You want to give your customers the best you have to offer, but can you really do that when you’re running yourself ragged trying to keep up with incessant phone calls? You might tell yourself that the phone ringing nonstop is just one of the quirks of running a business, but if you’re having trouble keeping up, perhaps it’s time to consider delegating telephone duty to somebody else. Here are a few reasons you might want to consider hiring a virtual receptionist service.
You Won’t Miss a Single Phone Call
With a virtual answering service taking charge of your calls, you’ll never have to worry about missing a potential client. The service you hire will provide receptionists working around the clock, weekends, holidays, and midnight emergencies included. You can rest assured that your calls will be answered and routed to the right place even when you aren’t available to pick up the phone.
Your Clients Will Appreciate Hearing a Human Voice
Nobody likes to dial a number only to be met with the monotonous sound of an answering machine telling them to leave a message or call back later. With a virtual receptionist, your clients will always have a real live human being to pick up the phone and answer their questions.
You Won’t Have to Train Anyone
You won’t have to invest the time and money in training an employee, because a virtual receptionist is professionally trained to be the best at what they do. They’ll also be trained to understand the nuances, nooks, and crannies of your business inside and out, so you don’t have to worry about a thing.
You’ll Save on Overhead Expenses
If you run your business out of your home, a coffee shop with great wifi, or a very small office, you aren’t going to have any room for an on-site receptionist. A receptionist desk, extra telephone, and office space are pretty big expenses, and although office supplies may seem affordable at first, the costs add up fast. Hiring an answering service to work remotely means you’ll save money on all of these overhead expenses.
You Might Have Access to Bilingual Services
Have you ever felt that your business was hindered by your inability to speak more than one language? Well, depending on the service you hire, you might have access to a virtual receptionist who can speak two or more languages, making your business easily approachable to an even wider range of clientele. Some employees will even come with a broad understanding of different cultures, making you accessible to customers around the world.
A Virtual Receptionist Can Arrange a Mobile-Only Office
Don’t have a business phone number or a business address? No problem! Some virtual receptionist services can provide you with a mobile number specifically for your business. That way, you can give off the impression of having an honest-to-goodness business address even if you don’t have office space or you work out of your home. This also provides you with privacy, as clientele won’t be constantly ringing up your cell phone.
A Virtual Receptionist Can Double as a Secretary
Many virtual receptionists do more than just answer the phone and reroute calls: they also provide secretarial or virtual assistant services, such as checking emails and voicemails, organizing and bookkeeping tasks, scheduling appointments, taking orders, processing payments, and much more.
You Only Pay For What You Use
An in-office employee is paid a fixed salary for a full day’s work, even if there wasn’t any work to do and the workday consisted of little more than waiting for the phone to ring. With a virtual service, you only pay for as many hours as you use, and only when you use them.
You’ll Have More Time to Work
As a business owner, you want to be there for your clients, but you have enough to do as it is without having to pick up the phone every twenty minutes. Of course, there will be times when a client wants or needs to speak with you directly, but many phone calls are just simple questions that can easily be delegated elsewhere. Hiring an answering service frees up your time so that you can focus on more important business tasks.
You’ll Have More Time to Yourself
Taking every single phone call personally means being on call 24-7, which gives you no time for yourself. Sure, you’re a business owner, but do you really want your weekends and holidays to revolve around client phone calls? With a virtual service to take your calls, you can ensure that you’re the one running the business instead of the business being the one running you.
If your telephone is interrupting you nonstop, don’t just chalk it up as an inevitable part of being a business owner. Do yourself a favor and look into hiring a professional virtual receptionist team that can help take some of the load off of your shoulders.
