Transforming fixed costs to variable costs
As the Covid19 lockdown eases, Paperclip has been helping many businesses across the region, including a South Yorkshire accountancy firm, transform an element of their fixed costs into variable costs. The formal term for this is variabilisation.
Variable costs increase business resilience
During COVID-19, fixed costs will have kept many business owners and Directors awake at night. When business times are tough, fixed costs can turn a decline in sales into significant losses. More importantly, as business activity picks up, not only does variabilisation make your business more resilient, it also enables you to compete on factors like agility and risk management.
Telephone answering services, variable costs and an accountancy group in South Yorkshire
A South Yorkshire accountancy group with multiple offices wanted to variabilise a large proportion of its administration costs. As lockdown started, the group closed its offices, furloughed the majority of its administrative staff and engaged Paperclip to provide telephone answering services. All calls to the group’s offices across South Yorkshire were diverted to Paperclip (a ‘full divert’). Paperclip transferred the incoming calls to accountants working from home or took a message in those cases where the accountant was unavailable.
One of the advantages for the accountancy group of using Paperclip is that their telephone answering capacity is now scalable. If for some reason, they have double their usual volume of calls on a given day, Paperclip can absorb this.
Paperclip clients only pay for the minutes they use
After a nominal fixed monthly charge, Paperclip’s telephone answering customers only pay for the minutes they use. This is the essence of a variable cost; it fluctuates in line with the volume of business activity.
Furthermore, Paperclip’s systems, training and staffing are structured to ensure all calls are captured, something that traditional in-house reception or administrative functions find incredibly challenging; all businesses miss calls.
Paperclip’s charging structure is variable in other ways too. In the case of the South Yorkshire accountancy group, for example, they have engaged Paperclip to undertake aspects of administrative work, as and when required, in response to the types of projects they are undertaking.
All businesses are looking at their cost base
Paperclip has definitely seen a growth in the number of new clients citing variable costs as a key reason for choosing to use telephone answering services. All businesses are looking at their cost base. Many are choosing to pivot to a hybrid work model with a mixture of home and office working. The potential complexity of telephone communications in such a model can be simplified by diverting all calls to Paperclip and agreeing on the protocols for call transfers, message taking and the filtering out of unsolicited or nuisance calls.
Key learning points
1 – Turning fixed costs into variable costs provides financial and strategic benefits.
2 – Paperclip’s telephone answering, appointments and order fulfilment services are the epitome of a variable cost: you only pay for the minutes you use.
3 – Telephone answering services complement hybrid work models that mix home and office working.
Talk to Paperclip about variable costs, today!
Every conversation with a prospective Paperclip client revolves around the business challenges they are trying to resolve. The challenge could involve capturing sales, improving customer service, variabilising costs or a myriad of other hurdles.
If you have a business challenge, we’d love to work with you to resolve it. Just call us on 01246 418181. We’re ready to capture your call!
*For an excellent introduction to the subject of variablisation in all its various forms in the Harvard Business Review.
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- Call Answering – The Pioneers
- Free telephone and IT helpline to keep business talking during lockdown
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- Why call answering and call management for law firms is a specialist service
Hi, I’m Anne Batty, Managing Director of Paperclip. I am passionate about customer service. I believe enduring relationships are built on being open, transparent and trustworthy.
I love questions. So, if you have a question relating to telephone answering – pricing, technical, scope and more – I would love to hear from you at anne@paperclip.co.uk or 01246 418181.
Paperclip’s clients enjoy working with us. I know you will too.