Isn’t it great to have a constant stream of phone inquiries from customers interested in your products or services? While it’s not so great if some of those calls are complaints, each one is still an opportunity to provide a positive customer experience.
However, if you’re answering all those calls yourself, or worse, missing some of them, you probably spend some time wishing you had a receptionist to handle them for you.
Well, the good news is that you can have a receptionist, even on a tight business budget—and we’re not talking about one of those automated call handling systems either.
You can engage a real human receptionist, with all the necessary skills and qualities, at a very reasonable cost through a virtual assistant company like Virtual Done Well.
The Benefits of the Human Virtual Receptionist
A human virtual receptionist (VR) can benefit your business far more than a digital solution using artificial intelligence, especially from the customer experience perspective.
After all, everyone likes to experience that sense of personal interaction, even during the most straightforward dialogue between ourselves and a vendor or service provider.
If you’re not convinced yet, though, read on, because we’re sharing some of the concrete benefits of having a live person—even one representing your business from a remote location—offering a welcome to your customers, leads, and prospects, and interacting with them on your behalf.
Customer Service is the VR’s Forte
Plenty of people who excel in business ownership and development are less than exemplary in handling telephone interactions. If you’re one of them and are honest with yourself about it, a virtual receptionist could be a massive boon to your enterprise.
Your VR can answer all incoming calls, greet the caller, make him or her feel like the call is welcomed, answer straightforward questions, and route the caller swiftly to your phone or that of whoever is best placed to handle the inquiry.
The geographic location of the telephone receptionist today is of little consequence. Digital technology enables calls to a local number to be taken anywhere and transferred to any other number.
Virtual receptionists in some countries, such as the Philippines, have neutral accents when communicating in English, so your callers don’t even need to know their call is routing through an overseas country.
In any case, the world is becoming accustomed to globalization, and many people today don’t mind where their call is received, provided they have a great experience.
Make Your Business Available 24/7
Depending on your time zone, hiring one or more virtual receptionists who operate overseas can enable you to provide live telephone responses around the clock. That’s an invaluable benefit if your business operates online and caters to an international community of customers.
You can use the services of a virtual receptionist in a time zone that allows him or her to work a day shift during your nighttime hours. You will not need to pay any premium for night working, and your callers will never have to navigate an automated menu to get the answers they need.
With some training and familiarisation, your VR will understand your business well enough to answer many callers’ questions directly.
However, when a call comes in after-hours that requires your input or action, the VR can note it, assure the caller that a response will be forthcoming within a specified time frame, and then list it for you to attend to during business hours.
Working as a team, two or three virtual receptionists operating in this manner can provide global cover for your business 24 hours a day, so you and your local workforce will only need to handle those calls requiring a specific person’s attention.
More Affordable than an Employed Receptionist
Research has suggested that, in general, employees are productive for no more than around three hours per day. Therefore, it’s possible that a full-time receptionist, who you would be paying for perhaps eight hours attendance per day, would spend much of that paid time in an unproductive capacity.
Given that the receptionist would cost you, say, $30 per day to employ, once all costs and benefits are added in, contracting a virtual receptionist for four hours per day could cost as much as 80% less than an employee doing the same job.
You have little in the way of overheads to worry about with a virtual receptionist either, and you’ll save space in your local business facility, which you can use for other purposes.
How to Find a Great Virtual Receptionist
Saving your time and money, and improving the customer experience are all worthy reasons to consider hiring one or more virtual receptionists, rather than handling your inbound calls yourself or implementing an impersonal, automated solution for call handling.
Of course, it’s critical to find the right contractors if you want the benefits of genuine, professional, personal assistance for your customers and other callers.
There are a couple of ways to identify and hire a virtual receptionist—or a team of them—to support your business. One way is to start a search for suitable freelancers, which will require some time and effort.
If you’re lucky, you might find the person you’re looking for among the first few online profiles you check, but it’s not always that easy, and the search can be frustrating.
Alternatively, you could reach out to a company that employs virtual assistants and bases them in a central business facility, where they work together as a team, are supported by managers, and are provided with enterprise-class tools and training.
Advantages of Hiring From a VR Provider
The advantages of working with a virtual assistant company can be considerable. Firstly, the provider will take care of the identification and supply of a virtual receptionist well matched to your business’ needs and culture. That can be particularly advantageous if you’re looking for more than one VR. It will reduce your recruitment and hiring time and effort substantially,
Other advantages include:
- Backup facilities to ensure uninterrupted service from your VR during his/her contracted hours.
- Assistance with training.
- Fast access to other virtual specialists who can support your business when needed, such as virtual assistants, researchers, developers, marketers, and creative specialists.
- Stand-in coverage for occasions when your regular VR is on holiday or sick leave.
- A true business-to-business relationship, simplifying your processes for communication, fee payment, and administrative flows.
- Scalability, as the company can quickly help you deploy more VRs for busy periods, and redeploy them elsewhere during quieter times.
Because they work for a company, instead of freelancing from home, employed virtual receptionists enjoy a more socially rewarding work environment, as they are not isolated and have colleagues and team leaders for support. That can equate to improved productivity and confidence, enabling your VR to provide your business with the highest possible level of dedication and performance.
A Low-Cost Approach to Professional Caller Reception
Regardless of whether you choose to approach a virtual assistant company or find freelance receptionists to capture your customer calls, your business, however small, can take advantage of the ease with which online business is conducted today.
Doesn’t your enterprise deserve the ability to give callers the personal, engaging experience that helps you win business and grow? Well, now it’s possible to do so without excessive complexity or cost.
Instead of struggling to multitask, dealing with the complications and costs of employing an on-site receptionist, or settling for a robotic, automated call management solution, you can hire a professional remote-working receptionist. Isn’t that a prospect that demands a positive reception?
To learn more about hiring a virtual receptionist from Virtual Done Well, and how we match you with high-performing remote business assistants, get in touch, and we’ll be pleased to answer your questions.
Best Regards,
Chau Lim
Email: chau@virtualdonewell.com
Phone: +61 413 981 888
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