Many freelancers and small businesses handle all aspects of their operations, from communications to marketing to creating valuable products and services. For any company aiming to experience growth, outsourcing is critical. In this article, we’ll specifically discuss why hiring a virtual receptionist can benefit your company and even give you an edge over the competition.
First, let’s discuss a little more about what exactly a virtual receptionist is. A virtual receptionist is simply a receptionist who handles your office communications, but instead of offering receptionist services from your location, they do so remotely. That means that you can hire a virtual receptionist like VirtualReception.com.au from anywhere in the world to handle your phone calls. Consider this: you’ve probably talked on the phone with many virtual receptionists and never knew it.
Virtual receptionists don’t just handle phone calls, though. They handle other areas of communication and administration, including faxes, scheduling, invoicing, and more. Many virtual receptionists can even be trained to handle your unique communication needs.
Hiring a virtual receptionist might sound expensive, but it’s actually cheaper than hiring an on-site receptionist in most cases. The cost of virtual receptionists depends on the amount of time they’re needed, with many virtual assistants charging by the minute or offering packages for a certain amount of minutes per month.
So, how exactly can using a virtual receptionist put you ahead of the competition? Let’s find out.
1. A virtual receptionist gives you more time to focus on areas where you excel
When a virtual receptionist takes over your communications and part of your administrative workload, you’ll find that you have more time to focus on the areas that are truly growing your company: your products and services. You can pour more time into working with clients and customers, as well as further developing your company’s offerings.
While your virtual receptionist is working with your clients to facilitate work, meetings, and more, you can focus on the backbone of your company – and that’s what will give you the leading edge over your rivals.
2. A virtual receptionist gives you an opportunity to outsource areas you don’t have time for
If you are a freelancer or a small business owner, then you are probably behind in the area of administrative work or communication. Don’t beat yourself up over it, because you are not alone! In fact, virtual receptionists are used largely by freelancers and small business owners because they serve such a specific need. While you don’t have time to handle communication and admin work, those areas are crucial, and a virtual receptionist can ensure that you stay on top of them and ahead of the competition.
3. A virtual receptionist ensures a higher level of customer service
A sure way to drive away customers is to provide a less than par customer experience. If you aren’t able to get back to customers fast enough in terms of communication, they will move on to someone else. A virtual receptionist can help you stay in contact with your valued customers to ensure that you keep their business. By offering a higher level of customer service, a virtual receptionist will help you gain momentum against the competition.
4. With a virtual receptionist, you can facilitate communication across time zones
While freelancers and small businesses commonly work with clients around the world, one of the biggest pitfalls of this is trying to work across time zones. This can be frustrating for anyone. One great way that a virtual receptionist can help you stay ahead of the competition is to stay in constant contact with clients, even those who are in different time zones.
5. Your brand image can grow stronger with a virtual receptionist
Any growing company has to ensure that they are maintaining a strong brand image. This is done in many ways. For instance, you can use social media, blog posts, and other marketing to enhance your brand image. A distinct logo and company colors are typically thought of as the basis for brand image, but let’s not forget that the way we treat customers has a lot to say about the culture of our brand.
When you hire a virtual receptionist, you’ve got someone there to help facilitate various aspects with your clients, and that alone can help enhance your brand image and grow it stronger.
6. A virtual receptionist can help reduce overhead and help you get ahead
As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, a virtual receptionist is almost always cheaper than hiring someone to help you on-site. Plus, this still keeps the door open for you to work from home and/or a small office. That alone helps you save money. When you use a virtual receptionist, you also save money in areas such as paid leave and vacation, training, health benefits, and more.
By saving money that would otherwise go to those areas, you can put more into your marketing budget or other areas of your business to help you capture customers over the competition.
The decision of whether or not to hire a virtual receptionist can be a difficult one to make. If you’ve been on the fence about making this move, then we hope that these six reasons have helped you understand how a virtual receptionist can truly help you get ahead of the competition. In today’s world, marketing alone isn’t enough. If you’re a freelancer or a small business, you truly should be doing everything possible to stand out among the competition if you’re serious about growing your company. Hiring a virtual receptionist is an excellent first step in growing your company, plus, you’ve always got the option to scale up with more than one virtual receptionist!
