What is an answering service and how can it help your business
If you are running a small to medium sized operation then it is quite likely that you have heard friends or business associates talking about virtual receptionist services or virtual assistant services. Whilst you may have a general idea about how these services work you may not be entirely sure how they could potentially add value to your business.
An answering service could really help your small business
The answering service concept has been around for quite some time. Back in the 80's and 90's it was possible to divert your telephone to a separate business who could then take messages for you. Unfortunately, back in those days the options for getting those messages delivered were limited and the flexibility in the systems themselves was limited.
With the development of the internet and cloud technology the opportunities for answering services really opened up. It was now possible to provide multiple numbers in multiple locations, have receptionists work remotely from anywhere with a good internet connection and deliver messages to the customer in a variety of ways. It was even possible to give the customers easy access to admin portals to enable them to make changes on the fly.
When people refer to telephone answering services they quite regularly use a variety of terms. These terms include outsourced receptionist, reception service, virtual reception, outsourced reception, cloud reception, virtual receptionist and virtual assistant. Despite the varied terms that they use the names basically mean the same thing. An external receptionist who answers your incoming businesses calls.
What businesses generally make use of receptionist services?
A really broad range of small to medium sized businesses use outsourced answering services. A cross section of VirtualOffice.Melbourne customers is likely to include IT professionals, solicitors, accountants and bookkeepers, real estate professionals and start up businesses. If you have a business that employs between 1 & 200 people then an answering service could work well for you.
How do you go about getting started?
The first step would be to sign up for your free24/7 7 day trial. We then allocate you a unique telephone number. This number can be either a toll free 1300 number (small additional fee) or a local number. After that you tell us what greeting you want us to greet your callers with when we answer your calls and how you want us to forward you your messages. All you need to do then is divert your existing phone number to the phone number provided and you are ready to go.
How do I get my messages
Most of our customers opt to receive their messages by email. With the modern technology available people can have almost constant access to a device that will receive emails so it makes good sense to forward email messages. Another alternative is to receive messages by text message (small charge) however we are finding that less and less people opt for this delivery method.
What will it cost me?
In the answering service business there are two main ways that companies charge. Basically, this is either by the phone call or by the minute. This does make comparing the two offerings quite difficult however if you do your analysis then you can put all of the companies on a level field. Here at VirtualOffice.Melbourne we charge on a per call basis. We have adopted this approach as we believe that it gives our customers a cost effective and reliable way of outsourcing their telephone answering.
If you would like to take our system for a test run the why not sign up for 7 days with no cost to you. You can do this on our Free Trial page by filling out the form or you could give one of our friendly customer care professionals a call on 1300 794 910 and they will be happy to sign you up over the phone. It makes really great business sense.