A virtual office receptionist can boost your business performance and be useful in a whole number of ways.

Why consider a Virtual office Receptionist service?

Talking to people is at the core of any business. Making sure that when someone calls you have the information they need at your fingertips so that they have any questions satisfactorily answered.

Depending on the nature of the call some action may need to be taken, such as booking a follow-up call, or booking an appointment, to name just a couple.

Answering the phones, dealing with enquiries, following up with the relevant action, all of this takes time. It may be time that you would like to be using on developing your business in other ways.

To make sure no calls are getting missed one option would be to take on staff yourself to cover the phones. This can be a time-consuming process and comes with all the associated legal obligations that directly employing staff entails.

By taking on a virtual office receptionist you can expand your workforce very quickly without the legalities and overheads of taking on staff yourself, saving your business time and money.

And it’s flexible too. If your business has busy peaks and quieter troughs you can scale up from zero to however many people are needed and back down to zero again with ease.

It’s totally flexible.

Have peace of mind with a virtual office receptionist.

Having the phones covered means you have the peace of mind knowing that no call will ever get missed, there will always be someone answering the phone for you.

How about if you have an appointment yourself or need to get on with something that demands your attention? No problem, the phones are covered.

How will a virtual office receptionist know what to say or do?

If you do take on a service, a good provider will be able to walk through your process with you and identify what the key information for your business is.

They will also know about the general information needed, such as your business location and business hours, and will make sure that everything is covered before starting answering calls for you.

A reputable service will have the experience to understand exactly what’s needed and will work together with you in creating the perfect service package.

Who are people calling? Which number will a virtual office receptionist use?

You can choose.

We can either answer a current phone number that you divert to a virtual receptionist service OR the service will be able to supply a local phone number that can be advertised for your business.

You may already have a number on your marketing material, website etc, in which case you can choose the call divert option, and a virtual receptionist service will help you get this setup.

Alternatively get set up with a brand-new number, one which can always be transferred over to you should you ever decide to start taking calls again yourself.

What software should a good virtual office receptionist be familiar with?

There are a number of industry-standard software packages that can be used, and your virtual office receptionist service should be familiar with what is available and how to use them.

• Cliniko – practice management software for clinics and allied health practitioners.
• ServiceM8 – Smart job management for trades & services
• Coreplus – Practice management now with TeleHealth
• Power Diary – Practice Management Software
• Acuity – Online appointment scheduling
• Aroflo – Job management software for trade & field service businesses
• Atlassian / Jira – Project management software
• Calendly – Meeting and scheduling software
• Google Calendars – Calendar and scheduling
• Setmore – Scheduling software
• Zoho – Business management suite

How do I keep up with what’s going on?

There are a couple of options.

A virtual office receptionist service will log all calls and either email or text through the relevant details of what’s been said and done.

This can be done after each call, or as a summary at the end of each day.

What about missing something important?

Not to worry. There are a couple of options.

The first is if someone asks for you directly, they can be diverted immediately to a pre-arranged number where you can be reached.

Or if you want to be more hands-off, the call can be logged and the person on the line told you’re unavailable and you will ring them back. The service will drop you a message and you can ring the person whenever is convenient.

Summary – Use a virtual office receptionist to boost your business.

I hope this article has been useful and helped show the benefits and flexibility available when using a virtual office receptionist to help with such a key area of your business.

Would you like more information?

At ProfitAbility Virtual Assistance an average of over 800 calls a month for our clients, and have the expertise and experience to assist you.

We would be happy to talk to you about anything covered in this article, or with helping you arrange support for your business.