As technology has blurred the boundaries of geographical markets and created tools to improve business performance, a particular service has seen a resurgence: the virtual receptionist. It is arguable that virtual receptionists services spun off the more traditional answering service industry.
An answering service served as a more personable alternative to voicemail for businesses that needed 24/7 coverage, like medical clinics and property management offices. Virtual receptionists, however, added more value to businesses as they are trained and capable to perform higher order tasks like scheduling appointments, doing light intake, filling out forms and orders, etc. If you are in the pursuit of adding a virtual receptionist to your business, you might want to look for the following characteristics:
1. Availability
One of the main advantages of working with an virtual receptionist service is its 24/7/365 availability. You do not have to work more than 8 hours a day but can still capture leads coming in at all times. Hours of operations do not necessarily correlate with availability, however. Make sure that you look for a virtual receptionist service that staffs enough operators to answer calls quickly. Good industry standards show that calls need to be answered under an average answer time of 12 seconds and answer over 90% of calls in under 20 seconds.
2. Friendly
Your virtual receptionist will be the first line of contact for your potential clients. They need to be friendly as your potential customers will be making a fast impression of your company based on those first few moments of interaction over the phone. The best way to test this is to call the virtual receptionist service yourself. Do you feel welcomed when you call? Sample recordings are often staged. Make sure to work with a virtual receptionist service that is open to letting you test their service as much as you wish.
3. Experience
There are several virtual receptionist services out there. A big chunk of these are niche services that rely on a particular industry. Be careful about working with a virtual receptionist service that does not have experience with your type of business. On the other hand, experience in your industry can improve the overall performance of operators with your callers as operators will be familiar with your industry’s protocols and buzz words. Make sure to ask for reviews or referrals.
If you too are looking for a virtual receptionist for your business, consider Easybee’s virtual receptionist services. Easybee’s phone call reception service focuses on high quality call handling across several industries.
At Easybee, we create “affinity groups” where operators receive additional training to better service the main industries we work with. Easybee Virtual Receptionists will manage all the important calls and offer clients with best-quality service they need. Want to know more about how to develop your brand with Easybee?
