Virtual Receptionist Service: Who’s picking up your office phone?

Using a virtual receptionist service lets you work work efficiently and without interruption.  Some distractions, such as checking email can be avoided by bull-dogged determination and steely resolve—but answering the phone is in a class by itself. Let a virtual receptionist service handle those chores.

Most businesses require someone to answer the phone.  If you’re a young lawyer without a receptionist, you won’t get far by ignoring phone calls.  But do you really want to personally answer every phone call that comes in?  One minute it’s your wife, the next minute it’s a client needing a divorce.  How can you switch mental gears that fast?  You can’t of course.

Aside from hiring a receptionist, which is ill-advised for most young businesses, you either drop what you’re doing and answer the phone, or hire a telephone answering service.  The problem is—operators with phone answering services sound mechanical and  don’t provide the professional impression you want to impart on clients or customers.  Answering services really aren’t much better than voice mail or an answering machine.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been using a great alternative–a virtual receptionist.

A virtual receptionist is actually one of a team of trained receptionists who answer your phone from  a distant location.  When someone calls my regular office number, the call is instantly routed to a virtual receptionist  who professionally answers with my law office name.  The receptionist gives the impression of actually being in my office.

What’s great is they don’t just answer the phone and take messages.  Working from instructions I’ve provided, the receptionist answers routine questions and books appointments for me.   I let the service know what dates and times I’m available to see clients and they take it from there.

Clients can communicate with my “office” 24/7, even when I’m  on vacation.

I pay around $300 month for my virtual receptionist, which is a fraction of the cost of a “real” receptionist. With the company I use, the cost is based on the number of minutes their receptionists work on my account.  I’m charged a base rate for a certain number of minutes, every minute over of the base is surcharged. The busier I am, the more my service costs, but who should complain about more business?

The higher the base rate you choose, the lower the surcharge for additional calls.  If you’re just beginning a practice you may have difficulty estimating the number of calls you will receive, but after a few months you’ll settle into the most economical plan.

A virtual receptionist eliminates overhead.  I don’t have to worry about salary, training, benefits, sick and vacation time.

There are a number of virtual receptionist services around.  I use Alert Communications and really haven’t had any reason to look elsewhere.

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