The 4 Big Costs of Employee Call-Off Hotlines (2024)

If you’re in charge of your company’s staffing needs and you say, “Okay, there’s got to be a better way to keep track of all our employees' call outs”, you’re in the right place.

As an answering service company that’s been in the business for over 90 years, we hope to help you understand what costs go into employee call-off lines so you can decide whether or not it's right for your business.

Here are the four main cost-drivers of employee call-off hotline services:

1. Technology in Employee Call-Off Hotline Services

2. Having Enough Agents Answer Your Call-Off Lines
3. Having the Right Agents Answer Your Call-Off Lines
4. Making Sure your Call-Off Hotlines Run 24/7 

Or, you could jump ahead to see what employee call-off hotlines cost in 2024.

Let's dive into the details:

1. Technology in Employee Call-Off Hotline Services

The technology used in answering services comprises many working parts. The biggest of which is the employee reporting service.

Let’s say you already use an employee call-off hotline. Ideally, you’d want the call-off line baked into a comprehensive employee management program. 

Why?

Because taking the calls is one thing, but keeping records of those calls, tracking a specific employee’s absence record over the last month, or even adding a new supervisor in the system to view them, is a whole other thing.

The ability to meet the present and future demands of your business’ staffing needs should be covered by the technology in your employee absence tracker.

However, without agents behind the phones, the technology in a call-off hotline would be useless.

2. Having Enough Agents Answer Your Call-Off Lines

As simple as it sounds, cheap call center services often cut corners by having fewer agents available to handle your calls. And not having enough agents behind the phones will hurt your business.

How?

Fewer agents mean longer wait times, longer wait times can lead to the agents being overworked to answer as many calls as they can. Being overworked means they make more errors and making more errors means an increased level of caller dissatisfaction – which lowers profitability.

This is why it’s essential to pick a service that is well reviewed by their satisfied clients.

But, while having enough agents is important, ensuring that they’re the right agents is essential. 

3. Having the Right Agents Answer Your Call-Off Lines

By the right people, we’re talking about folks who know their stuff and are well-equipped for answering your calls, no matter the time of day.

They should also possess the necessary qualities of a good call center agent - friendly, professional, efficient, among others.

Another aspect of good training is that they should be able to deal with the pressures of a peak calling period. You wouldn’t want a frazzled agent handling your employees during an emergency. Good training prevents that from happening.

And speaking of emergencies:

4. Making Sure Your Call-Off Hotlines Run 24/7

Storms, power outages, hacking – these things happen! But nobody wants to think about how it could affect their business as it’s always associated with a BIG $ sign next to it.

Being prepared for an emergency doesn't come cheap, but it’s important for call centers to have these measures so that you can run business as usual.If you’re curious about what goes into business preparedness for disasters, you can read about the measures we take to ensure your business runs 24/7 in the event of an emergency. 

The Cost of Employee Call-Off Hotlines In the Industry

So now you must be thinking “Okay, but what does it cost?” 

Well, we found these industry averages on employee call-off hotline prices. While this is an average, a real pricing model looks like ours which you can see here. 

As you can see, usage is the main determinant of price.

You might be saying, “But, my usage differs month-to-month!”

Well, then you’d want to go with a provider that gives you the flexibility to change your plan when necessary. It’s something we do that has provided great value to our customers.

Already got a plan but it’s starting to cost too much? There are ways to save on answering services by cutting back costs!

Are Employee Call-Off Hotlines Right for My Business?

Okay, so you know what drives the costs for employee call-off hotlines and how much it costs, you might be wondering if an employee call-off hotline is right for your business.

In short, if you want a consistent record of your employees’ absences, to reduce the interruptions to your work from call-offs, and discourage time-off abuses, then an employee call-off hotline would be worth looking into.

For now though, you might be saying:

What exactly are the benefits of an employee call-off hotline?

I want to learn more about employee call-off hotlines before I get one!

or what’s the right employee call-off hotline for my business?

If you’re further interested in what employee call off hotlines can do for your business, you can reach out to discuss our employee call-off hotline services today!