Call Ruby Pricing Increasing More Frequently

It’s no secret that Ruby Receptionists have been raising their prices incrementally over the years that they have been in business. However, customers have found that these price increases are happening more frequently, leaving them wondering how these additional charges will affect their businesses and why increases are happening more and more often. In this article, we’re going to assess the effects of these price increases and address why they seem to be happening more often.

Call Ruby Pricing Historical View:

Dating back to 2011, Call Ruby has raised prices on their plans in each of their three pricing packages. You can see the increases over time here:

2011: $209-$699 per month

2012: $219-$739 per month

2013: $229-$769 per month

2014: $239-$799 per month

2015: $249-$819 per month

2016: $259-$899 per month

2017: $259-$989 per month

Even with prices being increased at the beginning of 2017, Ruby Receptionists have raised prices again before year’s end, with prices now ranging from:

Today (October 2017): $269-$1069 per month

Since 2011, the 100 minute packages has increased $60 per month from $209 per month to now $269 per month. The 500 minute package has increased by almost $500 per month from $699 per month to now $1069 per month.

Why Have Prices Increased By So Much?

Well, there are a few reasons for Call Ruby’s pricing increases.

Corporate Acquisition

For starters, in 2015, CEO and Founder of Ruby Receptionists, Jill Nelson, sold her majority ownership stake in the company to Updata Partners for $38.8 million. Updata Partners are a large data company based out of Washington, D.C., with more than a few companies in their portfolio, which you can see here. With such a large data company in ownership, it only seems likely that keeping shareholders happy is the reason for such frequent increases in price.

Too much growth.

Because Call Ruby has such a big name in the answering service industry, they need to provide less incentive for businesses to join them, because if they grow too fast, the quality of their service will decline. Think about it -- the more customers they have, the more minutes the virtual receptionists have to spend on the phone, meaning that hold times will be longer and receptionists will have to speed through calls to get to the next call. There’s even evidence that this has happened in the past from customer reviews online: “I have been working with Ruby for several years and initially they were great: I never went over my monthly allowance, calls were responded to quickly and questions were answered thoroughly. Over time, plan prices have increased substantially and the call quality has gone down considerably.” This review proves exactly what we’ve posited: as call quality has declined, prices have increased.

What’s the Solution?

If your answering service keeps raising prices frequently, call quality seems to be declining, or both of these things are occurring, it’s time to find a new answering service. Make sure to get a free trial, test the service yourself, and ensure that quality is maintained as long as you are a customer. If you feel like you are paying too much for low quality, chances are you probably are.

If you need help researching the right answering service for you, check out our article, 6 Ways To Determine If an Answering Service is Right For You. You’ll learn what to look for in an answering service, how to assess your unique needs, and what customer reviews should say about the right answering service.

If you need an answering service that provides fully customizable legal intake, look no further than Answering Legal! Learn more about how our services work, or download our eBook, Ways to Use an Answering Service for Your Law Firm.

Sources:

https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/blog/techflash/2015/01/ruby-receptionists-sells-majority-stake-in-38-8m.html

https://www.conversational.com/raising-prices-annually-is-a-virtual-receptionist-provider-red-flag/

https://www.virtualassistantassistant.com/ruby-receptionists