Virtual Receptionist: How to Choose the Right Option for Your Business

What is a virtual receptionist?

A virtual receptionist is a digital receptionist who answers calls on your business's behalf. This is often through an automated system or a real person, without being physically located in your office. The benefits of a virtual receptionist are that no call goes unanswered, with a genuine person answering the phone on your company’s behalf, without physically occupying any space in your office.

A virtual receptionist is often compared to having a front of house receptionist, however they are not employed by your businesses directly. Virtual agents field incoming calls and resolve basic customer needs. These tasks could include scheduling appointments, routing calls or providing basic account information.

What types of virtual receptionists exist?

There are 3 types of virtual receptionists. These are discussed below.

1. Human-Powered Virtual Receptionists

These services are often provided by outsourced companies, where staff are trained in customer services. They remotely answer calls and handle customer interactions as if they were part of a business’ in-house team. The benefits of a live human agent is that they bring personality to your reception desk. Furthermore, they can handle complex inquiries, and provide native and nuanced customer service that digital or AI based software is not capable of doing.

2. AI Powered Virtual Receptionists

AI-Powered Virtual Receptionists or AI agents, leverage automated systems, often powered by artificial intelligence. AI voice agents are a modern alternative and offer an always on, after-hours support solution. The AI agent is growing in popularity. It allows for the handling and routing of calls as well as providing basic information.

The major advantage of an AI enabled virtual receptionist is that they are available all the time. They can also handle high volumes of calls, and are more affordable, when compared to employing and paying a human. Some phone systems offer built-in AI powered virtual receptionist features.

3. Hybrid Virtual Receptionists

This combined receptionist solution, merges the strengths of both human and AI-powered receptionist services. The hybrid option utilises AI for initial call handling and routing, and then transfers calls to human agents, as and when needed.

Many providers often deliver a seamless transfer from AI to human receptionist, heightening the user and customer experience. The efficiency of AI paired with the personalised touch of live call agents, provides a cost friendly, efficient solution that delivers high level customer satisfaction. Virtual receptionist providers often offer hybrid solutions which allows businesses to customise their service based on their specific needs.

What service providers offer virtual receptionist services?

There are many virtual receptionist providers out there. Some are better than others with a range of companies offering a high level of service. These often cater to a range of diverse business needs, from basic call answering to more comprehensive solutions. Some top-rated providers include Smith.ai, Ruby Receptionists, and PATLive.

Other strong contenders are Nexa, Posh, and Abby Connect as well as AI voice agents such as Eleven Labs, Retell Voice and Vapi. It is best to do your research before signing up to a provider as each contender offers unique features and strengths.

How easy or difficult is it to set up a virtual receptionist on your own?

It is straightforward and simple to set up a virtual receptionist independently, without the need for IT support. To set up a virtual receptionist on your own, you'll need to choose a service provider, customise call handling, set up call forwarding, and configure your virtual assistant system to integrate with your existing business operations. This involves selecting a service, creating greeting messages, call menus, routing calls and frequently testing whether the solution works in line with various caller user journeys.

You can create various greetings and voice messages crafting these specifically for different scenarios around business hours, holidays and so on. Call menus can be designed with menu options to allow callers to select and be directed quickly to their designated department or agent. You may like to customise your call routing, which considers establishing rules for how calls should be routed based on the caller's selection, time of day, and other factors.

You can also set up call forwarding which involves configuring your business phone number to forward calls to the virtual receptionist. This could be set up permanently, to deal with all inbound initial calls or during out of office, peak time or high volume hours.

What are the pros and cons of an outsourced third-party receptionist service Vs. doing it yourself?

Advantages of Virtual Receptionists

A virtual receptionist can handle a mountain of tasks in comparison to a human agent. Below are some of the specific advantages.

Cost efficient

A virtual receptionist often is more affordable than paying a receptionist salary. Business owners also save on associated costs. With a virtual receptionist there is no need to undergo a recruitment task or manage the individual from a human resources (HR) perspective.

Hiring a normal receptionist means that your business needs to invest time in training, along with the cost associated with sick employees, annual leave and the possibility of staff quitting, which requires your business to repeat the hiring process. Virtual receptionists are generally more affordable than hiring an in-house receptionist, as they don't require a salary, benefits, or office space.

Scalability & flexibility

With a virtual receptionist, you can easily scale up or down to meet fluctuating call volumes, without the need to train new staff. Furthermore, virtual agents are flexible and more well suited to answering basic calls. Humans prefer speaking to humans and so favour communicating with another human and answering machines have limited responding capabilities.

Therefore some inbound calls can be transferred to a human virtual agent, to handle conversations and solve queries faster and show consumers they are valued.

Improved Customer Services

Virtual receptionists are always on hand to answer calls. They have specific skills and experience in appointment scheduling, call routing, and customer call handling. Virtual receptionists ensure that calls are answered promptly and professionally, with no restriction on working hours and location.

Additionally a virtual agent is trained to focus on handling calls and messages, which allows the wider business to focus on more specific business related actions. This improves productivity levels as well as portrays efficient credible business operations. In return, this will impress and build trust with your client base.

Disadvantages of Virtual Receptionists

There are limited downsides of having a virtual receptionist, however we have outlined a handful of considerations below.

Technical Issues

Virtual receptionists rely on technology and with this, there can be technical interference or glitches, including system downtime. On the odd occasion, callers may experience delays. When this rarity occurs, it can impact the customer journey and satisfaction levels can be affected as a result.

Limited Business Knowledge

Whilst virtual receptionists can handle higher volumes of inbound calls compared to live agents, it is important to remember that they do have limited knowledge on the specifics of your business. Therefore complex inquiries or requests may need to be routed to live agents which can cause a perceived delay from a customer perspective.

The lack of niche business knowledge, may perceive interactions with virtual receptionists as less personalised, as their responses cannot be tailoured to specific or bespoke needs.

Cultural Barriers

Virtual receptionists are based remotely and sometimes may struggle to grasp the nuances of company culture and their values, potentially leading to less personal interactions. In some instances virtual receptionists may be located in different regions or even different countries, which could lead to potential language barriers or cultural differences that could affect communication with callers. In some rare instances, misunderstandings or misinterpretations could occur from enquiries.

While virtual receptionists can provide highly professional conversations, they may not be able to offer the same level of personal rapport as a real life receptionist.

The rise of the AI Voice agent

As mentioned earlier, an AI agent is a program based on artificial intelligence that can receive and make calls, understand natural speech, and respond to customer questions. The AI powered receptionist is rising in popularity. AI voice platforms are often integrated with VoIP led phone systems to provide a supercharged, unified communication solution.

The AI bot connects to the PBX extension and can be used at any stage of call processing, either completely replacing operators or supplementing them. When and how exactly the intelligent assistant is activated is determined by the PBX settings. Zadarma PBX phone system is fully adaptable and can be configured to meet the needs of any business. Zadarma’s cloud PBX integrates with many AI platform providers including Eleven Labs, Retell Voice and Vapi.

The pairing of Zadarma PBX phone system with an AI virtual agent provider is highly advantageous. This integrated solution provides a more affordable and scalable option than hiring a third-party receptionist service agency. Furthermore, users can access the full range of call management features that Zadarma offers all PBX register users. These include call routing, forward, voice mail, call analytics, Teamsale CRM access and video conferencing. AI voice agent integration with phone systems like Zadarma spurs benefits, such as increased call processing speed, reduced staff workload, and improved service quality.

In conclusion, virtual receptionist services offer numerous advantages for businesses seeking to enhance efficiency, professionalism, and customer service. From cost savings and 24/7 availability to scalability and flexibility, virtual receptionists play a vital role in modern business operations.

However, it is essential for businesses to weigh up the advantages against potential disadvantages to ensure the virtual option is the right fit for your needs. Ultimately, by leveraging the benefits of virtual receptionist services while mitigating potential challenges, businesses can optimise their customer experience and drive success in today's competitive landscape.

AI voice agents are revolutionising virtual receptionist solutions. As businesses increasingly adopt AI-driven automation, the demand for intelligent, conversational, and highly adaptable virtual receptionists continues to grow.

Those businesses adopting such integrated virtual solutions, are seemingly staying ahead of competition, enhancing customer satisfaction, and are fundamentally optimising their operational efficiency in an increasingly digital world.