Opening Small UK Call Centre

Hi,

I’m starting a small UK inbound Call Centre and am looking at keeping my costs down to as minimum as possible.
To do this I’m trying to keep down the number of agents I have and the number of incoming lines until I know that business is going to go well.

The problem is I’ll be spending money on advertising and want to make sure I don’t actually miss any calls, but at the same time I don’t want to spend a fortune on agents and lines if I get no calls!

Ive been looking into this on the internet and found a site which seems pretty good, but no one seems to have heard of it. It allows me to login and set up a free 0870 number online and then effectively “control” the numbers using the website. The system says it can handle hundreds of concurrent inbound calls an simply keeps the person on hold with some music whilst it tries any of the telephone numbers I put in. Once the lndline number is free (i.e. my guys are off the phone) it puts the call through and connects when we pick up the phone.

The system’s called SmartIVR (http://www.smartivr.co.uk) – has anyone else had any experience with this?

It was fairly painless to signup for an account and allocate a couple of 0870 numbers (I’ve even managed to get one number per advert so I can see which adverts work and which don’t).

The system seems pretty well put together and drops me an email with any missed calls and answerphone messages but I’m not sure if it could really handle a large load of calls?

Ta,

David