After hours answering service questions

[Eric Hathway]

Does anyone use an after hours answering service? What are the basics of what they offer? Do they field calls and decide when to call the 24 hour maintenance guy? I imagine they dont have to be local- maybe they need a 1 800 number. Any company recommendations? What should I use to compare one company to another?

[Ryan Murdock]

@Eric Hathway While I don't have specific companies to recommend to you I have used call centers in the past for my New England properties. You should be able to give them a list of criteria and who to call for what. 

For example, I had them take messages and email them to me for pretty much everything except no heat calls or active plumbing leaks. Those two items would trigger a direct call either to me or to the plumbing/heating company. That helped filter out all of the non-emergency calls....but when I saw the Call Center's number pop up on my caller ID I knew it was a legitimate issue.

You should be able to set the call center criteria to whatever fits your situation using a combination of Google Voice numbers, call forwarding from your normal phone, and/or ring through apps that silence all calls except select numbers.