5 Amazing Virtual Receptionist Benefits For Businesses
Are you looking for a way to save time and money for your business? Check out these 5 amazing benefits of having a virtual receptionist for your company.
With 75% of all businesses having no employees at all, it can be hard for a small business to break through and be taken as seriously as their competitors. If you’re a new business or don’t have the need for staff, you’ve felt that tinge of patronizing when you tell people you don’t have an office. Having a virtual receptionist can help you get over that hump and have confidence in your company.
If you think an answering machine or an online contact form will suffice in pleasing your clients, you’re wrong. About 60% of all consumers prefer to speak with a living human being when they’re purchasing any kind of new product. Your customers need you to be available to help close the deal.
If you’re wondering about the many benefits of having a virtual assistant, we’ve put together a list of the top 7 reasons you need to have one.
1. Be Available 24/7
With the help of a virtual receptionist, your services can be available to your customers whenever they need them. If customers run into an issue with a product, they want to be able to ask you questions. When your office is closed, they could call you up and get no response.
While this might seem reasonable to you, as you have to sleep sometime, customers’ faith in your products could be harmed. Your customers might not think of themselves as demanding but they have high expectations, no matter what industry you’re in. If they want their cotton balls to last a little longer, you have to listen to them tell you about it.
Your receptionist can answer basic questions about your products, help with minor troubleshooting, and even assist customers in reordering. If you provide your receptionist company with enough information, they could project a deep knowledge of your products and services.
2. Seem Bigger Than You Are
As most businesses can’t afford to pay an employee, let alone someone whose sole job is to answer the phones, most companies have no receptionist. That means that either the business owner picks up the phone or it goes to a voicemail.
Call up any large midtown Manhattan firm and see how often either of those cases are true. In almost every instance, you’ll end up speaking to a receptionist. That makes it feel like you’re calling a grand office out of Mad Men.
Project that kind of professionalism to everyone who calls by hiring a virtual receptionist. It’ll seem like you have a personal assistant and put your callers back on their heels in the best way. Callers will be okay with you not being available, assuming you’re in the midst of business at some busy buzzing office space.
3. Get To The Important Work
Answering the phone is a necessary evil of running a business. But if you’re in the middle of a meeting or finishing some work, it can be a major distraction. You could be in the middle of some great breakthrough right when the phone severs your concentration and keeps you from doing the work you do.
If the phone rings while you’re in the middle of a meeting, you’re thrown in the midst of a lose-lose conundrum. Either you let the phone ring and go to voicemail and provide poor customer service to one potential client or you interrupt your meeting. The customer you’re sitting with will be rightfully offended that you would stop the person in front of you from talking so you could answer the phone.
You’ve got important work to do. Get the best out of both current work and prospective work by hiring a virtual assistant. That way you can prioritize the work that you need to do as it comes. You won’t be in the midst of making difficult decisions when you need to be focused.
As the owner of the business, you’ll want to keep your hands on everything. But in the end, you’ll have to let go of the wheel in a few cases so that work can get done. If you want to know the kinds of services a virtual answering service could provide, read more now.
4. Offer High-Quality Customer Service
When you hire a new staff member, you’ll have to train them and test them in the ways that you like things done in your office. Not everyone will arrive on day one with the kind of customer service experience that you’re looking for. When you contact a virtual receptionist, you can be assured you’re getting the best potential customer service professionals.
High-quality staff members cost money. They can cost thousands just to train, even when factoring in the work that you won’t be doing while you’re training them. You can get high-quality service at a low price when you hire a virtual assistant.
5. Manage Your Schedule
Time is probably your most important resource as a business owner. Managing your schedule is an essential component of running your company. You’ll need to leave time for doing all of the grunt work as well as managing the high-level issues.
How do you expect to handle digital marketing while you’re setting up an office wifi router and the phone is ringing off the hook? If you have to drive out for a meeting that you don’t know has been canceled yet, because you missed the call, you could be wasting valuable time.
Your virtual assistant can keep your schedule up to date so that you work as efficiently as possible and leave some time to relax.
A Virtual Receptionist Is A Must
Hiring a virtual receptionist could save your business money and even help you earn a profit. The work of answering calls, managing customer issues, and keeping your schedule needs to be handled by a professional. When you’re distracted by work, you won’t be giving customers the attention they need over the phone.
If you want to be the best small business owner you can be, check out our list of tips for success.
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