Virtual receptionist improves customer service for doctors offices

I returned a call to a prospective client today and my call was forwarded to their live answering service. I was immediately put on hold. I listened to their music for over 4 minutes. Then someone came on and said “Please hold” then it was back to the music for another minute. Then someone picked up the line and disconnected me. If I were a patient of this doctors office I would be infuriated.  I called back, only to repeat over 5 minutes of music before a live person came on just to take a message.

This is why I encourage business owners to call their own business and find out what happens when their customer calls. How does the “phone system” treat your caller? The “system” may include the live person who answers. The quality of the experience may have an impact on your customer’s willingness to do business with you. Some businesses are advertising “get a live person when you call or office” yet they may not have called it themselves to find out if that is something to boast about.

The addition of an Auto Attendant or Virtual Receptionist can improve your customer service and your business image. Most people think of a Virtual Receptionist as the system that answers your call immediately when your caller dials your number, but a better use is to place the Virtual Receptionist outside of the office to only take calls if your lines are all busy or you don’t answer.

All Call Technologies provides Virtual Receptionist, call routing and voice mail services for small businesses in over 4000 markets in the US. The service is customized for each client’s individual needs. The system incorporates the clients existing telephone system and telephone services to improve customer service, office efficiency and professional image. There is no equipment to buy, install or maintain.

The Virtual Receptionist greetings are professionally recorded and change throughout the day so the caller has time appropriate information about the business. The caller has options then to leave a voice message, reach a staff person on their cell phone, or hear information about the business (Hours, location, fax number, web address, etc.). The programming will change to match the greetings for days, after hours and holidays.

Voice mail messages are sent to the client’s email as WAV, WMA or MP3 audio attachments. This very powerful tool increases office efficiency by delivering the message directly to the person the caller was attempting to reach. Messages can be archived, forwarded or deleted easily. Notification of messages may be sent to a staff person’s cell phone or the system can call any phone for voice delivery.

One of the most popular features is Call Announce. When routing a call to a client the caller listens to music as the system dials the clients phone (or Follow Me sequence of phones). When the client answers they hear “This is a call for (Name of the business). Press one to be connected…” This feature alerts the client that this is a business call before they answer. Call Announce will also prevent the caller from leaving a voice message on a personal cell phone voice mail.

All Call Technologies specializes in businesses that have after hours and urgent calls that need special routing. Small doctors offices (Veterinary, chiropractic, dentist), real estate (Real estate teams, property management, apartment management, disaster cleanup, janitorial), and businesses that take after hours on call or support calls. Calls may be routed directly to an on call staff person or an urgent message may be taken that triggers a Cascading Notification to reach a staff person to respond to the message.

All Call Technologies solves many of the operational problems small businesses have because the service is not in the office phone system. This is huge benefit for businesses with only a few phone lines. If all of the lines are busy the Virtual Receptionist will answer the call with a consistently professional greeting. The caller will never be put on hold, disconnected or asked to hang up and redial another number.