Running a small business often means wearing a number of different hats. One minute you are the sales person, the next minute the accountant and the following hour you need to be a technician. In between all of this the telephone could be ringing and you need to be the receptionist as well.
Unfortunately, while you are running around attending to all of these issues you are not doing what you started the business for in the first place and if you are not doing what you intended to be doing then the chances are that you are not making as much money as you originally intended. Being incredibly busy ends up keeping you from growing your business at the rate that you could potentially grow it.
The problem is that if you don't answer your calls and you end up leaving them to go through to an automated voicemail then you risk potentially losing a new lead. Unfortunately many business customers will not leave a message on an automated service and will simply hang up.
Research that was carried out overseas by BT has shown that business callers get really irritated by automated messaging services and are much more likely to hang up rather than leave a message. The research showed that in more than 60% of cases a caller would simply hang up the phone rather than leave a message on an automated service. If you are flat out doing all of the other jobs that you need to attend to you need a live call answering service to answer your calls.
The problem with your callers simply hanging up rather than leaving a message is that they go from being a warm prospect to being a stone cold one. The likelihood is that immediately after hanging up that phone they have scanned down the list and decided to call the next company down. This means that you not only miss out on the job but you also risk giving a customer to one of your competitors, which I'm sure is one of the last things that you want to do. Business is so competitive these days that you really need to protect every possible warm lead that comes your way.
Our Melbourne phone answering service is a great way to ensure that you never miss another call. Our professional staff will answer the majority of your incoming calls (more than 90%) within 6 rings and will have your message to you within minutes. Our system really will work smoothly and efficiently for your business.
Our system has been custom written in Australia and has been operating locally for more than 5 years. We currently have more than 3,500 customers using our services and the system works seamlessly. Because our system has been created by Australians for Australian business it has a lot of functionality which works.
A lot of our competitors offer cheap telephone answering services by employing overseas workers to take your calls. For many of these workers English is a second language and they have a very limited knowledge of the Australian business environment. Our receptionists are all local experienced Australian receptionists working via the cloud.
You really can get the whole thing working within minutes. Once you sign up we will allocate a local number that you can either use as your main business number or that you can divert calls to. You then create a custom greeting that our reception team use when answering your calls. Once this is done we are ready to start answering your calls.
Our answering service packages range from $20 per month with no included calls (calls cost $2.75) to $175 per month with up to 15 calls included per day. If you don't think that you fit in to any of our pre-defined packages then give us a call and we will be happy to discuss creating a custom package that works specifically for your Melbourne business.
We like to make things easy for our customers and keep our billing simple and easy to understand. When you start out with VirtualOffice.Melbourne our helpful customer care staff will guide you in terms of picking the most suitable package for your volume. If your volume increases/decreases over time you can swap packages at any time.
A phone answering service makes sense for your business. Yes, we answer our customers phones and we do it really well however our system can offer a whole range of benefits. For a start, you might want to use our receptionist as the gatekeeper of your organisation. They can be there to turn away all of those pesky telemarketing people who ring wanting to sell you SEO services or a new electricity supplier. Our receptionists can also field calls coming in and direct them to the right extension or department.
With our state of the art system you can also set up a series of numbers that you want us to call if we can't find you at your main number. These numbers could be your home number, your mobile number, a hotel number or potentially even various colleagues numbers if you are not available. We really want to help you do your job better!
Our phone answering service is used by a really broad range of businesses. These businesses range in size from one and two man businesses to divisions of public companies with 400 or more people. For us it doesn't matter if you are a one man show or a 400 person department our answering service can deliver the same level of professionalism to you regardless. If you are a small business we believe that we will help you to look big while if you are a big business we believe that we will help you to look professional.
The types of businesses using an answering service varies significantly. We have a large number of law firms including solicitors and barristers using our service as well as a lot of accountants. We also have lots of IT consultants, management consultants, digital marketers, eCommerce companies, real estate agents, architects and trades people. If you are a small firm that is just starting out then it makes sense to get an answering service.
We don't have long term contracts for our customers. We don't believe that our customers should be forced to stay with us if they do not believe that they are getting the best value from our service. Despite not having a contract to lock them in our average customer still stays with us for around 3 years so we must be doing something right. One of the most common statements that we hear from our customers is that they wish that they had know about our services sooner as they absolutely love working with us.
On top of Phone answering we have a range of additional business services that are designed to help you grow your business and to help you run your business more efficiently. Our virtual assistants can help with a range of tasks including filling out web forms, answering relatively simple questions that your callers have (like, do you have parking available, what are your business hours, what are your operating hours etc). We have a broad range of telephone numbers and virtual addresses available in all capital cities within Australia. Everything you need to take your business national! We can also assist with 1300 numbers. Why not call one of our friendly sales assistants on 1300 794 910 to find out how we can help you.