Use a remote receptionist to boost your business results

If you’re a small business owner who’s been getting by with a virtual receptionist (think: Siri) or voicemail answering your telephone instead of a live representative, you might want to consider a change to help you take your results to the next level.

Researchers at Boston University found that over 90% of people (think: your clients or prospects) want to speak to a real person when calling businesses. People trust other people much more than they trust machines, and interactions with machines are very frustrating, with 70% or more of respondents reporting that they couldn’t adequately describe their problems to machines and that they had to listen to irrelevant information and prompts that wasted their time. And over 50% of callers hang up without leaving a message if they can’t speak to a live person.

Now you could try to answer those phone calls yourself, but that may not be the best solution either: after all, you have work to do, and maybe half of the people calling you are trying to sell you their services rather than looking to pay for yours. You could hire a receptionist, but that receptionist will only work up to 8 hours a day, and can only answer one call at a time – and will cost you over $3,000 per month. So what is a better answer?

What are remote receptionists?

Remote receptionists are essentially call centers with customer service representatives to answer phone calls to your business. They can customize both how the call is answered and what the rep does with it. And best of all they only charge you for the time they spend working with your calls.

Benefits of remote receptionists

Remote receptionists answer your phone your way. Do you prefer a formal approach or a more casual tone? Do you want to lead with your business name or your personal name? Remote receptionists are experienced professionals who can tailor their service to your needs. They can also forward your calls to voicemail, treat salespeople separately from clients, and transcribe messages according to your directions.

Remote receptionists extend your business hours. These days, clients rarely limit their calls from 9 to 5. If you hire someone to answer calls, you’ll have coverage during the standard business day, but not if someone calls at 7:45 in the morning or at 6:15 at night. Some remote receptionists offer 24/7 coverage, while others will answer from 8am Eastern time through 6pm Pacific time. Either way, you have more hours that your phone is answered by a professional customer service rep.

Remote receptionists catch all of your calls. Phone calls never come in evenly, so if you have just one person answering your phone some of those calls will go to voicemail or be abandoned because that person is tied up on another call. Call centers are staffed to handle large volume of calls efficiently, so you benefit by having several qualified reps to answer your calls. And because several firms use these services, you get better value by paying only for the time those reps spend with your calls.

Remote receptionists qualify your calls, so you can prioritize your responses. Over one third of calls to businesses are unsolicited (think: spam), and many others, like vendor calls, are not as important to you as calls from clients or prospects. Remote receptionists can organize and prioritize your messages so you get to your most important calls first, boosting your effectiveness – and your bottom line.

So if your clients are still getting your answering machine when they call your business, think about helping them – and yourself – get better service with a remote receptionist. Office Evolution Walnut Creek can help you with this next step in your business journey. Call us today at (925) 239-0559.