Telephone Answering Service - Why you need one
As a small business owner you need to wear lot's of different hats. One minute you are working as the sales person, the next you are loading boxes in the warehouse and a minute or so after that you are completing your accounts and lodging your BAS. In the meantime your phone is probably constantly ringing and you are trying to juggle the myriad of calls that come through every day. It wouldn't be so bad if all of the calls coming through are actually money making sales calls however unfortunately only around 1 call in 10 these days is actually worth dropping everything for.
What you need is some sort of gatekeeper who can screen your calls and only let the important ones pass through. 20 years ago that gatekeeper would have likely been a receptionist who was sitting out the front of your office and dealing with incoming calls plus couriers etc. These days, the most cost efficient way of handling that gatekeeper function is to have an outsourced telephone answering service like the one provided by VirtualOffice.Melbourne act as a gatekeeper to keep your calls under control.
What the majority of people who sign up for a telephone answering service find is that they end up saving a huge amount of time by outsourcing their call answering. This is then valuable time that can be redeployed towards earning more money and actually attending to the more strategic aspects of their business.
What sort of businesses do you have as customers
We have a broad range of customers from a broad range of occupations. A higher proportion of our customers would be professional than trades people and we have a large number of lawyers, accountants, management consultants, IT professionals, digital marketers and entrepreneurs. A telephone answering service is actually perfect for any busy small to medium sized business that would like to have their calls answered in a promt and professional manner.
How does a telephone answering service actually work
It is really quite straight forward. Back in the old days forwarding your phone number to someone else was really quite complicated and usually involved the use of some sort of switchboard. These days it is relatively easy to divert your number either instantaneously or after a specific number of rings and have someone else answer that incoming call.
The way that it works with VirtualOffice.Melbourne is that you sign up for a free trial and we allocate a telephone number to your account. This number can either be a local telephone number (no additional cost) or a 1300 number (additional costs apply). This allocated phone number is then the telephone number that we answer when taking your telephone calls. As part of the process you will need to divert your existing number to this number that we have provided. If you do not currently have a landline number or a 1300 number then it is also possible that you may just want to use our number as your main business number. It is all totally up to you.
Once you have your phone number diverted to our number you need to tell us what greeting you want us to use when answering your calls. This greeting can be as formal or as informal as you like. Many customers simply go with "good morning, ABC company, this is Susan speaking" etc. The beauty with our answering service is that you can literally change your message as often as you like by using our self service admin area. You simply login on your PC/Laptop or access the login area through our easy to use APP and change the greeting online. Simple!
Now that you have your phone diverted and your greeting in place you are ready to go and our friendly receptionists can be answering your calls in a matter of minutes.
How do I get my messages
There are two options in terms of how you can receive your messages. The first option is to get an email (within minutes of the call taking place.) Given that the majority of people have smart phones these days we find that our customers are then able to receive their messages wherever they are. You could be sitting in a cafe down at the beach or up in the mountains and you will know pretty quickly that an important call has come through. You can then take a few minutes to plan out your response before getting back to your caller. The second option for receiving your messages is to get them via SMS (a small fee is involved). We find that this option suits a small percentage of our customers as you will generally get an alert when that message comes through.
How much will it cost me?
We have tried to make our pricing as easy as possible to understand. If all you want is the basic package then you pay a small retainer of $20 (ex gst) per month plus a per call charge of $2.60 (plus gst) per call. If you are expecting to receive a reasonable number of calls then you would probably be best off signing up for one of our packages. With the packages you pay a fixed fee per month and that covers you for a specific number of calls in that month (anything over that number would be charged on a per call basis). If you opt for a package price, your average cost per call is then quite a bit lower than the $2.60 that you will be charged for the basic package.
Where are the receptionists based
The receptionists who will be answering calls 9-5 Monday to Friday are all Australian based. Our receptionists work remotely from different places in Australia. We find that by having remote receptionists we are able to keep our costs lower and then pass those cost savings on to our customers in the form of lower prices. If you are having your calls answered 24/7 then the receptionists answering your calls could possibly be located in one of our overseas English speaking markets like the USA and the UK. The receptionists that we like to employ in all of our markets are mature professional experienced telephonists with a good understanding of their local markets.
Do I have to sign a contract
We don't believe in locking our customers in to lengthy contracts. Our customers pay monthly and can cancel by just giving that months notice. Despite not having contracts we find that the majority of our customers end up staying with us for several years. The reason for this is not the fact that they are locked in but the fact that they get great value for money with our telephone answering service and it really works for their business.
Who is VirtualOffice.Melbourne
We are an Australian owned and based business with close to 2,000 customers throughout the country. We have more than 7 years experience in the telephone answering industry and the virtual office industry. We provide a variety of services to small and medium sized businesses to help them operate more efficiently and to enable them to be more strategic.
What do I do next?
Why not sign up for a 7 day free trial and test us out. There is absolutely no obligation and we do not even require a credit card to kick things off. After your 7 days is up we will contact you to see if you want to upgrade to a paying package however we will not pressure you or bombard you with emails.
If you would like to find out more about our service and how it can help your business then why not give one of our friendly sales managers a call on 1300 794 910 and they will be happy to help out.