Never Miss a Call Again: The Reliability of Medical Virtual Receptionist Services
Whether the caller is a patient or anyone else really, phone calls offer us a lot of value. IF we get to answer them at all that is.
If you’re missing a lot of your phone calls, then that means that you’re missing out on a lot of great things and opportunities. That can’t be good, can it?
Phones are Friends, Not Foes.
Phones are actually one of the most essential pieces of equipment in any office because more often than not, they are the first point of contact for potential clients.
This helpful article here can tell you more about why our dear little friend deserves more of our attention and love.
That being said, it can always get busy in a medical practice and it’s hard to prioritize phone calls when your office is lined up with dozens of loyal patients who are there to see YOU.
Of course, you can’t do everything at once, and you don’t have to. So just sit there like a boss, focus on your more important tasks, and leave everything to your trusty virtual receptionist service.
What are Virtual receptionist services?
Virtual receptionist services can either be an automated phone system, where incoming calls are answered by an auto attendant, or actual live virtual receptionists, where a real person working remotely answers your calls for you.
Whichever one you choose; they can both decrease the number of unanswered calls which makes it easier for you to manage your daily call volume. They can also transfer calls, route calls, and even answer the spam calls that might possibly ruin your awesome day and waste your precious time.
Virtual Receptionist Services: The Rising Stars in the Digital Age
We’re now living in the digital age. In fact, when you see or hear the word “phone” you imagine a smart phone, or a cell phone. Landlines are on their way to becoming vintage pieces. We might even see them in a museum one day.
Anyway, because of the shift in the world’s communication methods, we’re now able to harness the untapped potential of… virtual answering services! Unlike telephone bills, these won’t cost you a fortune for long-distance calls. And the best part? You won’t even need to answer them yourself and you can save hundreds of hours.
Types of Virtual Receptionist Services
Live Virtual Receptionist Services
A Live Virtual Receptionist Service, based on the name itself is living, breathing people who do remote work. They can handle not just inbound calls but also outbound calls on behalf of your business.
A live virtual receptionist can also receive messages, and handle tasks like scheduling appointments, routing calls, and a whole lot of other stuff. There’s so much they can offer you that it’ll take at least a thousand more words, so if you want, you can hop on to this article about them.
Automated Virtual Receptionists
These are commonly known as auto attendants or interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Unlike a live receptionist, they can’t think for themselves and would solely rely on the information that you feed them.
An auto attendant can be programmed to do everything a live virtual receptionist would do, such as playing pre-recorded greetings, routing calls, taking voicemail messages, and scheduling appointments via web chat.
This type of virtual answering service would most likely be ideal for small businesses with high call volumes and straightforward call routing needs for business communication.
Bilingual Live Virtual Receptionist Service
A bilingual service provides support in multiple languages to accommodate diverse customer bases. Bilingual receptionists are fluent in two or more languages and can communicate effectively with callers who prefer to speak in their native language.
They can also answer incoming calls and route callers but given their added skillsets, they’d cost more than usual. Small businesses catering to bilinguals will definitely benefit from this service.
Pros and Cons of an Auto Attendant and a Live Virtual Receptionist Service
Whether it’s message taking or directing callers to appropriate departments, call routing, and call handling, an auto attendant and a virtual assistant can definitely offer a lot to any small business.
Costly, but also Cost-Efficient
Sure, it’ll need some time to optimize an auto attendant and train a virtual assistant, and it would definitely cost you some money, but in the long run, that investment would definitely lead to the growth of your business and add to customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.
The lack of Physical presence but offers Enhanced Professional Image
Sure, patients can’t see an auto attendant when they enter your clinic, but they can definitely hear them and interact with them during an incoming call, and think “Wow, this clinic has an auto attendant service, it’s so easy to book a call, I love this experience!” And just like that, your auto attendant will simply confirm the booking, and voila, your small business has just leveled up.
Dependent on Technology but Also Provides 24/7 Availability
These services rely heavily on technology and internet connectivity so any technical issues or downtime could disrupt the quality of inbound calls and impact customer service. However, although that does happen, it doesn’t happen frequently, and offering an answering service after hours, especially for medical practices boosts the reliability of your practice and impresses more patients.
With Data Security Concerns but Scalable
These services handle sensitive customer information that can get you into the radar of law firms, but that’s nothing to be concerned about because live virtual receptionists are HIPAA compliant and as for auto attendants, well, the provider that you’d end up choosing will take care of those for you.
Why you need a Virtual Receptionist Service
Whether it’s an auto attendant or a live receptionist, virtual receptionist services are here to change the game. Here are some reasons why you should get this service now.
It can help bring in more business.
Missed calls equals missed chances. You can only convert the customer calls that you get, if they get answered. That’s why investing in an answering service, whether it’s an auto attendant or a virtual receptionist, will always be the right decision.
It can help protect your business.
This is a no-brainer, but where do frustrated callers go? To your competitors. The first few rings are usually the most important ones because they determine whether or not you’ll get to meet your future potential clients cause let’s face it. Nobody has the time and patience to wait until the fifth ring.
It can help you remain focused on more important tasks.
Research shows that it actually takes almost 30 minutes to recover your focus from distractions. Imagine how disastrous it would be if your phone rang non-stop. Not to mention, you’re already dealing with multiple things at once, you do NOT need the extra burden of having to do something that anybody else can do.
It can save your life, well, your life as a medical professional at least.
One of the top causes of burnout is doing repetitive and mundane things. Remember that medical professionals went to med school to treat and diagnose their patients, not answer calls, or schedule appointments, or manage an online account. If you somehow have this belief that you have to be in control of everything, then like all of the stressful thoughts, let it go, let it go.
It can automate repetitive tasks so that you don’t have to do them every single day.
Other than answering calls, this service can also automate appointment setting, text messaging, call routing, client intake, and even payment processing. They can even make a personalized greeting or custom greetings for callers which saves you a lot of time. Time that you can use instead, to grow your business and get some well-deserved rest.
Setting up your Virtual Receptionist Service
Things are going to get a little tedious from here on out, so you can either skip this part if you’re already familiar with these or grab a cup of coffee or tea as you read through a few steps that can help get your virtual receptionist services in action.
Define Your Needs
First, you have to figure out what exactly you’re going to use your virtual receptionist service for. Do you need to manage inbound calls? Or do you need help making outbound calls?
Do you need your primary phone numbers to stay open so you can receive direct calls from your patients? Do you want to reduce the number of missed calls or reduce the waiting time in your call queue? Or… maybe you want to do all of that, plus improve your call flow.
Lastly, how many calls do you get in a single day? Once you determine the daily call volume you expect, your business hours, the languages you need to get integrated, and any special features or capabilities like custom greetings needed to support your business, then it’s time to move on to the next step.
Research Service Providers
This is probably one of the hardest decisions to make, but don’t worry, choosing the perfect call answering service is worth the time and effort.
Explore the vast options of virtual receptionist service providers and decide which of their offerings, pricing plans, features, and customer reviews are perfect for you. If you want to do that right now, we gotcha! Here’s a helpful link you can use.
Customize Call Handling Instructions
Just like how we like our drinks customized to our liking, we’d also like a service that is customized to our needs and preferences. It just makes everything easier and our days happier.
Work with your virtual receptionist service provider and live virtual receptionist to customize call handling instructions based on what your business needs. Design call scripts, a customized greeting, common FAQs, call routing, and call answering preferences, and define procedures on how to escalate problems and concerns to the appropriate department.
Provide Necessary Information
This is probably the most important step. After all, nobody can route calls anywhere if they don’t have the information to begin with!
You need to supply your virtual receptionist service with important information about your business, like your business name, virtual address, phone numbers or business number, business hours, services offered, and any other details that callers may inquire about.
If you want to receive certain business calls, then you can program or instruct your answering services to forward calls to you once they get it, just don’t forget that it only has to be during business hours though! No working after hours, you hardworking bee.
Integrate Systems and Tools
Integrating your virtual receptionist service with existing systems and tools used in your business is important to keep things in order.
Get things like a CRM admin support software, an appointment setting platform, and call tracking solutions. You need to make sure that all the systems in your office are in sync to avoid hassles in the future. The better the call flow in your office, the better for your virtual receptionists and patients.
Train Your Virtual Receptionists
The worst thing that can happen during an automated call or a live call is a patient getting upset and never contacting you again. Actually, that’s the second worst scenario, the first is probably getting patients upset enough to leave negative feedback. Yikes.
To avoid this, you of course need to provide training and support to your virtual receptionists to familiarize them with your practice, services, and protocols. Teach them well and let them lead the way to… quality customer service!
Establish Communication Channels
Miscommunication is one of the top reasons why relationships fail, and the same can be said about employer-employee relationships too!
In order to prevent that you need to set up effective communication channels with your virtual receptionist to facilitate ongoing collaboration, feedback, and performance monitoring.
You can also organize frequent meetings so you can check up on them and monitor their daily call volume and other tasks and resolve their problems if there are any.
Monitor Performance and Quality
Just like everyone else, we want to find THE one. But how do you know that you chose the right virtual receptionist service? With results.
One thing you can do is to incorporate performance monitoring tools and metrics in your system to see if your virtual receptionists are functioning the way you want them to.
You can keep track of things like their call volume, call duration, call resolution rates, customer satisfaction scores, and missed call rates to identify trends, areas for improvement, and opportunities for optimization.
Gather Feedback and Iterate
This might seem like a waste of time, sure. But if you think that it’s important to know if you invested in the right answering service, then you can give this last step a go.
If you have an auto attendant and/or a team of virtual receptionists, then you’d have some extra time on your hands to solicit a bit of feedback from the most important people, your patients.
Solicit feedback from callers, employees, and stakeholders to gather insights into the effectiveness of your virtual receptionist service.
Auto Attendants Vs Live Virtual Receptionists
Now that we got the boring stuff out of the way, it’s finally time to make the most important decision. Which one should you get? Honestly, it’s up to you and your budget. You can get either one, or you can get both for different reasons. A virtual assistant though, can definitely offer your business more services and are highly scalable.
If you’re not getting a lot of calls anyway, you can use them to do other administrative tasks if you’re worried about getting the bang for your buck. At the end of the day, the most important thing is to have more time for yourself and your long-awaited vacation.
Call VmeDx Now and Never Miss a Call Again
So what are you waiting for? Get your Virtual Receptionist today and say goodbye to missed calls and missed opportunities.