What’s the difference between a virtual receptionist and a live virtual receptionist service?

Confused by business terminology and jargon?

One of the things that can be confusing about business terminology is that similar terms containing the same words can be the source of confusion and misunderstanding. One good example is in the sphere of outsourced business telephone services.

The terms ‘virtual receptionist’ and ‘live virtual receptionist service’ are widely used by companies in this segment of the business technology services market, but there is some misunderstanding about what they actually mean.

What is a virtual receptionist service?

Virtual receptionist can be taken to mean a type of business support service that provides B2B customers with a telephone receptionist service. Virtual reception call handling is performed by an automated feature embedded within a telephony system.

In today’s VoIP-based telephone solutions, businesses can benefit from an advanced automated virtual receptionist service. This utilises an interactive voice response (IVR) feature that uses recorded greetings and then lets callers use keypad responses to choose from options that allow them to direct their call.

What is a live virtual receptionist service?

A live virtual receptionist service offers the same business support for telephony as a virtual receptionist service, the difference being that it provides this capability exclusively through the use of professional receptionists picking up live and interacting directly with callers.

Simply66 live virtual receptionist services allow for a seamless experience – callers won’t even recognise that the service is being provided by an outsourced service.

Avoid virtual receptionist confusion with Simply66!

In the Simply66 product set of outsourced telephone answering solutions, our virtual receptionist is called Electronic Receptionist, clearly indicating that it is provided by an automated IVR feature using recorded messages.

To clearly distinguish what our live virtual receptionist service offers, it is called Live Receptionist. When combined, they offer great value-added benefits for businesses, including:

• Cost savings: Services are typically much less expensive than hiring a full-time employee.
• Employee focus: Avoids staff with other responsibilities from being distracted by performing telephone pick-up in response to inbound calls.
• Flexibility: Services can be used on an as-needed basis, so businesses only pay for the services they use.
• Scalability: Services can be scaled up or down as needed, so businesses can easily adjust their service level as their needs change.
• Improved customer service: Simply66’s live virtual receptionists provide a professional and efficient customer service experience, and with our Service and Support Desk Packages, we provide even greater value through service and support question handling.
• 24/7 call pick up: When it’s out of business hours, our IVR-driven virtual receptionist services can take up the slack and provide information to allow callers to progress their enquiries in the best way that suits your business.

Choose the perfect business outsourced telephone with Simply66

If you are looking for a cost-effective way to improve your business’s customer service, the combination of Simply66 live virtual receptionist services for call pick up in-business hours, and IVR-driven virtual receptionist services for call pick up out-of-business-hours, may strike an ideal balance for your business.

With your team freed up to concentrate on higher-value core business activities, Simply66 answering services make great business sense.

The best way to see what Simply66 could do for your business is to sign up for our free 14 day trial.

To find out more, simply call us on 03333 4415 66 or email sales@simply66.co.uk