Virtual receptionist for your business number
A virtual receptionist answers your company's number without anyone sitting behind a desk. She answers with your company name, asks who or what the caller is looking for, transfers them to the right colleague and puts appointments in the calendar — from €49.00 a month, calls included.
The problem it solves is rarely that nobody's there. It's that the person who answers is just helping someone else, or is out at lunch, or that it's after five. A business number that rings and rings with nobody answering does more damage than a phone menu — the caller assumes nobody works there any more.
What it does and doesn't take over from a reception desk
Answering within a few rings, every time
No queue and no engaged tone, even when three people call at once.
Asking who or what someone is looking for
You decide which questions to ask, and they're asked every time.
Transferring to the right colleague
To a name, a department or a mobile number. If nobody picks up, the call comes back instead of going dead.
Putting an appointment in the calendar
With a connected calendar: offering free slots and booking the appointment. Booking appointments: from the Groei plan.
Saying the office is closed, and when it reopens
With your opening hours and closed days built in, including public holidays and holidays.
Welcoming visitors, accepting post, making coffee
This is exactly where a virtual reception stops. If you have a desk where people drop by, this doesn't replace that desk.
Always answer straight away, or only when nobody can internally
Katie is your reception. Always staffed, including at lunchtime and after five. Every caller reaches Katie first. She finds out what it's about, books what she can and transfers the call when she needs to. Nobody hears a phone menu or a dead line any more. Booking appointments: from the Groei plan.
Would you rather have it the other way round — your team answers and the virtual reception only catches what keeps ringing? That works too. It's the same service with a different setting, and you can switch whenever you like. Either way you keep your own business number.
Better than a phone menu, for one reason
A phone menu routes calls based on what the caller chooses, and that's often wrong: people press a number because it's the closest match. More importantly, if someone chooses an extension where nobody answers, the call goes dead. Nobody knows anyone called.
With a virtual receptionist, the caller is first asked what they need and only then transferred. If that colleague doesn't answer, the call comes back and a message is still taken. Nothing gets lost because someone pressed the wrong number.
Further reading
- Hiring a receptionist — if you're considering taking someone on, with the wage costs.
- Answering service — what it costs and what to look out for.
- By trade — what comes in for your sector.
And feel free to call +31202140808 to hear what it sounds like on the other end.