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Fire Your Secretary!
inbound phone calls.
5. Variable E: Secretary spends 12% of work day on lunch.
6. Variable F: Secretary spends 18% of work day remaining unproductive.

Based on these variables, your secretary gets paid $96.00 a day. With this figure broken down, they get paid $38.40 per day managing office work, $28.80 per day managing inbound phone calls, $12.00 for eating lunch (provided lunch is paid), and $17.28 per day for doing nothing. For the purposes of proving this theory, lets analyze the variables based on a 1 month block (22 business days), secretaries will earn $844.80 for managing office work, $633.60 for managing inbound phone calls, $264 for lunch, and $380.16 for remaining unproductive.

So, if only 3.2 hours per day are spent managing office business, it doesnt make sense for business owners to hire a secretary for an entire day when most of their duties can be outsourced to a call center. Accounting for free time (i.e. coffee breaks, cigarette breaks, bathroom time, etc.) lets round up the 3.2 hour figure to 4 hours ($48.00 per day - $1056 per month). Also, lets take $250.00 as an average market price for utilizing an answering service for a one month period. Also, take into account that with a part time employee (i.e. less than 4 hours per day), a lunch break is not required.

Its time for the grand totals you have been waiting for.

- Case A: Using a secretary for every office duty costs a business owner $2112 per month.
- Case B: Utilizing a secretary part time while outsourcing phone management duties to an answering service costs a business owner $1306.00 per month.

Based on these figures, utilizing an answering service can save a business owner $816.00 per month ($9792.00 per year). Keep in mind that this figure does not include the increase in business by having an after hours, 24/7 live operator presence managing your calls. A live operator will strengthen customer relationships and project the image of a larger, more secure & dependable business to your customers (& potential customers). I suppose the title of this article should have been Dont Fire Your Secretary, Just Cut Their Hours.

Author: UnKnown