Who answers the phone when someone calls your business?

If you’re like a lot of small business owners, the answer varies. Sometimes it’s the office manager scrambling to answer the phone, sometimes another employee has to stop what they’re doing.

Hiring an extra full-time, in-office receptionist is costly. Forget about hiring and training a new employee, what you need is a remote receptionist.

Your business calls can be handled by a responsible professional trained in customer service. A remote receptionist is a fantastic option for small businesses that want their customers to hear the warmth of a human voice when they call.

Keep reading to find out exactly how outsourcing your business calls can allow your company to flourish.

Hire a Remote Receptionist:

A remote receptionist performs the tasks that support staff working in your office would normally do.

Instead of spending time and money trying to hire someone to answer the phone, business owners can hire a company like AnswerFirst. They’ll take care of the staffing and training.

You’ll have the benefits of an in-office assistant without the expense.

Here are 8 reasons why hiring a remote receptionist could be a great decision for your business.

1. You Can Maintain a Professional Appearance:

People hate waiting on the phone.

A quality remote receptionist will answer your calls within three rings. Customers will have no idea that they aren’t speaking to someone inside your office. The receptionist will be trained to answer specific calls about your company.

Your small business will appear far more professional if customers can easily reach you. Too many calls going to voicemail could erode your sales and harm your business.

2. Remote Working: You Don’t Need an Office:

Remote work opportunities are wildly popular.

Some small businesses don’t have a physical office space. When you outsource your office staff, you don’t need one. You don’t need to invest in desks or office supplies either.

Your business will appear more established if you have a dedicated receptionist answering your phone even if your business is run out of your home.

3. You Can Expand Your business hours:

Your business won’t have to depend on just one person to answer the phone.

A quality remote receptionist company will assign multiple people to your case. That means that someone will be able to answer the phone even if none of your employees are working.

Businesses sometimes struggle to keep the phones answered during the busy daytime hours of 9 am to 5 pm. The staff is often working on too many things to pay a lot of attention to the phone lines.

4. You’ll Never Miss a Call:

A regular receptionist might go on break or need to take some time off work.

You’ll never have to worry about that if you outsource receptionist duties to a remote company. Someone will always be available to answer your business calls.

Modern customers crave speed and efficiency. If someone calls your business and no one answers, they’re probably going to give up and try some else.

5. Your Customers Receive Amazing Customer Service:

Good customer service can be the difference between making a sale and losing a customer.

Hiring a remote office worker allows you to make sure that your customer’s calls are answered by a polite, respectful person.

Sometimes the people working in your office are frazzled. They have deadlines to meet and customers to please. You don’t want a busy employee to stop working to answer the phone.

A rushed employee might sound rude or try to end the phone call too quickly.

Remote receptionists, meanwhile, are specifically trained on how to deal with a busy phone line. Each and every caller is treated the same, regardless of when they called.

In this system, callers are rarely placed on hold and missed calls are practically unheard of. Which is a great thing!

6. You’ll Save Money:

Hiring a remote receptionist costs a fraction of the amount it takes to hire a live, in-house receptionist. Even if your business is flush with cash, there are likely dozens of other things you’d love to spend the money on to improve your business.

Every dollar that you save by hiring remote office staff rather than a new employee is money that can be reinvested in your business. You can spend the money on buying new equipment or replenishing your product stock.

You won’t have to worry about paying for sick days or vacation time. Payroll expenses can easily bloat, it’s a relief to a lot of small business owners that they can get the support they need without hiring a full-time employee.

7. You’ll be Able to Spend Time Doing What Matters:

You have a lot of things to do. Should answering phones be one of them?

Small business owners are often being pulled in many different directions. Time spent answering the phone is the time that can’t be used to do anything else.

Perhaps you’re trapped in meetings all day. Maybe you need to work with your suppliers. There are usually a million and one different things that a business owner wants to focus on.

After you hire a virtual receptionist, you won’t be tied to your desk anymore. You’ll know that all of your customer’s calls are being answered. Important messages will be forwarded to you.

8. Limit the Number of People You Need to Employ:

A lot of small businesses have just a handful of employees. Adding someone else to the team is an expensive project.

Don’t wait to hire a receptionist until you can afford another staff member.

Hire a remote worker to answer the phones and start receiving the benefits of having a larger team now.

Grow your business:

Your small business can benefit hugely from hiring a remote receptionist.

You want your customers to interact with an upbeat, knowledgeable person when they call you but you don’t want to have a hire an extra employee. That’s where a remote worker can help.

That’s not the only way that your business can save money while still impressing your customers.

If you really want to teach your receptionist new marketing and selling trick, you should teach her about the effectiveness of ringless voicemails. Ringless voicemails are becoming a major success and advantage point for many small businesses, especially in the financial, mortgage and automobile industry.

Even though this has been frowned upon from many federal commissions, it still enjoys huge successes all over the country. In recent years, ringless voicemails have emerged as one of the best-selling strategies used by receptionists.

Check out our entrepreneurship blog for more advice geared toward business owners.

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