The Future of the Virtual Receptionist
The concept of a Virtual Receptionist is not new.
Typically they are used by small to medium sized businesses to offer a virtual service such as answering the telephone on behalf of the business. Their use is cost-effective as they offer an alternative to the expense of hiring a formal receptionist which could easily run into thousands of dollars per month.
There are advantages to outsourcing this function that allows the business to focus on its key area.
Additionaly, this type of service can scale with a customer’s requirements. Need more than a simple answer and phone call routing? Now you can add elements of call screening ie they will ask questions of the caller. Since the service is ‘virtual’, you may be able to add email service to your package depending on your provider.
But what about your actual office? Since these services are virtual, they can’t handle visitors to your office. So how can you improve the experience of visitors to your office whilst at the same time keep operations lean? Obviously, you don’t want a situation like in the BBC Video…..funny, but not professional!
Often visitors to an office will be there on a set appointment – they are there to meet a specific employee of yours. If you had the expense of a formal receptionist the process would be something like this: Visitor arrives ~ notifies receptionist who they are there to meet ~ receptionist calls the host – visitor will register in the sign in book or visitor book – perhaps a name badge will be created via badge printing or via the sign in book.
this is a straight forward process and lends itself nicely to streamlining and automation. One of the best ways to enhance this visitor management without adding to expenses is by utilising a self-service application or kiosk.
This self-service visitor management application should be able to:-
1. connect the visitor with their host ie alert the host that their guest has arrived
2. provide a means for the host to communicate with their guest eg “I’ll be with you in 5mins, how would you like your coffee or tea?”
3. automate the process of capturing the visitor log info (visitor, host, time in/out)
4. automate the process of printing out a visitor badge
5. simple to set-up and use by both the company and their visitors – it has to be super-intuitive
If this capability can be provided for a low cost all the better – the savings over hiring a receptionist for small to medium businesses would be significant.