Vancouver businesses spend a lot on advertising. Bus stickers, newspaper positions, yellow pages listings, logo designs, search engine optimization, social media – the list goes on. Marketing budgets can be in the hundreds of thousands for many. But that’s not the surprising part. What can be shocking is when the phone starts to ring and the first thing on the other end of the line is any of the following:
- A child screaming or pet woofing
- The sound of a confused “hello?”
- An answering machine
- An automated message saying “this voicemail box is full”
- Endless ringing . . . and ringing . . . and ringing!
It’s no wonder some business owners get frustrated when their advertising dollars don’t seem to be working for them. What they don’t realize, however, is that advertising and marketing is a two-part process (if not more), and the effort they’ve put in to get the phones ringing is only half of the pie.
Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. You shop yourself, so as a business owner, you know what it’s like to receive awkward remarks or bad service. What do you do in such instances? It’s easy — you figure, ‘that’s life’ and you move on to the next business offering the same product or service. What’s the difference? Probably none. But, if there were any superior advantages to going with the company who had the rude person on the phone line, you wouldn’t have known it, and it sure would be too late for them to prove it.
Having a professional telephone answering service can seem like an added cost, but after considering the above situations, a smart business owner knows it’s an investment – and a critical one that should follow any major spending on advertising, marketing or publicity campaigns. A publishing house holding events for the release of a new book, a start-up law firm, a tradesman on the road – any business is a qualified candidate for a virtual receptionist.
A virtual receptionist will always answer your dedicated business line in your company name, or whatever greeting you chose. The best and most professional services out there will never be caught saying, “we’re just an answering service.” If your clients need to book an appointment, leave a message or even drop something off in person, they’ll always have a warm personality to greet them and help them as a representative of your company. For smaller companies wanting to make a lasting impression for the big deal-makers, having a professional phone answering service is essential.
A virtual receptionist gives a business all the advantages of having a full-time receptionist on staff, except the cost is fractional because the idea is that the receptionist is “shared” among other businesses. This capitalizes on the dollar spent per minute on staffing costs because a business only pays for what they use. In other words, it would be senseless to pay for a full time staff person who spends a lot of the day being unproductive. With a virtual office service, telephone answering packages are always a win-win situation.
It’s time to make those advertising dollars work, and to let go of the fear that hiring someone to answer your phones will drain your budget. There is a solution for Vancouver businesses out there, and it lies in the virtual office concept.
