Small businesses are often required to handle customer relations on the same level as larger corporations. To a customer, your brand is no different from that of a competitor that runs an operation that is 10 times larger than yours.
As a result, small businesses are often expected to handle a large number of business calls. Since this can be overwhelming, getting a receptionist might be the right solution for you.
Here are 6 reasons why you should consider this option.
1. Custom Tailored Solutions
Small businesses that hire virtual receptionists have the ability to tailor their customer services to match their current needs. By hiring a virtual receptionist, you can implement a system that routes every single call to an actual agent, or filters calls through an automated service. It all depends on what you want to do and how many calls are coming in on average.
That being said, having the ability to dial in customer service is one of the most important perks of hiring a virtual receptionist. It alone can greatly impact your business in a positive way. Not to mention that many such services allow you to pay for only the services you use.
2. Cut Down on Costs
Outsourcing your call handling to a third-party specialist does two things for your business — it improves the efficiency of your call handling, and it reduces the costs. In fact, outsourcing has proven to be the more viable option for many small businesses as implementing an in-house solution of the same quality often requires substantial investments.
As we’ve just mentioned, many businesses that offer virtual receptionist services have ‘pay for what you use’ plans. Such plans are perfect for small and up-and-coming businesses that are working with limited cash flow.
3. Effective Call Triage
Not all calls are the same. Some are more important than others and knowing the difference is what separates an average receptionist from an excellent one. By outsourcing your call handling needs to a telephone answering and messaging service, you get to experience top-tier call triage where high volumes of calls are handled with efficiency. That way urgent calls or high-value calls are given priority, and will always reach you on time.
As your business grows, you’ll find that proper call triangle and prioritization are essential for efficiency as well as the fluidity of daily operations.
4. Take Calls After Hours
Business hours are becoming a nuisance in what is now a global economy. If your business is servicing a large area or is international in nature, you’ll often find that a certain percentage of your customers can’t reach you because you’re closed. One of the perks of hiring a virtual receptionist is the ability to take calls even after hours.
In fact, you can enjoy seamless customer service and call handling outside business hours. There are additional benefits to this side of virtual receptionists. For one, you’ll never miss a sales call again. More importantly, you can set your service up so that essential calls reach you like text messages or emails while you’re off work.
5. Maintain a Larger Footprint
Building a brand is all about perception. Business calls and customer service, along with marketing, are the main ways customers experience your brand. By scaling up all of these, you can create an illusion of a much larger company. There is nothing wrong or deceitful in doing so either.
The company you’ve outsourced call handling to can certainly take on the volume of calls that matches a larger company. In fact, establishing and maintaining a larger footprint on the market is a good way to become competitive against companies that are potentially much larger than yours. In that case, their size often becomes their main handicap.
6. No Dropped Calls
Lastly, and most importantly, hiring a virtual receptionist service means that no call will be dropped. There’s nothing more detrimental to a CS-oriented business than having a customer call and then being stuck on hold indefinitely.
You can avoid this issue and save yourself a lot of potential PR trouble by outsourcing all call handling to companies that are specialized in maintaining high standards of customer care.
Modern Customer Service Solutions
Virtual receptionists are one of the most effective modern customer service solutions currently available. Small businesses experience a serious increase in leads as well as sales simply by implementing a virtual receptionist in its structure.
Services such as these are absolute force multipliers that will boost your overall brand image and make sure that all your customers are taken care of.