For so long, businesses have always hired in-house receptionists, who stay at an office desk, answer calls, and have face-to-face interactions with customers.
But just because it’s been around for so many years doesn’t mean it works perfectly.
Even after spending thousands on hiring a traditional receptionist, gaps like missing calls, making customers wait too long, and other mistakes can still happen.
These lapses might seem normal, but companies lose about $75 billion a year due to poor customer satisfaction.
So, is there a way to improve customer service without spending a lot of money? Yes, through a virtual receptionist app!
This article will discuss virtual receptionist apps, how they are helpful, and what to look out for when getting one. Keep reading!
What is a virtual receptionist app?
Businesses with limited resources choose not to invest in customer support, especially if the only way they know how is by hiring onsite receptionists. Fortunately, there’s now another way around this, which is getting a virtual receptionist app!
A virtual receptionist app is a software solution that functions as your business’s virtual receptionist.
So, what can a virtual receptionist app do?
Simply put, all essential tasks your in-house receptionist does, your virtual receptionist software can do as well!
But if you’re still unclear about what digital receptionist software does, then here’s your answer:
A virtual receptionist app automatically answers incoming calls and routes those calls to the correct people or department.
Virtual receptionist software also manages how clients and customers book appointments, so you no longer have to worry about double bookings.
If you want more of a personal touch, you can even customize the scripts used by the app to reflect how traditional receptionists typically sound.
How can you use virtual receptionist software in your company?
There are many ways companies can use virtual receptionist services to improve customer satisfaction and visitor management. Here are some examples:
If you own a medical practice, you can have virtual receptionists answer phone calls from patients, schedule appointments, and constantly send reminders.
For small businesses, using digital receptionist software ensures that all business calls are answered so you don’t miss any opportunity to make a sale.
What are the advantages of having virtual receptionists?
Virtual receptionists offer many benefits that change your business from just having the bare minimum to providing support that customers will keep going back to.
Let’s go over these advantages:
Save for a rainy day
The costs of hiring in-house receptionists can quickly go up, especially since you need to spend money on salaries, benefits, physical office space, and other equipment or tools they’ll need.
But with virtual receptionists and apps, you can now get the receptionist help you need without worrying about overhead expenses.
Instead, you can save the extra bucks you have for emergencies or other business priorities.
Make your customers happy
Even if it’s on a weekend, holiday, or after hours, customers always expect to reach your business.
Virtual receptionist apps help you meet this high expectation from customers, especially since you can now have a receptionist available 24/7.
Your customers won’t have to wait too long anymore just to get a response or make a purchase decision.
More efficient service
If your business is struggling to keep up with hundreds or thousands of customer inquiries each day, then virtual receptionist apps are for you.
These apps can easily automate tasks like directing calls to the correct point of contact, transcribing with AI, and organizing schedules and appointments through a centralized calendar.
Fit for growing businesses
Growing your business means more customers, which also means bigger demands for customer support.
When you use virtual receptionist services, you don’t need to worry anymore about hiring more people just because your customer base has grown. These apps are easy to scale, which makes it the perfect tool for expanding businesses.
Professional front office
If a customer calls for the first time but is answered by someone who sounds cold or unwelcoming, chances are they won’t want to call again.
This is why first impressions are incredibly crucial in business.
Virtual receptionist apps ensure that every time someone calls, they will be greeted warmly and professionally. This way, you can start keeping your customers instead of pushing them away because of a bad first impression.
Excellent support no matter the language
For businesses with international clients, providing customer support in multiple languages is a must.
Virtual receptionist software makes it possible for you to provide multilingual support without the need to hire more people in your company.
Once you start removing these language barriers, expanding your customer base and making every caller feel valued becomes an easier job.
Boost morale in the office
Letting virtual receptionists take over routine tasks like answering calls frees up your employees’ time to work on more productive tasks. This productivity increases morale in the office since employees are now handling tasks that contribute directly to the company’s success.
Similarly, you’ll have more time to strategize and work on improving other aspects of your business, like operations or marketing.
Manage leads better
For a small business, every phone call, message, or inquiry is a customer lead that moves them a step closer to their goals. To fast-track your growth, it’s important to not miss and always follow up with all the leads you can get.
Virtual receptionist apps can definitely help in managing your leads and ensuring nothing will be missed. These apps also automate all follow-ups and can even identify which leads to prioritize.
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What should you look for when searching for a virtual receptionist app?
Virtual receptionist service providers are always coming up with tools to help businesses provide excellent customer service and visitor management system.
If you’re on the look out for the best virtual receptionist services to use, here are the important features you should check.
Live answering service with call routing
Every virtual receptionist app should be able to handle incoming calls and direct them to the correct contact person for the customer’s concerns.
An example of this is an auto-attendant answering the phone on the first ring, asking the customer for basic information, and giving them options on who they should direct their calls to.
If there are additional features like customizable messages or multilingual support, then you can provide a much more personalized experience for your customers and create meaningful connections.
Organize calendar for appointments
Another must-have feature of digital receptionist software is the ability to let your customers schedule appointments on their own.
Look out for an app that can directly connect with your current calendar systems, like Google Calendar, Microsoft Teams, or iCal, so all your appointments are centralized in one calendar.
Your app should also be able to automatically send follow-ups so your customers won’t forget their appointments. Customers should also be allowed to reschedule their own appointments without any hassle.
Connect with existing tools
If you’re using other tools that relates to your customers, like CRM software, visitor management system, or communication apps, make sure that your virtual receptionist software can easily integrate with those.
When all your customer tools are connected to each other, you won’t need to manually enter or transfer data from one software to another.
Similarly, you can ensure that the customer data you’re using for other business decisions is always up-to-date.
Easier personalization using AI
Artificial intelligence (AI) is now widely used in different businesses and applications, including virtual receptionist services.
AI helps your virtual receptionist app recognize your previous customers and provide an interactive voice response that makes your customer interactions more personalized.
With the help of AI, the software can also predict what your customer needs and make the right product recommendations or suggestions that encourage more sales for the business.
Tool for data analysis
Customer data is a gold mine of useful business insights but you should know how to “dig” or analyze these data first.
Virtual receptionist apps make data analysis easier with their analytics and reporting features. With this app, you can now decipher how your customers behave and make decisions based on that behavior.
Some useful data you can check out are what time you get the most calls, how many percent of calls go unanswered, which customers are the most frequent callers, and more.
Protection of data
If your business deals with sensitive data, like patient data or legal cases, then your top priority should be securing those information.
Good thing, virtual receptionist apps are also armed with security features designed to protect your data from hacking or other malicious attacks.
Some security features you should check are end-to-end encryption, backups, role-based controls, and multi-factor authentication. All these features ensure that your data is constantly protected and your business remains compliant with data privacy regulations.
Voice recognition and transcription
Another way to make your virtual receptionist app more accessible and user-friendly is to have voice recognition and transcription features.
With these features, you can now skip the need to manually type out or scribble notes for every customer interaction.
These features are also incredibly helpful for industries like legal or healthcare, where they mainly rely on transcriptions to study court or patient cases.
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Which industries find virtual receptionist apps the most helpful?
Although virtual receptionist apps can be used by any business, there are specific industries that can really make the most out of these apps. Here are those businesses.
Healthcare
In healthcare, where everything is fast-paced and critical, your efficiency in providing exceptional customer service and visitor management can easily mean the difference between life and death.
Virtual receptionist apps in healthcare help physicians and other clinicians easily schedule consultations, answer patient inquiries and send follow-up reminders.
By letting these apps handle the administrative and receptionist duties, doctors an now focus better on tending to their patients.
Legal
Being professional at all times is a must in law firms, especially when you’re talking to multiple clients every day.
Regardless of how many cases you’re handling, virtual receptionists can always help you manage phone calls from clients, and schedule meetings with them.
The transcription feature in your virtual receptionist software also ensures you have records of all conversations, which you can use as you work on your cases.
Real estate
With how busy a real estate agent’s schedule gets, they no longer have time to sit by and answer all incoming calls from potential clients.
However, with virtual receptionist software, real estate agencies will never miss a call or potential opportunity anymore.
Virtual receptionist apps can also qualify leads for you, follow up with the promising ones, and schedule viewings if needed.
Startups and small businesses
Adding customer service to the long list of tasks a small business owner or startup founder already has can be extremely overwhelming.
Virtual receptionist software helps these entrepreneurs by acting as the business’s own digital receptionist. This way, even a starting business can provide topnotch customer service just like the way big businesses do.
Hospitality
Digital receptionist software can also bring multiple benefits to businesses in the hospitality industry.
These apps make your initial interactions with customers or guests more seamless as they can already automate many of the steps included in booking a hotel room or restaurant table.
Your customers will always have a positive experience when booking with you since they don’t need to wait too long anymore to get someone to answer a phone or find out if their reservation is confirmed.
E-commerce
Even though e-commerce businesses don’t involve life-or-death situations like healthcare businesses do, customers still always expect a lightning-speed response when they contact businesses.
Just a few minutes or hours of delays in response can push your potential customers to another competitor that can reply faster.
Virtual receptionists help you avoid this exact situation by taking care of your order inquiries and answering all questions customers have, even outside business hours.
Education
Tutorial centers and even universities can also use virtual receptionist services to handle their front-office tasks.
Some examples of how they can use it are answering incoming calls from students or parents, call routing to different departments, or letting them schedule appointments with faculty members.
Financial services
Just like for legal firms, virtual receptionist apps help businesses in the finance sector provide a professional and personalized experience to their customers.
For example, banks that receive thousands of calls a day wouldn’t be able to survive if they only had in-house receptionists to answer every call.
To manage the high volume of phone calls, they can use virtual receptionists to collect information and narrow down their concerns to specific departments so they can direct the calls more efficiently.
How do you choose the right virtual receptionist software for you?
Getting a new app or software for your business is a decision you should take lightly. Since this is an investment, you need to carefully assess your choices of which virtual receptionist service provider to go for.
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to guide your choices:
What does your business need?
Every business has unique needs and not every app out there can specifically solve them. Start by identifying what tasks you want your app to handle and focus on looking for those features.
How popular is the app?
When researching for an app to use, start with those that have been used already by multiple businesses. Look for reviews or ask other people for their firsthand experiences so you can see if these apps pass your standards.
How much can you spend on it?
Businesses mainly switch to virtual receptionist apps because of how affordable they are compared to hiring someone in-house. So when you choose an app, make sure you don’t overextend your budget or that you can justify the cost with a good return on investment.
Can you easily add features to the app?
If you’re only starting with your business, you might just need a basic app that can answer incoming calls and direct them to other lines.
But as you grow your business, it’s also important for your app to have additional capabilities that can take care of your growing business needs, too. With that said, choose an app that has features you can add later on as your business expands.
Does the provider give support and training?
New apps or software can have a learning curve that business owners and employees must get used to first.
To make the adjustment phase easier, make sure the virtual receptionist service providers you choose from can give you user support and training as you learn how to use the tool.
Find the right virtual receptionist for you
Virtual receptionist apps allow many businesses to level up their customer service without breaking the bank.
However, if you prefer adding a human touch to your virtual receptionist service or don’t want an auto-attendant to just answer phone calls for you, you should hire live virtual receptionists!
Live virtual receptionists still offer the same benefits as virtual receptionist apps, except they’re actual people behind the phone and work only from their own homes.
If you’re planning to improve your customer service, contact us today to hire your own virtual receptionist.