One of the most common jobs within any business to outsource is the role of a receptionist and the main reason to outsource this job is to increase your in-house productivity. Virtual secretaries work off-site, which means you don’t need to go through the process of hiring someone to work on-site for you. This eliminates a wide range of problems including the time it takes to train a new member of staff and the cost of employing someone, and virtual receptionists are able to carry out a wide range of tasks with the most important being call handling.
Primary Benefits
By hiring a virtual secretary, you are employing someone to take care of your clients while you run your business and this is one of the most obvious benefits to hiring someone to handle your incoming calls. A professional virtual receptionist will answer your company calls with a professional manner and will always use your company name and pass on all messages. This eliminates the hassle of you managing someone on-site and it also reduces your costs, and both of these things are important to small business owners.
Here are some of the key benefits to employing an off-site receptionist:
- Your calls will be answered quickly with some companies promising to answer incoming calls within six seconds
- All of your incoming calls will be answered, so you never miss another call due to a lunch break
- You can enjoy a service that matches your needs, so if you expect to have an influx of incoming calls after running a new advert then prepare for this and increase the amount of virtual receptionists who work for you
Knowing that your calls will be answered quickly is important for any company, as people want things done quicker and more efficientlyall the time. If clients have to wait a long time for their call to be answered, you run the risk of them getting bored and agitated, and simply putting the phone down and calling a competitor. The longer a client waits for their call to be answered, the less important they feel to your business and this problem is easy to avoid when you employ a virtual secretary. You should always be focused on growing your business to get to the next level of success and one of the simplest things that you can do is ensure all of your incoming calls are answered professionally and quickly.
Save Money
Another great thing about hiring a virtual secretary is that this is also a cheaper option to employing someone fulltime to work in-house, as you will save money on all of the following:
- Salary
- Benefits
- Sick pay
- Holiday pay
- Maternity or paternity pay
- Equipping a work station
- Training
As a business owner, it is important that you are able to spend your time doing what you need to be doing rather than answering phone calls. It is extremely costefficient to employ someone to work out-of-house, so not only do you never have to worry about calls being missed but it is also better for your budget.
Increased Productivity
Spending time answering calls is not a job that should be handled by anyone other than a receptionist and this is where many small business owners go wrong. They either make the mistake of attempting to handle incoming calls themselves or they get their small team of staff to do it, and this means that no one is actually focusing on their own role.
Rather than having to answer random queries all day, you should focus on doingyour own job which can include the following:
- Meeting with new and existing clients
- Growing the business
- Creating new marketing strategies
- Working out budgets
- Staff training
When you have a small team of staff doing dedicated jobs, it is important that you don’t ask them to answer incoming calls as this becomes hugely distracting for everyone.
It is also important to have someone who is trained in customer service to handle your incoming calls professionally, so as to avoid the following problems:
- Missed calls
- Confusion
- Failure to pass on messages
By having a dedicated virtual secretary on hand to answer your calls, you don’t have to worry about calls being missed or not getting handled correctly.
Enhanced Level of Customer Service
When you employ someone to work in-house as a receptionist, they will usually work an 8-10 hour day but when you hire a virtual secretary, they are able to answer your calls 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This means you don’t need to worry about calls not being answered at the weekend or in the evening and this allows you to improve your customer service, which will also boost your brand’s reputation.
Here’s why having someone on–hand to answer calls 24/7 can be a huge benefit:
- All of your calls will always be answered
- Your customers will feel more valued
- You will be able to meet the needs of more clients,allowing you to grow your business
- It allows you to build the reputation of your company
Customer service is a big part of any successful business and having a virtual secretary who possesses good customer service skills without you needing to train them or provide them with a workspace is a great advantage to any type of businesses. Your virtual secretary will learn about your company in order to carry out their duties efficiently and all of your messages will be passed onto the right person quickly and efficiently, either via text message or an email.
Here is a round-up of the primary benefits of hiring a virtual secretary:
- All of your calls will be answered, no matter what time of the day or night it is
- Your calls will be answered in a professional manner using your company greeting
- You can change the way your calls and messages are handled at any time
Employing a virtual secretary is a great way to ensure your business is running productively and cost effectively.
