Many business owners and professionals that struggle with the fear or reluctance of making or taking phone calls are searching for solutions that can help with telephonaphobia. A virtual receptionist can certainly help with the symptoms of phone phobia, though using a virtual receptionist to field your phone calls will not cure or treat the issue. In this blog post,

How do you greet your callers on the phone? For many, the standard greeting is short, professional, and to-the-point: “You’ve reached Company A, how may I help you?” While there’s nothing wrong with a greeting like this – it gets the job done, treats the caller with respect, and offers the essential information – it could stand to “warm up”

Answering the phone is easy enough, but many don’t realize that certain behaviors, phrases, and actions on the phone can annoy customers or even upset them. There are many commonly held misconceptions about answering the phone, and unless you’ve taken a special call-answering training course, you may be unaware of the misconceptions you currently hold. For example, did you know

Running a business or occupying an executive position at a bigger company usually means you’re getting inundated with phone calls, and only a small fraction of those are calls from people you actually need to speak with. Call screening is the natural solution when calls from telemarketers, salespeople, and even well-meaning friends begin to slow you down and disrupt you too many times

A bad receptionist does more than frustrate and alienate the customers on the phone or in the office with them. A receptionist that fails to connect with customers or do his or her job properly can hurt your business long-term by causing complex issues with customer trust and your company reputation that are hard to undo. A good receptionist can

Phone greetings may seem menial, but they can make or break your customer service interactions over the phone. The way you answer the phone and greet your callers sets the tone for the rest of the interaction, making it an important cornerstone of your customer service strategy. If you’re having trouble coming up with phone greetings that engage callers, this post will

Unsure of what to look for in a receptionist or what a good receptionist should know how to do? You’re not alone. Trying to find a good receptionist to represent your business can be a challenge if you don’t know where or how to start your search. What qualities are important to look for in a receptionist? What type of

Angry customers are unavoidable, but you can’t let them affect your company’s mission. You have to resolve that you are bound to get an angry customer on occasion and simply learn how to deal with them. You can’t assume that their behavior is just their problem and their fault, but you also can’t assume that their anger is your company’s

Throughout the course of operating, your business will deal with some difficult phone calls. Some will come in the form of bad news, but the focus of this post are difficult customer service calls. When a customer calls with a problem – whether it’s about closing an account or needing an exception to a policy rule – the resulting conversation can

When it comes to answering a business phone, there are basically three options: Have a live person answer the calls Hire a third party to field your calls Or make use of automated phone systems. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology is what powers automated phone systems. IVR systems allow callers to listen to a menu of options and select via