Business owners often spend their days frantically managing several aspects of their business, and it can be easy to get burned out and lose sleep over all of the tasks you have to complete just to stay afloat. This is especially true if a business owner hasn’t yet delegated administrative tasks like answering phones or data entry. Does your business need the help of a live phone answering service? Read on to learn six reasons a virtual receptionist may be helpful to your business.
1. Improves Professional Appearances
A virtual receptionist will likely be the first contact point many prospective clients will have with your business, so having a professional virtual receptionist from Voicenation can help make your business appear more prestigious and organized.
Many business owners want to be involved in every task, and may even insist on using their personal cell phone numbers as the contact number for their business. Some believe that this shows how dedicated an owner is to their businesses, but having another person answer the phones on your behalf can make your business seem more distinguished and established.
2. Allows Your Employees to Focus on Other Tasks
Enlisting the help of a virtual receptionist can free up plenty of your, and your employees, time to focus on other tasks that keep your business running smoothly. If you don’t have to have an employee sit at a desk all day just in case someone calls, you can have that employee work on product testing, design, fulfillment, or whatever else is needed.
Plus, frequent phone calls can disrupt the flow of your employees’ workdays, especially during creative work. Having uninterrupted work time is incredibly important for some types of tasks, so having a virtual receptionist do all of the answering can help your employees focus on thinking of creative solutions to problems that need solving.
3. Provides Around-The-Clock Support
Even if your physical store or office isn’t open 24/7, that doesn’t mean your customers can’t get the help they need around the clock. Using a virtual receptionist service can provide a friendly voice at the other end of the phone no matter what the time of day is.
If a client’s question is straightforward enough, your virtual receptionist may be able to resolve a customer’s problem while you’re at home with your family or catching up on much-needed sleep at night, ultimately reducing the amount of to-do list items that show up on your desk the next morning.
4. Enhances Customer Support and Satisfaction
Many virtual receptionists have years of experience in training when it comes to speaking with customers, so most have mastered the art of providing a pleasant customer service experience for your clients. This can not only increase the odds that you’re customers will continue utilizing your service or purchasing your goods, it also means that you won’t have to spend hours training new employees about how to handle customer inquiries over the phone.
5. Prevents Schedule Mix-Ups and No-Shows
If your virtual receptionist is given access to your employees’ calendars, they can schedule meetings with clients for you when you have a timeslot of availability. They can also send you notifications when a new meeting is scheduled, and they can send you and everyone else involved a reminder about upcoming meetings to prevent no-shows and forgotten appointments.
6. Reduces Receptionist Costs
To hire an in-house receptionist full-time, most businesses will have to pay several thousand dollars in wages or salaries and provide costly health benefits. For many small businesses, this just isn’t feasible, especially as they are getting their start. Using a live virtual receptionist team can save you thousands of dollars while your businesses still gets the benefits and assistance from having a trained receptionist.
The Bottom Line
As a business owner, it can be hard to let go of certain tasks and trust that other people can handle projects that you are used to doing yourself. Fortunately, using a phone answering service can allow you to have a professional team of receptionists on your side that can provide all of these benefits and more.
If your business is struggling to manage your phone lines and responding to customer inquiries, it might be time to seek out assistance from a live answering service.