What Skills Does a Virtual Receptionist Need?
Hi Dear Readers
My insight for the week,
I often get asked what I do for a living, and the simple explanation is that I am a virtual receptionist. It quirks me that they think that I sit around and loaf while on shift, if they only knew.
Being a receptionist is a difficult job. You’ve got lots of responsibilities to juggle, lots of people needing your time, and the pressure of knowing you’re essentially the face and voice of your business to its customers.
Which means staying calm, professional and friendly at all times, regardless of the attitude of the person you’re dealing with.
Now imagine doing all this for multiple companies. That’s the life of a virtual receptionist.
Virtual receptionists work much the same as regular receptionists, except they work remotely from the business, and often work for multiple businesses at once – which takes an extra level of organisation and skill.
I am a brilliant receptionist, and I love working for Turnkey Receptionists.
In this blog I will give you what I think are the key skills and attributes we need to be effective virtual receptionists.
Multitasking
As virtual receptionists we are the front of house for multiple businesses, which means we have to be able to multitask and jump between one client and the other seamlessly.
Clients rely on us to not only answer their phone calls, but to do so in a way that gives the impression the customer is dealing with their business, not a virtual receptionist.
This means remembering:
- How the business wants the phone answered
- What the business wants us to do with the call – attempt to transfer through to them or send a message
- What the business wants in terms of info from the call
- Who are their VIP callers and how do they want them treated differently
- What calls don’t they want e.g. scam callers and sales calls
- Where they are based etc
- What they do
That’s a lot to remember and it takes skill to be able to do it well.
Some of the systems a virtual receptionist uses will help with this. At Turnkey Receptionists our receptionists always know how to answer the phone in the right way, and who to transfer which calls to. But we still have to be on our toes.
Attention to detail
One of the key functions of a virtual receptionist is being able to take accurate notes from calls so we can forward messages to the right people, so they can easily return calls and deal with issues based on the information we give them.
Wrong information and missing details can cause problems for the companies we work with, so we need to be careful and have great attention to details.
We always train our virtual receptionists to repeat and spell back names to ensure accuracy, as well as check phone numbers, spell out email addresses and recap messages with the caller to ensure all the information is accurate.
Good at listening
As a virtual receptionist we spend 99% of our time dealing with phone calls and handling enquiries from all kinds of people.
This could include customers or third-party providers. You must be a good listener to be able to take accurate notes and recap messages.
It can be easy when answering calls and listening to the caller for your mind to drift, but this can lead to you missing something important and giving a bad impression of the business you represent.
Ability to control calls
You might think that as a virtual receptionist our job is simply to answer the phone and take messages. You’d be wrong.
We not only need to be able to do this, but we need to be able to take control of calls and direct the caller down the path we need them to go so we can get the information we need.
If we are not able to be direct and get control of the call, we could end up spending too much time taking down irrelevant information.
This isn’t just a waste of our time; it doesn’t help the company because whoever gets the message is going to have to wade through all the useless notes to make sure they haven’t missed anything.
Clear communication
This one goes without saying. As virtual receptionists we spend the majority of our time on the phone, so we have to be excellent communicators.
This includes having the right tone of voice and attitude when we answer calls, so we remain positive and give a good, friendly impression of the company we are representing. Remember coming across as negative or grumpy is going to damage the company’s reputation.
IT skills
As virtual receptionists working remotely away from our clients, which means we need to be able to get to grips with multiple tech platforms and systems so we can do our job.
This could be anything from phone answering systems, to emails to word or other document management systems as well as booking systems.
At Turnkey Receptionists we provide comprehensive and ongoing training in all the systems and platforms our virtual receptionists use regularly.
Time keeping and organisation
Being a virtual receptionist can be a busy job and we have to be available for the shift times required.
Basic time keeping skills to ensure we are available to answer calls when they come in, as well as being flexible with our time and understanding we might have to work on weekends is also essential.
We also need to be flexible enough to understand that if a call comes in close to our lunch time or end of day, we still have to answer it to ensure the client gets the message and information they need.
