Why Virtual Receptionists? 5 Compelling Reasons You Should Use To Convince Your Stakeholders

The idea of “remote receptionists” is straightforward: they’re the typical receptionists who cover the front desk but do so remotely. Still, this concept is hard to grasp for some people and leads to exaggerated expectations that have been debunked in practice.

If you try bringing up the concept of virtual receptionists to stakeholders, they may respond with, “Okay, but what’s wrong with in-person receptionists?”

To this day, many businesses still delegate front desk responsibilities to in-person roles. Thus, it may be challenging to persuade your stakeholders to make the shift to virtual receptionists.

Fortunately, convincing them is easy when you know how to build a strong case and eventually hire the services of a virtual receptionist company to enhance your front desk.

Here are some compelling reasons to help you.

How To Convince Your Stakeholders To Integrate Virtual Receptionists

In-person receptionists have several pain points that affect the customer experience, return on investment (ROI), and overall operations of your business. The same weaknesses are either absent or minimized with virtual receptionists.

You can build your case by describing the shortcomings of in-person receptionists and how virtual receptionists can solve those issues.

Here are 5 pain points you should use:

1. Inconsistent Productivity

If you manage multiple locations, you may notice that some front desks are more productive than others, depending on how busy certain locations are. This means that your overall front desk operations are falling short of the maximum ROI that they should be achieving.

Maximizing the ROI of your front desk becomes possible with virtual receptionists. With the proper front desk strategy and a live-streaming receptionist platform like WelcomeWare, you can leverage the same front desk team to cover all your locations simultaneously.

This allows you to make the most out of your most talented receptionists and reduce the physical headcount.

2. Receptionist Unavailability

In-person receptionists may be unavailable due to:

• Paid time off
• Out for lunch
• Sick leaves
• Sudden absences

There are several reasons why your receptionists become unavailable. It may be because of:

• The stress of the work
• Lack of energy from commuting to and from the location
• Personal factors outside of your control

Because virtual receptionists work remotely, they are far less likely to be affected by these reasons. Thus, they’re often more available to cover the front desk and perform administrative tasks.

Plus, if a receptionist is unavailable, another receptionist can easily fill in for them. This significantly reduces front desk downtime and ensures that there’s always a friendly smile awaiting your guests.

3. Constantly Losing Receptionists

On average, it takes 3-6 months to search and hire a new receptionist. Unfortunately, most receptionists only last for up to a year before leaving.

In the long run, this can disrupt your overall operations by:

• Having no one perform administrative work – Back office staff must now perform bureaucratic tasks that take them away from their actual responsibilities
• Causing front office bottlenecks – With no dedicated staff at the front desk, vital processes like check-in and appointment scheduling become inefficient
• Affecting the customer experience – Guests become frustrated if front desk processes are too slow or if no one is available to answer their questions

By transitioning to a virtual front desk setup, you can substantially increase front desk staff retention. Having a remote work arrangement for your receptionists significantly reduces employee turnover, as such a prospect is rare even today.

Plus, by allowing them to work remotely, you can alleviate much of their stress and let them enjoy the benefits of working from home. As a result, you can retain the same front desk team that performs well together.

4. Stressed Receptionists

For busier locations, front desk staff burnout is very likely to occur. You can address key issues such as inefficient workflow protocols and a perceived lack of management support. However, receptionists working in person will eventually experience a gradual deterioration of their sense of well-being.

Some reasons why this happens include:

• Standing and socializing constantly with guests while maintaining a friendly composure
• Aversion towards constant traveling for work
• Being away from family and loved ones

You can minimize receptionist stress considerably by letting them work remotely. This removes the need to travel, places them closer to their family, and allows them to recharge themselves in between customer queries.

5. Back Office Administrative Burnout

There’s a strong tendency to assign front office responsibilities to your back office staff if there’s a lack of dedicated front desk employees. While this may cut staffing costs, it does lead to stress, burnout, and, eventually, turnover. Additionally, your back office staff may be inexperienced in performing certain administrative tasks, which may result in more bottlenecks in productivity.

Often, geographical limitations are the reason why hiring dedicated front desk staff is challenging. Thankfully, virtual receptionists make it significantly easier to hire your next receptionist.

Since they do not need to be in person to cover the front desk, virtual receptionists can be located practically anywhere. Thus, you can form your front desk team without worrying about distance.

Which Virtual Receptionist Company Should You Choose?

Virtual receptionists can be a massive advantage for businesses that want to step up their game front desk operations. However, this is only possible with the right equipment, workforce, and expertise.

WelcomeWare is a software and hardware virtual live-streaming receptionist platform that also offers dedicated receptionists. If you want to both enhance and staff your front desk, contact us now!