Imagine being swamped with customers, clients and business, managing multiple employees simultaneously, taking care of purchase orders and deliveries and interacting with clients’ immediate needs all at the same time.
This is the scenario that you may find yourself in whether you manage a small personal office or a large retail store or restaurant. You may not even have the opportunity to answer the phone and, since missed phone calls equals missed opportunities, you may be missing a lot of opportunities if you can’t answer questions when you’re not available.
Fortunately, a solution, the virtual receptionist, does exist for busy individuals in this type of situation, whether it is a doctor, real estate agent, coach, and retail store or restaurant owner.
There’s a chance that you may have previously heard the term “answering service.” An answering service, akin to virtual receptionists, is designed to answer your phone calls while you’re busy and cannot take any calls from potential customers or others wanting to do business.
Answering services and virtual receptionists likewise, answer the people that call your phone line and make sure the appropriate response is given to the person on the other end. In addition, you can also have calls transferred to you instantly.
How Virtual Receptionists can Help
Virtual receptionists have one major difference with traditional answering services. While traditional answering services are usually located near your office or within the same region, the definition of a virtual receptionist–and the technology that can be used–has expanded so that you can use a virtual receptionist clear across the country in California while you’re operating out of your office in Florida.
When using a virtual receptionist’s service, you usually give the receptionist all of your important phone numbers so that you can be reached either during the day or during the night. For example, if you’re “on-call” 24 hours a day, 7 days a week then you may want a virtual receptionist to alert you only if serious emergencies arise during the evening or night hours.
Other than for emergencies, you can also give the virtual receptionists a general breakdown of your schedule so that they can be free to tell clients or customers why you’re unable to answer at the exact moment of their call.
Triage Phone Calls
When you give out your phone numbers and start using the virtual receptionists’ service, you also give out a list of triage or “troubleshooting” protocol which you want the receptionist to carry out before calling you. For example, a doctor may instruct the virtual receptionist service in some very basic first aid care procedures which to tell patients to try. Or, a plumber may give basic repair instructions to the virtual receptionist service.
In both cases, the instructions that you leave can be given to and followed while the client or customer is on the phone with the virtual receptionist. Having your triage answering service perform troubleshooting steps with the caller may prevent escalation or serious problems from ever occurring in the first place.
The most basic advantage of using virtual receptionists to help is that your phone calls get answered. Many people don’t enjoy leaving voicemail messages, which is the primary reason that you “lose out” if you don’t answer the phone. The virtual receptionist, though, can guarantee that phones can be answered while you’re busy, ensuring your clients and customers get taken care of.
Virtual Receptionist vs. Virtual Assistant
There are actually several different types of virtual helpers and they each can perform different responsibilities depending on your actual needs. A virtual receptionist specializes in answering the phone, escalating the phone call to you, screening telephone numbers and callers, and acting in a friendly, polite and professional manner when representing you over the phone.
On the other hand, a virtual assistant specializes in multi-tasking and taking on various projects for your business along with answering the phones and acting as a virtual receptionist.
The primary advantage to using a virtual assistant is that you can have more tasks get accomplished if you’re busy and need help. For example, a virtual assistant can prepare reports, book travel arrangements, and perform other tasks as needed, within reason, to help your business and customers or clients thrive.
With a virtual receptionist, you still get a professional answering your phone and taking messages, but you do not typically outsource projects and tasks, like preparing reports, to a virtual receptionist who specializes in phone services.
Paying Virtual Receptionists and Where to Hire
When it comes to actually hiring virtual receptionists, the amount you pay depends on the particular company you agree to and its specific services. For example, some virtual receptionists offer automated services like call forwarding, voicemail-to-email messages, conference call platforms, real-time reports and even mail forwarding.
On the other hand, you may only want to pay for basic services that include answering phone calls and taking and giving messages when you’re out of the office or away.
Solo versus Group Virtual Receptionists
Many large companies and organizations offer virtual receptionist services. With these companies, virtual receptionists are usually hired “in-house,” and you can avail yourself to a whole team of virtual receptionists standing by to answer phone calls. On the other hand, you can also look for virtual receptionists apart from larger, established companies on freelance websites like oDesk.com or iFreelance.com.
These sites offer a space for virtual receptionist freelancers, meaning that you can find and hire receptionists on a one-to-one basis rather than dealing with a larger company. In either case, professionals reside both on an individual freelance basis and inside a larger, more established company.
Setting up a virtual receptionist service can be a big help to your company and make a huge difference in workflow, customer or client satisfaction and your overall reputation. Though you can always decide to hire an on-site assistant to answer phones and complete tasks you assign, hiring a professional virtual receptionist service makes the most sense since it can be used to answer your calls when you, and everyone else, are out of the office.
To connect you to callers, act professionally when representing you and save time by performing simple triage and troubleshooting steps, a virtual receptionist often acts as a critical component of your business.
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