Fire Your Secretary
By Todd Cardin

Peer out of your office door, what’s your secretary doing right now? If you answered surfing the internet, taking a nap, or reading a magazine, it’s time to rethink where your money is going. In an ideal situation, a secretary would be paid for the work they accomplish and not for watching the clock.

If is my theory that small businesses can save money by hiring a secretary part time to manage office business and utilizing an answering service to manage the phones.

Let’s analyze this theory from purely a mathematical point of view using 6 variables A, B, C, D, E, & F.

1. Variable A: Secretary gets paid $12.00 per hour.
2. Variable B: Secretary works 8 hours per day.
3. Variable C: Secretary spends 40% of work day managing office work.
4. Variable D: Secretary spends 30% of work day managing 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 doesn’t make sense for business owners to hire a secretary for an entire day when most of their duties can be out-sourced 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 a 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.

It’s 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 “Don’t Fire Your Secretary, Just Cut Their Hours”.

Todd Cardin is the regional sales manager for Specialty Answering Service. For more information about our professional answering service and call center, please call our offices at 1-888-532-4794.