answered within the first couple of rings. We make it happen.
- People want answers to their problems. We go the extra mile to help.
- People don't want to be left on hold. We continuously monitor our performance and strive to improve.
- People want to be treated courteously and professionally. We make it a priority.
Report Problems With Our Service
We don't want our clients to suffer in silence. If our service doesn't meet their expectations, we encourage them to let us know. All problems are investigated in a timely manner. We will then follow-up and let clients know what we find. We don't make excuses if the mistakes are ours. Instead, we take steps to prevent future occurrences. Please call us to report problems or use this convenient online form (anonymous reports are not accepted).
