Many employers cut back on expenses by outsourcing the work of front office staff such as receptionists, administrative workers, and customer service personnel. Businesses hiring virtual receptionist services are part of a booming trend of outsourcing that is hitting industries worldwide. Some employers find that the advantages of remote staffing with the aid of sophisticated communications technologies trump the benefits of traditional site-based operations. But are the pros of using virtual receptionist companies really greater than the cons?
What Is a Virtual Receptionist?
A virtual receptionist is a professional live customer service assistant who is hired on a contract basis to take telephone calls for a client and forward all calls or messages to that client via telephone, email, pager, recording medium, fax, phone conferencing system, or other means. She or he is located remotely rather than on site and may be part of a team of employees that provides receptionist services for the client.
Differences Between Virtual Receptionists and Other Telephone Support Services
Virtual receptionist services are different from call centers and traditional answering services.
Traditionally, telephone answering services use personnel who are "just the answering service" and act merely as message takers. Virtual receptionists, on the other hand, act as receptionists to screen phone calls and transfer them to the appropriate employee as well as take messages, providing customer service on par with that of a permanent office staff member.
Call centers and virtual receptionist services share some traits. Both virtual receptionists and operators in call centers answer the telephone, screen calls, forward calls, and take messages. The virtual assistant companies are differentiated from call center companies by the scale of their operations, their infrastructure, and their clients: in short, call centers tend to handle large clients, while virtual office assistants are typically hired by medium and small businesses.
Pros of Hiring a Virtual Receptionist Service
From the organization's perspective, there are significant advantages to replacing permanent receptionist staff with temporary contract workers via a virtual assistant service.
- Efficiency: The employer usually pays by the service minute, usually in increments of 100, 200, 500, or 1,000 minutes per month, and not by the hour or on a salary basis. Paying only for the time actually used means greater efficiency in terms of time and money.
- Cost: By working with a receptionist who's a contractor, employers save on employee health insurance, taxes and benefits. In addition, clients do not have to pay the overhead costs of equipping and providing work space for support staff. Also, because these services are relatively new, as an incentive to try them, some services offer free trial periods.
- Duration: Most virtual office assistant services offer "24/7" customer service, meaning that calls are handled every hour of the day, seven days a week.
- Flexibility: When remote support staff are not tied to the office, permanent staff also enjoy more freedom and mobility. Clients can receive calls anywhere they carry their communications devices.
- Discretion: A professional virtual receptionist is just like a "real" receptionist as far as the customer is concerned, according to many of these companies. They assert that the receptionist will try to mask the fact that he or she is an off-site contract worker.
- Support : In the event of technical or other difficulties, the services usually offer centralized support.
Cons of Replacing On-Site Office Assistants With Virtual Receptionists
When organizations start outsourcing administrative office work, the disadvantages tend to be subtle but real. Employers should try to prevent these problems to the extent possible, given budgets and other constraints.
- Communication: The very reason remote staffing works is the availability of lightning-fast remote communications. Yet this means communication skills are even more important to success. Clients must be good communicators to assure that transitioning to an office-free work environment doesn't lead to some customers slipping through the cracks.
- Variability: Not all virtual receptionists are the same. Some are hired through agencies; others work independently. When using a service, the client will not always be able to choose the receptionist on duty.
- Lack of Personal Touch: Direct human communication is not the same as remote communication. A client may not enjoy the same professional rapport with a virtual receptionist that might occur with a single receptionist located in an office.
- Obsolete Employees: Although the move seems inevitable in a transitioning economy, people lose jobs and their associated benefits when companies outsource their reception, secretarial, and other administrative work. The problem caused by the switch to contract workers is so prevalent that the U.S. Department of Labor offers funds to displaced workers through its Trade Adjustment Assistance Program (TAA).
Internet Outsourcing is Transforming the Nature of Work
Virtual receptionist services are part of a growing global trend toward hiring contract workers instead of permanent employees to do tasks that can be done remotely. In the Internet Age, this method of staffing is both cost-effective and efficient. Despite the societal disadvantages of losing permanent jobs, many business owners and office managers opt to outsource front office work in order to cut down on overhead expenses without sacrificing person-to-person customer service by telephone for their customers.
Kerry Bakerson - Kerry's fiction has been published by Mundania Press. A former jewelry designer and bookseller, Kerry is now a full-time web content ...
