How to grow your business without growing your team.

Even if your team is just you.

Australian based call answering and virtual assistance for small business

Virtual Customer Care | Sohovian
Virtual Customer Care | Sohovian

Why you need to stop doing it all yourself

Small business owners are an industrious lot. They feel the need to be on the tools, because either no-one can do it like they do, or, they think they cannot afford to get help.


But it's a false economy. For the most part, the owner is the best salesman. They have 'skin in the game' and they NEED to be working on business growth.

While you're busy on the tools, there are definitely opportunities that are going begging, simply because you can't see them or you don't have time to pursue them.

Take some time to work out how much work you may be missing out on, because you're too busy doing all of the things.

Here’s what people are saying about Sohovian's team

Hear what Tracey had to say about us

Tracey - Assistive Technology expert
"Sohovian kept my door open"

With staffing issues and COVID , Sohovian has successfully kept my door opened and given me the ability to trade through some turbulent times.

pATTI- Real Estate Principal
"This team really cares for my clients"

I recently received glowing feedback about how Nicola really helped one of my clients who was having an anxiety attack. Nic's empathy and patience really stood out while she assisted the client to get an urgent appointment with me.

Mary - Psychologist

Your customers are the lifeblood of your business. For a small business, it's always a challenge to provide a consistent, high quality standard of customer service. Even when you have a great team working for you, there's still the challenge of how to handle calls during lunch breaks or when staff are on leave.

And what happens if you get multiple calls coming in at once?

Full-time coverage for a part-time price

Because you only pay for the time you use, you'll find the cost is substantially less than what you'd pay for a full-time staff member.

Call overflow

You may already have a fabulous team, but you're looking for a solution to help them out when things get busy. We can help you.

Australian Based

We do not offshore our services. All of our team are based in Australia. Rest assured that with Sohovian, your team has local knowledge. 

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Here are some of the businesses that we help

Law Firm

  • Growing law practice
  • With 4 full-time lawyers and support team of 5 full-time and part-time staff
  • Challenges:
  • High volume of calls
  • Need for calls to transferred to the right person
  • Lawyers unable to take calls while in court or conferences with clients

Sohovian has worked with the practice since it was founded more than 6 years ago. We:

  • answer all their overflow calls
  • collect information from new clients
  • checking calendars and provide information where appropriate
  • transfer calls to the team
  • act as a conduit for information between clients and their lawyers

Property management business

  • Busy property management business
  • 1 principal, 1 other property manager and part-time admin assistant
  • Challenges: 
  • High volume of calls
  • Multiple messages left by the same people because they're not sure their first voicemail was received
  • Similar questions asked repeatedly by callers

Sohovian provides a call overflow service for the times that the in-house team are either not there or can't get to the phone. For this business we:

  • Take detailed messages and send them through to the appropriate person
  • Provide direction for callers to apply for properties, or schedule an inspection
  • Triage calls to ensure urgent messages get through quickly


Professional Association

  • A large association of professionals
  • 2 full-time staff and a number of part-time and contract team members
  • Challenges:
  • Medium call volume
  • Callers require assistance to pay their membership or access courses
  • New members calling to discuss taking up membership

Sohovian has worked with the association for many years. We help with:

  • Taking payment details and relaying them securely to the team
  • Assisting potential new members with their enquiries, including how to apply for membership
  • Assisting members with accessing their portal on the association's website

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Where are you spending your time?

Many of our clients are professionals, working in their own small business. They know that their time is worth money. They've tried to employ staff in the past, and either the staff didn't stay or they weren't effective. So rather than going back and doing it all themselves, our clients have taken the step to outsource the work and remove the headache of managing staff and admin work.

Consistency is key

We are a small team at Sohovian. We're not a large contact centre. So your regular callers will likely speak with our team members more than once. This consistency builds relationships that are invaluable to your business.

Tip: Let us know a bit about your regular callers, and we'll ensure that we find the 'connection' to make them feel at home talking to us.

Virtual Customer Care | Sohovian
Virtual Customer Care | Sohovian

Your business, your way

Perhaps you're a bit of a maverick. The industry you're in is a little traditional, a bit staid and would never countenance using an "answering service".  You love what you do, but you don't want to run your business the same way everyone else does. 

You value your freedom and enjoy the flexibility that an outsourced admin team can give to your business.

Your business, your way

Perhaps you're a bit of a maverick. The industry you're in is a little traditional, a bit staid and would never countenance using an "answering service".  You love what you do, but you don't want to run your business the same way everyone else does. 

You value your freedom and enjoy the flexibility that an outsourced admin team can give to your business.

The numbers speak for themselves

Virtual Customer Care | Sohovian

When you look at the costs to employ staff, you know it makes sense. Here's an example, based on the minimum wage rate* you'd need to be paying.  And you're still worrying about covering lunch breaks, sick leave, and annual leave, not to mention the time that the person simply isn't there.

Note: you'd probably be paying much more than the wages we've quoted here because good people can command good money.

Business employing one part-time person for 15 hours per week (3 hours per day)

Weekly wages and super*:     $410.75

  

Sohovian average weekly cost**:     $176.92

* adult minimum full-time wage of $22.67/hour (2022/2023 rates)

** including GST

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Frequently asked questions

What is the minimum term?

At Sohovian, we don't believe in tying our clients down to long-term contracts. We offer "rolling" contracts. Depending on the size of your account, we do have a minimum term of either 30 or 60 days.

This means that there's no need for you to worry about being locked in for longer than you need us. 

Just sit back, relax, and let us handle your calls.


Are there other conditions I should be aware of?

There are a couple of things you should know:
Security Bond: At Sohovian, we require a security bond as part of our agreement with clients. The amount of the security bond is based on the size of your account and is fully refundable at the end of the contract period, assuming everything is in order and there are no issues at the end of your contract. This is just one of the ways we ensure a smooth and successful partnership with our clients.
Early Termination Fee: If you terminate your contract without giving us the required notice (either 30 or 60 days), we will charge you a fee that is equal to the bond you’ve paid.
Pricing reviews: We review our prices on a regular basis. You will always receive at least 30 or 60 days (depending on the size of your account) notice of any changes to your pricing arrangements.
Zero tolerance for abuse: 
Our team has been trained to work with difficult callers. However, there are times when a caller may become extremely difficult and abusive. We don't tolerate any form of harassment, intimidation, or bullying, so we’ll terminate calls and conversations where this happens. We’ll always give you a heads-up when it happens though.

What do my charges include?

  • Dedicated telephone number for your business
  • Full-time, customer care team 8:30am to 5:00pm (AEST/AEDT) Monday to Friday Note: Excluding National Public Holidays
  • All the tasks necessary to ensure your customer care service runs smoothly

What are some of the additional charges I can expect?

  • Call costs for transferred calls
  • Faxes that we may receive or send on your behalf
  • Printing, mail-out costs etc
  • Can I use my existing number or do I have to use yours?

    Yes, you certainly can use your own number.

    When you sign up with us, we will give you an indial number in our phone system that is dedicated to your service, while you are our client. You then redirect your phone number to our indial.

    If you have a landline and you’re currently able to redirect calls to your mobile, then in all likelihood you can redirect calls to our number.

    Do you outsource your service?

    No we do not. We pride ourselves on being local, so we won't outsource your calls to any other service.

    We also use an Australian-based telco, so all our telecommunications are on-shore as well.

    What's the process for getting started?

    1. The first step is book a call with our team. We'll spend 30 minutes listening and brainstorming ways to help you. 
    2. We'll then send you a full proposal, outlining the service and the costs.
    3. On accepting our proposal, you'll be asked a lot of questions about your practice, including your fees, your policies and your hours etc.
    4. Our system will then work its magic and we can having you setup and ready to go within 2 working days (even less if it's a simple setup).