Your company reception is one of the most important departments in your business. This is where new and existing customers have their first interaction with the company. Hiring a full-time receptionist can be expensive especially for small businesses.
A viable alternative is an outsourced virtual reception service that provides great benefits and is one of the best options for small businesses that want to give their customers quality customer care but at a lower cost. While you will always have to take phone calls, having someone to field calls can save you time by only sending important calls to you and filtering the unimportant calls out. That is why receptionists have become a vital part in the operation of all offices.
There are many benefits of a having a Virtual Reception service. We list 10 below:
Calls are always answered during business hours
With a virtual reception service, you never have to worry about a receptionist going on a break, taking sick leave or being away on holidays. Your phone lines will always be answered during your opening hours. In many businesses, having to have the phones answered all day long can be a logistical problem, due to workers going to lunch and bathroom breaks. Likewise, when your receptionist goes on holidays this causes problems where hiring a temp to fill in often does not work out as he or she is unfamiliar with your company services. A well-trained virtual receptionist service can address all these problems because they are always available when you need them. They follow an agreed script and they know your company. In addition, you can divert your phone lines to the virtual reception service during holidays and break times.
Customer Service improves because of having a Virtual Reception service
A virtual receptionist can be trained to answer calls exactly as you like, in a warm, professional manner which will encourage people to call your business. This can really help during times when you and your staff are busy and do not want to become bogged down with answering calls that will interrupt your workflow or dealings with other customers. As well as this, seamless customer service can help boost sales and give you a competitive edge over your competitors. By focusing on your current customers and not taking unsolicited calls that may not be of value, you demonstrate to your customer their importance to your business.
You can better manage your time
Using a virtual reception service, can free up your time to allow you get on with the important matters in your business. You will no longer be tied to your desk afraid to move because you may miss a call. Your virtual receptionist will transfer calls through to you as they are coming in provided you are available to take the calls. If not, they can take a message and email on to you.
Maintain a professional image
When calls are being answered quickly and in a professional manner, it creates the correct impression for your customers. It portrays your company image as being pro-active and customer friendly. The virtual receptionist will answer your calls to a script as agreed with you and will either patch the call through to the right person in your business and take a message and email or text on.
Lower costs and better service
Hiring a virtual reception service can be significantly less expensive than hiring a full-time in-house receptionist. Many of our customers have reported back to us that they have saved in excess of 50% on the costs paid to a full-time receptionist. For smaller businesses as well as the physical cost saving on the full-time receptionist, they also gain time savings because the staff do not need to answer all calls. They can focus on revenue generating activities on behalf of the company.
Flexibility
Growing businesses need to be able to expand quickly. They need to have the flexibility to expand their workforce quickly. Using a virtual reception service, gives companies that flexibility. They can expand as they get busier and, likewise, they need not incur excessive costs in slower times as they incur costs for only the calls taken in their behalf.
Instant access to industry specific Virtual Receptionists
It can often prove difficult to find and hire staff with industry specific experience. However, it is much easier to engage a virtual reception service who have relevant experience in specific sectors. Examples of such specialty services would be taking calls for industries such as medical services or IT technical support. We provide virtual reception services to many different industries. Our virtual receptionist service, as well as being expert at doing reception duties, typically will also understand rules and compliance issues related to a specific industry.
Cut equipment / technology costs
Outsourcing your reception in a small business means that you will not have to invest in reception equipment. This includes investing in expensive telephone switches and related technology. It also saves on the regular upgrading of such equipment. Outsourcing to a virtual reception company gives you a huge benefit in that you do not have to invest time and resources in making investment decisions on the purchase and upkeep of this equipment. You can deploy your available resources to more business focussed activities such as growing your business or spending time on strategy.
Maintenance savings on telephone equipment
If you have an in-house receptionist, you will need to deal with maintaining your telephone and related IT equipment and dealing with the inevitable technical hitches that will occur from time to time. You will need to invest to keep the equipment in good condition and probably need to take on expensive maintenance contracts for their upkeep. When you outsource your telephone answering you will not have to worry about these maintenance contracts because you use the services of a virtual reception service. Using their services will help save a lot of money you could otherwise have used maintaining equipment.
Extended phone support availability – out of hours call answering
Using an outsourced virtual reception service, will allow companies to have their phones answered beyond the typical working day. This can be a problem for a typical company where staff leave for home circa 6.00 pm. A typical virtual reception service will answer phones during the working day and after hours, some answering at weekends and bank holidays as well. This will, of course, help businesses as they will not miss potential income related calls. When customers call anytime to set up an appointment or have an emergency service call taken care of, business revenues will increase as will the company’s reputation.
Conclusion
As has been outlined above, there are many hidden benefits of outsourcing your reception to a virtual service provider. Finding qualified staff is difficult and keeping them hired is expensive. Using Virtual Reception services gets you past these issues as well as all the other ten benefits outlined above that they bring to a business.
Call Kendlebell on 1800 839 955 or email info@kbell.ie for more information. You could visit our website www.kbell.ie where we go into more detail on all the services we provide and we have devised a Price Calculator here www.kbell.ie/prices so you can estimate the costs and cost savings for your business.
Kendlebell Overview
Kendlebell was set up In Ireland in 2006 and now have 4 offices providing a diverse range of services to the SME market. We provide a range of Outsource Solutions to the Business Community. Among our services are:
• Telephone Answering / messaging
• Virtual Reception services
• Diary Updates
• Order Taking
• Back Office Processing
• Credit Card Processing
• 24/7 cover
• Telemarketing
• Customer Surveys
• Database cleansing
We provide a very Personalised and Cost effective service. Kendlebell in Fairview currently have circa 200 customers ranging from quite large companies for whom we provide a range of the services listed above often connecting remotely to their in-house systems to start -ups and smaller companies where we are typically acting as their message centre of Virtual reception.
We pride ourselves on providing a professional and effective service.
Our website address is: www.kbell.ie
