Did you know small business owners miss 62% of calls coming in? Every missed call is potential revenue that is lost because your receptionist is too busy with other tasks.
If you never imagined that you could have a virtual receptionist, think again. The paradigms of what can and cannot be moved online and to the virtual realm are expanding as the Internet expands its reach.
But what are some virtual receptionist benefits to watch out for, and how can they help your particular business? The bottom line is what matters in your business, and a virtual receptionist can help.
Read on to see seven ways a virtual receptionist can benefit your business.
1. Your Live Receptionist Is Too Busy to Handle the Call Volume
Nowadays, every employee is worked beyond their capacities. The challenge is great, but what if your business has a receptionist that’s way too busy with other tasks to handle the many calls coming in?
That would be a fail for your business because every missed call can result in missed business. What if the potential lead doesn’t call back or doesn’t leave a message?
That’s potential revenue that you’ve thrown down the toilet because your receptionist was overworked and overextended.
A virtual receptionist can help you with that because they wouldn’t be running around dealing with potential office conflicts or delivery people. They would be able to focus entirely on the task of handling incoming calls.
2. You Need Coverage beyond 9 to 5
You might have a live receptionist right now, but he/she leaves for the day at 5 pm. Well, what about the rest of the time? You might think that you don’t get many after-hours calls, so it’s okay.
But what if you are wrong? What if many of your potential leads are contacting you after hours and are unable to get a hold of you?
Or worse, what if your current customers are trying to get a hold of your after-hours but can’t? That could result in lost business. A virtual receptionist can help you avoid that by being available 24/7.
3. You Need a Receptionist That Can Take on a Wide Variety of Tasks
Sometimes people can get bogged down by their job titles and fixate on the idea that they are only capable of doing certain tasks.
Maybe your receptionist is in the same boat. They think they take calls and handle the mail, but that’s all.
A virtual receptionist is more flexible in that regard. They can tackle a wide variety of tasks, like lead generation, scheduling or canceling appointments, helping to process orders, transferring calls, and more.
There’s nothing they can’t take on for you and your business needs.
4. You Are Spending Too Much on a Live Receptionist
Virtual receptionists are cheaper to hire than regular receptionists for two reasons.
First, they aren’t full-time regular workers, so they don’t have benefits. Contract workers save you 20-30% in payroll costs, says Nolo.
Second, they are working from home and can work longer hours because they don’t have to deal with the commute and the lunch hour rush. All that saves you money.
5. You Are Interested in Offering Better Customer Service
Perhaps your staff is spending all their time answering the same questions repeatedly.
Is there free parking for visitors? What is the business website URL? What are the directions to the office?
These are time-wasters that can drain not only the productivity of the employee but your bottom line. You don’t want to waste your precious employees’ time with such inane questions.
You also don’t want to brush aside your potential leads and their repetitive questions.
A virtual receptionist can help you balance the two by providing great customer service and avoiding draining your regular employees.
6. You Want Help During Busy Seasons or Emergencies
Perhaps you are in an industry that has ebbs and flows, and you don’t want to hire a full-time employee merely for the busy period. Maybe you are in an industry where emergencies are par for the course, and you need help fighting those unpredictable fires.
Either way, a virtual receptionist benefits you by helping with the ups and downs of your business. You can use a virtual receptionist as much as or as little as you want.
They are also particularly helpful when there are natural disasters or other such emergencies, where your regular employees are in a power outage situation and cannot communicate with your customers.
In such a situation, your virtual receptionist will keep your business running and become the lifeline of your company. No need to lose out on hundreds or even thousands of dollars of lost sales through missed calls and productivity.
Keep your business’ engine running no matter what. That’s the power of remote workers who are spread across the globe and aren’t affected by a natural disaster in one country.
7. You Want to Increase the ROI of Your Business
According to an Airtasker study, remote workers worked an average of 1.4 more days every month than regular office workers. That’s 16.8 days extra over the year, which is quite a huge difference.
This proves that remote workers are more productive than in-house staff, and thus, hiring virtual receptionists would increase your ROI by helping you pump more work out.
Hiring virtual staff over full-time employees can save 78% on operating costs year over year, Entrepreneur says.
All this directly benefits your bottom line.
A Virtual Receptionist Helps Boost Your Business Profits and Productivity
A business in the modern world cannot afford to go without a virtual receptionist. Now that it’s been proven to you that a virtual receptionist is useful for modern business, what are you waiting for?
If you are wary about hiring someone remotely, then starting with a part-time virtual receptionist is a great way for you to dip your feet into the virtual waters.
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