There has been an increasing rise in popularity of using virtual receptionists and professional call answering services amongst solo-entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses across the UK in recent years. The reasons for the rise in popularity of these services is quite obvious once you take a look at the many benefits that using these virtual services can bring to your business and how they can help you to improve your productivity levels and bottom line.
Let's take a closer look at ten ways that using a professional call answering service or hiring a virtual receptionist can help your business to improve.
1: No need to hire and train new staff
One of the most obvious benefits for your business, especially if you are a sole trader or solo-entrepreneur that employs no other staff, is the fact that you will have a fully trained professional virtual receptionist ready to take your business calls from day one.
Professional call answering services, such as our own team at Capital Offices in London, are all fully-trained individuals with years of experience of working as a virtual receptionist. This means that as soon as you book our services, you will get immediate telephone coverage with polite and professional receptionists answering your calls using the greeting of your choice.
You will be saving yourself a heck of a lot of time and money hiring a virtual receptionist rather than employing one for your business by yourself. Employing your own receptionist will mean paying for a job advert, sorting through tons of job applications, shortlisting the best candidates, scheduling interviews, conducting interviews and then having to complete all the legal paperwork, registration with HMRC and drawing up of a contract of employment.
All this hassle and expense even before you can start to benefit from having the help of a receptionist! Then there is the settling in period and the training needed, especially if you have chosen someone with little receptionist experience.
It is so much simpler, quicker, cheaper and less hassle to use a good call answering service instead!
2: No more cold callers!
We all know that you cannot afford to ignore your ringing phone, especially if you are running a business where you are encouraging prospective new customers to call you for more information about your products or services.
Advertising your business number and making it visible to the general public will not only enable you to receive calls and enquiries from prospective new customers, as well as existing customers, but you are also opening yourself up to calls from sales reps and cold callers from all sorts of different industries. It can be incredibly frustrating to answer your business phone to find that maybe three out of five incoming calls are from sales reps or survey companies.
With a professional call answering service, you will never need to take the call in the first place. Your own virtual receptionist will be able to screen all of your calls for you, which means that you will only get genuine business calls coming through to you that actually want to get.
3: Put your productivity into overdrive
By using our high-quality call answering services you can truly maximise your productivity levels and take them to new heights! We all know that constantly being disturbed by your phone ringing can break your concentration and take your focus away from your important work tasks.
Having your own virtual receptionist will enable you to safely ignore your phone and allow you to continue to focus on your work projects without disruption. You don't need to worry about missed sales opportunities or missing important messages from your clients or customers because your virtual receptionist will intercept your calls on your behalf and leave you in peace to get on with your work. Your business caller will still feel very valued in your absence because their call has been answered swiftly, politely and professionally.
4: Travel between meetings safely
If your business involves you being on the road a lot travelling between customers or clients, then you will have a problem with answering your phone safely. It may be incredibly frustrating and time-consuming to constantly need to pull your car over to the side of the road to simply answer your phone each time it rings.
We all know that it is against the law to drive while on a mobile phone, so ignoring this can seriously put your safety at risk while driving. If you are spotted driving while on your phone by a police officer or a surveillance camera, you can face a hefty fine and points on your driving licence.
You can travel more safely between your appointments with more concentration and with fewer interruptions when you put your business calls into the hands of a professional virtual receptionist.
5: Phone cover while in meetings
There can be nothing more frustrating for your clients or customers than you constantly interrupting your business meeting by taking incoming calls on your phone. Your call answering service can take down important messages for you while you are busy in your meeting and quickly deliver them to you once you are free and able to respond to your messages.
6: Prioritise your callers
When you are busy working or in a meeting, you need to focus on what you are doing at the time. This can often mean having to miss a call or query from an important existing customer or B2B partner. Your virtual receptionist will be able to take messages from your general callers, but will also be briefed about any very important callers that need to be prioritised. This can often mean putting these calls directly through to you regardless of where you are or what you are doing.
7: Make your business look bigger than it is
Your prospective new customers will call you for more information about your products and services. When they have their call answered by a professional receptionist, they will immediately get an impression of a large and successful business with an organised set-up. This is a much better first impression to create in your customer’s mind than to have their call answered by a very flustered and irritated business owner that is trying to juggle too many tasks at once.
This can help to reassure prospective new customers or B2B clients that may be a little wary about dealing with a small, unknown company.
8: Much better customer service
The success of your business starts and ends with your customers. Without them, you would have no business! Keeping your customers happy and well treated is of vital importance for your business success, so having a very professional virtual receptionist on hand to answer customer calls promptly, politely and with a friendly manner, each and every time they call will add so much power to your ability to convert prospects to paying customers.
A consistent level of high-quality customer service can build a lot of trust and loyalty in your customers that means they are more likely to repeat-buy from you rather than go to one of your competitors.
9: Flexible services
Hiring our call answering services gives you a lot of flexibility that you couldn't get from employing your own staff. You may be working from a very tight budget that means you cannot afford to employ a full-time receptionist for your business. Staff wages and all the added expenses that come with providing your employees with the IT equipment and infrastructure needed for them to do an effective job all costs a lot of money.
The great thing with professional unlimited call answering services such as ours is that you can tailor it to suit your needs. You can save yourself a lot of money by using our virtual solution for just one month, three months, six months or twelve months – as you need us!
10: You get to keep more of your money
Quite simply, it is far more cost-effective for you to use virtual services such as our Professional Unlimited Call Answering Service because it is far more affordable than employing your own staff and kitting out an office or reception area of your own.
In many cases, a sole trader or solo-entrepreneur that is happy working from home can completely avoid the necessity and costs of setting up a physical office for their business if they are happy to continue along as they are and have no plans to expand their business beyond creating a job for themselves alone. Or if they prefer to have a small and flexible workspace where their team can collaborate together without having any designated desk space.
With our professional call answering service, our team of PA's answer your phone calls allowing you to have great peace of mind that you haven't missed any important business calls while you were unavailable on were busy in a meeting. This means that you will be left with more money in your bank account that can be invested in other important areas of your business.
Find out more about our professional call answering services and how cost-effective our services are!
