Virtual Answering Service: Is It Right For Your Small Business?

In this article, we explore the benefits of having a virtual answering service. By the end of this article, you should be able to learn if getting a virtual answering service is right for your business:

What is a virtual answering service?

Definition and explanation

A virtual answering service (VAS) is operated by remote teams or an automated system. It handles a business’s incoming calls without needing a physical office or a receptionist. They can provide call handling, message taking, call forwarding, appointment scheduling, or order processing. 

Types of virtual answering services

There are different types of VAs, with some involving human interaction and automated systems. You can read about each below and find out which fits your business needs more:

1. Basic answering services

These services provide basic call answering, message taking, and call forwarding. They typically offer a personalized greeting and may be available during business hours or 24/7. This might be right for you if you require a professional touch without extensive customer service or complex call handling. 

2. Virtual receptionist services

A virtual receptionist service offers a more comprehensive service. They answer incoming calls, handle call screening, and answer customer inquiries. If you want to entrust your call handling to a dedicated person, hiring a virtual receptionist might suit you more than a VAS. 

3. Automated answering services

This service uses automated systems or Interactive Voice Response (IVR) to answer calls and forward them to the right department. If your business has a growing volume of calls where human interaction isn’t necessary, an automated phone answering service might be right for you. 

4. Appointment scheduling services

Aside from taking incoming calls, some services focus solely on booking appointments for business owners. This service integrates with your calendar system, allowing them to schedule, reschedule, or cancel your appointments for you. This answering service might suit you well if you’re a healthcare provider or a salon owner. 

5.  Customer support service

This service handles customer inquiries, complaints, and support requests over the phone. They could also do some basic troubleshooting, order processing, or answering FAQs. If you sell physical products or services and need to give ongoing customer support services, you could start with this kind of VAS. 

6. Order processing service 

If you’re an owner of a retail or restaurant business, this is the right answering service for you. Order processing services take orders via the phone, where they take your customers’ information, process payments, and provide order confirmations. 

7. Lead capture service 

If you’re in competitive industries such as real estate, legal services, or consulting, you can opt for this service. Lead capture services help you qualify leads over the phone, ensuring that potential customers are followed up with promptly. You can also integrate this service with your CRM for seamless lead management. 

8. After-hours answering service

This service handles calls outside of regular business hours, helping you avoid missed calls and making sure your customers get timely responses. If your business thrives on customer engagement outside your business hours (ex. emergency, hospitality, or IT support), you can subscribe to this service. 

9. Industry-specific service

If you’re a healthcare provider or a law firm owner, you can opt for highly customized answering services. Since they will be handling sensitive client information, the teams that handle these services are usually highly trained in your field and have more than one nationally acknowledged certification. 

Benefits of using virtual answering services

1. Cost-effective

Reduced overhead

Hiring a full-time, in-house receptionist can be costly for your small business, especially when you factor in their salary, benefits, and training. Virtual phone answering services, on the other hand, are more affordable and offer the same professional services at a fraction of the cost. 

Flexible pricing

A lot of answering services offer flexible pricing models. You can opt for pay-per-call or monthly subscriptions, giving you options that fit your budget.

2. Professionalism

Consistent brand image

An answering service can help you maintain a consistent, professional image for your clients. Trained operators will use personalized greetings and handle calls according to your business’s protocols. 

Enhanced customer experience

With an answering service, your customers will get immediate attention, reducing wait times and ensuring their inquiries are handled promptly. This enhances your customer experience and grows your retention rates. 

3. Availability and accessibility

24/7 service

Many VAS operate all day, ensuring your calls aren’t missed outside business hours. This is especially beneficial for businesses that deal with clients from different timezones or those who offer emergency services. 

No missed calls

By avoiding missed calls, you can capture more leads, provide improved customer service, and prevent a negative perception of your company. 

4. Increased productivity

Focus on core business activities

When you outsource your call handling, you and your team can focus more on important activities such as product development, sales, or customer relations. You won’t get distracted by answering FAQs inquiries that an answering service can easily cover for you.

5. Scalability 

Adaptability to business growth 

As your company grows, a virtual phone answering service can also ride the waves. They can accommodate your increasing volume of calls with you hiring additional staff or spending on extra office space.

Customization 

Most answering services offer customization that caters to the changing nature of your business, whether you need additional operators, extended hours, or specialized call handling. 

6. Improved customer satisfaction

Timely response 

Every customer can appreciate a prompt response to their inquiries. That’s why a virtual phone answering service can help your customers feel more satisfied, ensuring they don’t feel neglected or unappreciated. 

Personalized service 

Operators who can follow specific instructions or provide tailored responses bring a more personalized experience to calls. This also helps maintain your customers’ satisfaction with your services. 

7. Lead generation and conversion 

Maximized opportunities 

The more leads you capture and follow up on, the more you’ll likely convert. That’s why getting an answering service is highly recommended for small businesses in competitive markets. 

Consistent follow-ups 

You can integrate answering services with your CRM, helping you track and follow up with leads as soon as possible. This will help sustain a steady flow of new business in your company. 

8. Disaster recovery and business continuity 

Uninterrupted service 

In an emergency, such as a power outage or a natural disaster, an answering service ensures your business is accessible to your customers. This helps maintain continuity and minimize disruption. 

Remote operations 

Answering services operate remotely, so they can continue to work even when your physical office is closed or inaccessible. 

9. Better appointment management 

Efficient scheduling 

Business answering services that offer appointment scheduling can streamline your calendar, reduce no-show customers, and manage appointments efficiently. 

Time management 

With someone else handling appointment booking and confirmation, you can manage your time better and relieve the administrative burden. You can allocate your newly freed time for critical tasks in your business. 

10. Legal and compliance advantages 

Industry-specific compliance 

For businesses in regulated industries such as finance or healthcare, answering services can offer compliance with industry standards (ex. HIPAA), ensuring your customers’ or patients’ sensitive information is protected. 

Consistent, documented communication

Call recording and reporting features can help your business maintain accurate records of customer interactions. This documentation can be vital for legal disputes, helping you provide evidence of what was communicated and proving you’re following industry regulations. 

Key features to look for in a virtual answering service

1. Customizable call handling 

Customizable call handling ensures each interaction aligns with your business’s unique requirements, helping you maintain a consistent brand image. That’s why you should look for services that tailor call scrips to match your brand’s tone and needs. 

For example, if you run a legal firm, the service could greet callers with a formal tone and gather specific information before routing the call to the appropriate lawyer. 

2. 24/7 availability

Round-the-clock availability is crucial for small businesses that cater to international clients or those needing constant customer support. 

For instance, if you operate a global e-commerce business, your customers could call at any time outside your business hours. VAS that offer 24/7 availability answer your phone calls promptly regardless of the time zone, helping you cater to more customers. 

3. Bilingual support

Bilingual support broadens your client base and improves customer satisfaction rates. So, if your business operates in multicultural regions or serves diverse customers, bilingual support is fundamental. 

Say, a dental practice in a region with a lot of Spanish-speaking patients should choose a virtual phone answering service that handles calls in both English and Spanish. This ensures the patients feel comfortable and understood when inquiring or setting appointments. 

4. Advanced appointment scheduling

Scheduling appointments is a critical part of operations in healthcare or service-based businesses. If you can find virtual answering services, 

In a consultancy firm, for example, a VAS needs to integrate with the firm’s online calendar. This helps the service manage appointments easily, allowing clients to book or cancel appointments.

5. Call routing and transfer

Don’t disappoint customers by helping them reach the right person quickly. Efficient call routing is key to improving slow response times.

In a company with multiple departments, such as a tech support firm, call routing ensures that technical queries are directed to the correct department, while billing queries are sent to the finance team. This reduces the time customers spend waiting. 

6. Call recording and reporting

Call recording doesn’t just maintain the quality of your calls but also helps you prepare for legal disputes. 

For financial advisory firms, having recorded calls can be invaluable for compliance purposes, training, and resolving disputes. A notable case highlighting the importance of recorded calls is the 2013 LIBOR scandal involving the Barclays Bank. 

In the LIBOR case, the bank was found to have manipulated the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) for profit. During the investigation, recorded calls between the traders and the firm’s brokers served as evidence to demonstrate how the former deliberately influenced the rates and helped regulators build a case against the bank. 

7. Integration with CRM tools

CRM integration can help maintain seamless communication between an answering service provider and your internal sales team. Through this, you can ensure your customers’ data is synchronized and easily accessible. 

If you run a sales-driven business, integrating your answering service with your CRM can help you log your calls automatically. You can also give your sales team updated info on leads and customer inquiries. 

8. Disaster recovery and business continuity

Does downtime have a significant consequence on your business? An answering service’s disaster recovery feature can help make sure your business has continuity. 

For example, a healthcare provider can benefit from a VAS with a robust disaster recovery plan. Through this, they can rest assured that the patient calls will be handled even during a power outage or a natural disaster. 

9. Compliance with industry standards

Complying with industry-specific regulations can help your business avoid legal risks. This can also increase your potential client’s trust and convince them to trust you with their money. 

This is why hiring a VAS that complies with industry standards is important. For example, a law firm must adhere to confidentiality agreements and data protection laws. That means their answering service should also know how to protect the sensitive information they get from calls. 

10. Scalability 

Scalability ensures your service can adapt to changing business needs without doing a complete 360-degree overhaul. Say, a growing startup typically only requires basic call handling; but as it expands, it might need more complex services such as advanced reporting and multi-language support. 

An answering service must be able to provide those additional services so that the startup won’t need to hire additional staff. 

How to choose the exemplary VAS

Consider these factors when you’re finding a VAS provider for your small business:

1. Check if the service is adaptable to your industry

Ask if the service has experience in your industry. If they can provide case studies or references from similar businesses, then that’s a green flag. Service providers who understand industry-specific jargon and requirements can ensure a smoother experience for your teams and customers.

2. Evaluate their onboarding process

A great onboarding experience shows how well they can integrate with your business operations. So, look for a provider that walks you through their onboarding process and addresses any questions you may have.

Their onboarding process should ideally include setting up custom call scripts, understanding your business’s unique needs, and training their agents specifically for your account. This is important because onboarding processes can lead to miscommunication and bad customer service. 

3. Consider their flexibility and scalability

Your business doesn’t exist in a vacuum. With your dynamic needs, a good VAS should be able to scale with you. 

Do your background checks to see if a service allows you to easily scale up or down, depending on your call volume. Ask if they’re willing to adapt to changes, such as modifying scripts or adding new features, as your business grows. 

4. Test their disaster recovery plan 

In case of an unexpected disruption, you still need to make sure your calls are still being handled without skipping a beat. 

Good answering service providers have established disaster recovery plans. They have multiple backup systems and protocols to ensure your business’s continuity of service during emergencies, such as power outages or server downtimes. 

5. Assess their integration capabilities

Good providers are also skilled at integrating with their clients’ software stack. This ensures you will have minimal hiccups in your workflow. For example, if you use HubSpot as your CRM tool, the service provider should be able to log calls and update customer records automatically. So, during your discovery call, it’s best to ask for a demo of their integration in real time. 

Alternatives to virtual answering services

If you think an answering service doesn’t suit your needs at the moment, here are some alternatives to consider: 

1. In-house receptionist or admin assistant

Hiring an in-house receptionist could be ideal if you have a small office where customer service is a key differentiator. An in-house professional helps you have more control over your customer interactions. 

If you want someone to be physically present to handle additional tasks, you can also hire an admin assistant.

That said, hiring in-person professionals could cost you more. You’d need to pay for their salary, benefits, and equipment. They’re also limited to office hours. 

2. Outsourcing to a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Provider

BPO providers offer a range of outsourced services: call handling, customer support, and administrative tasks. They often operate from offshore locations. 

Hiring a BPO provider is best if your company requires a comprehensive list of support services at a lower cost. This also works only if you’re open to offshoring or nearshoring options. 

While a BPO can be cost-effective and scalable, you might struggle with language barriers, timezone differences, and a lack of a personal touch. 

3. AI-powered chatbots 

Chatbots are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and can engage with your customers online through your website and messaging apps, answering FAQs and product questions. 

Using chatbots is best for businesses with an established online presence, where most of their traffic comes from search engines or social media. In this case, it’s easier for them to automate their customer service interactions. 

On the other hand, AI chatbots can be limited to handling structured queries and may not be the best option for handling complex queries. 

4. Call forwarding to a personal phone

Calls to your business number are forwarded to your personal mobile phone, letting you manage your calls directly. Solo entrepreneurs or small teams can benefit from this kind of service. 

Most telecom providers offer call forwarding as part of their business phone plans. 

While call forwarding is easy to set up and costs cheaper, calls can be disruptive and limit scalability. 

5. Freelance virtual assistants (VA)

Small businesses that need flexible support without the commitment of a full-time employee can benefit from hiring a freelance VA. 

They are flexible, cost-effective, and can be scaled up or down as needed. With that said, finding reliable VAs can be daunting, and they may need extra supervision and training. 

You can find freelance VAs on Upwork, Fiverr, or Zirtual. 

6. Call management software

Software solutions that offer call management features include automated call routing, voicemail-to-email, and call analytics. These types of products are best for businesses who have good technical know-how and want to manage calls efficiently without outsourcing. 

While these solutions are customizable and scalable, they may need constant management and technical setup. They also rarely offer live interaction. Some examples of call management software are Grasshopper, RingCentral, and 8×8. 

Virtual receptionists vs. virtual answering service

1. Scope of services 

Virtual receptionists offer a broad range of services and personal interaction. A virtual receptionist can handle call answering, routing, appointment scheduling, and answering emails. 

They also act as an extension of your team, giving your customers a more personalized experience. Additionally, virtual receptionists have more detailed scripts and can handle more complex tasks that require more human judgment and interaction. 

Meanwhile, answering services are focused on call-related tasks and rely more on automated systems like Interactive Voice Response (IVR). They are best at answering calls, taking messages, and routing calls to the right person or department. 

They’re also designed to handle high volumes of calls quickly, using automated systems for basic tasks. So if your business isn’t reliant on face-to-face interaction with customers, an answering service may suit you better. 

2. Cost 

Due to the wide range of services and more personalized nature of interaction, virtual receptionists cost more than answering services. Businesses that are willing to invest in VRs also require a higher level of service. 

On the other hand, answering services are more affordable because they are typically more focused on core call-handling tasks. This makes them an ideal option for small businesses that can’t splurge yet on a virtual receptionist. 

3. Customization 

Virtual receptionists can give your customers a more personalized experience. They can customize greetings, create highly detailed scripts, and complete special requests from customers. This level of customization is ideal if you want to keep a close, steady relationship with your clients. 

Answering services, meanwhile, can be customizable through specific greetings. With that said, they offer a less personalized experience since they rely more on automation. If your business isn’t dependent on extensive customization, you can opt for an answering service.