How Virtual Receptionist Software Can Cut Costs in Five Ways

Glassdoor reports that the average annual salary of a receptionist in the United States is $31,541 – and that’s just for a single receptionist. If you own multiple locations, maintaining smooth front desk operations means you need a solid front desk team per location, each being relatively trained and compensated.

Fortunately, you can cut front desk costs significantly without sacrificing productivity. The solution is using virtual receptionist software. Here are five ways they can help you cut costs:

1. Enables an always-available front desk

One of the main challenges of in-person receptionists is the daily travel to and from the office. Factors such as traffic, pollution, and the typical grind of everyday commute will gradually chip away at your receptionists’ well-being. This can lead to:

• Increased tardiness
• Untimely sick leaves
• Prolonged PTOs
• Frequent breaks

Ultimately, your customer service will suffer, causing you to potentially lose clients and profits over time.

Your receptionists will still take PTO with virtual receptionist software, but far less often. Since your receptionists will most likely work from home, they no longer have to deal with the energy drain of everyday travel. Ultimately, you’ll be able to maintain your receptionists’ well-being, ensuring that your front desk is always available to serve customers.

2. Keeps the same solid team

Contrary to what you might think, hiring new virtual receptionists is unnecessary when making the switch to virtual receptionist software. Generally, virtual receptionist software simply enables a remote front desk setup. This means that, with the proper training, workflow, and system in place, you can use your current receptionists to operate your virtual front desk.

Plus, virtual receptionist software also enables remote work for receptionists. A common misconception about front desk work is that it’s strictly in-person only. Thus, providing remote work for your receptionists is a unique advantage that encourages them to stay with the company longer.

3. Increases receptionist’s productivity

In-person front desk work is a physically demanding role. Receptionists must:

• Stay in the same area for an extended period of time
• Constantly ensure a welcoming environment for guests
• Maintain calm composure, especially during heated customer interactions
• Answer customer queries over the desk, on the phone, or via email

Over time, your receptionists’ performance may suffer due to lower energy levels. However, when they work in the comfort of their own homes, they can be much more energized and productive.

With the right system and workflow policies in place, remote receptionists can be just as (if not even more) productive than in-house receptionists. Paired with virtual receptionist software like WelcomeWare, your receptionists can be more productive than ever.

4. Achieves simultaneous multiple-area coverage

One of the main concerns of owning multiple locations at once is staffing. Each location must have a minimum number of high-performing employees to achieve overall operational efficiency.

This is especially challenging with receptionists in three ways:

1. You need to have a sufficient front desk team for each location.
2. Each receptionist should have proper training and understanding of your company.
3. There must be a dedicated budget to compensate each receptionist fairly.

Virtual receptionist software easily solves all these challenges by enabling your business to streamline all of its front desk operations under a single receptionist team. Each virtual receptionist can attend multiple front desks on cue. If a receptionist is busy with a particular location or task, other receptionists can easily fill in.

With just one capable front desk team working under proper workflow guidelines in place, you can achieve complete front desk coverage across all your locations. Plus, since you only need one virtual front desk team, you’ll spend far less time and energy hiring and training new receptionists for each location.

5. Reduces your receptionists’ stress

Whether because of work or other reasons, your receptionists will get stressed. Without the proper support, they may perform only at the bare minimum and even lose the motivation to work at your company.

Keeping your receptionists at their best is a must to maximize their ROI. This is easy to achieve with virtual receptionist software, as it allows your receptionists to be fully energized and:

• Identify and leverage sales opportunities to increase profits
• Maintain a positive aura to welcome guests
• Efficiently and effectively address customer concerns
• Keep up with the rest of the team and maintain the team workflow

Virtual receptionist software lets your front-desk team work from home or anywhere. In the long run, they may be able to work with more energy and motivation, and bring more value to your business.

Achieve maximum cost savings with an all-in-one platform

It should be clear how virtual receptionist software can help you cut front desk costs by a significant amount. However, if you want to achieve the best possible cost savings for your business, consider using an all-in-one virtual receptionist platform like WelcomeWare. It provides both software and hardware to help you achieve a full virtual front desk experience for your business without sacrificing the effectiveness of a traditional front desk.