6 Ways Remote Receptionists Can Reduce Admin Work for Business Owners

Sick of juggling emails, phone calls, billing details, appointment setting, and all the rest? Does it seem like handling all of your administrative tasks leaves little time for actual work? There’s a better way. Remote receptionists can handle those mundane but critical tasks, freeing you to do what you do best and focus more heavily on billable work. 

The state of admin today

Administrative tasks eat up an immense amount of your workday, leaving little time to build a thriving business. And you’re not alone. According to a report from Clockify:

• Almost 22% of business leaders work more than 60 hours per week.
• 89% of entrepreneurs struggle under a too-heavy workload.
• 72% of business leaders feel burned out by the end of the workday.
• Almost 50% of entrepreneurs regularly feel exhausted.
• Almost 70% of entrepreneurs feel required to push through and keep working.

And if you’re exhausted, how can you run a successful business? Not only does being bogged down in administrative tasks mean you have little time for other things, but it also means dealing with mental fog, a lack of focus, and too little energy. It’s all too easy to make a costly misstep.

Remote receptionists offer a better solution. You can offload those thankless administrative tasks to someone trained to handle them, recharge your body and mind, and confidently chart a course forward.

How can remote receptionists help with admin tasks?

Not clear on how remote receptionists can help alleviate your administrative load? Here are six critical things they can take off your hands right away.

Answering phone calls

Perhaps the most obvious way that remote receptionists can reduce the admin work you regularly shoulder is by answering phone calls. Chances are good that you spend an immense amount of time simply fielding calls. A significant percentage of those calls fall into one of four categories: leads that never convert, sales calls, spam calls, or wrong numbers. 

Remote receptionists act as a buffer. They eliminate the chance that you’ll have to spend precious time dealing with spammers, salespeople, or other wastes of your time. These professionals also ensure that every call is answered by a professionally trained human being, something that will make your business stand out in a time when most calls go through an impersonal interactive voice response system (IVR).

Setting appointments

How much time do you waste every day trying to set appointments and book consultations with leads? While getting those dates on the books is very important, it’s a low-value task in the end. Your time is better spent on high-value tasks where your experience, passion, and knowledge can provide your business with an edge. 

Remote receptionists can handle all of your appointment-setting needs. Not only will they put appointment dates and times in your calendar, but they can sync with other calendar apps, and even find the best day and time for both the caller and the company rep so that everyone benefits. Meanwhile, you can focus on tasks that grow your business, confident that your appointments are being set by someone who knows what they’re doing.

Processing payments

Making sure you get paid is a crucial task. However, it’s a poor waste of your time as a business owner. Remote receptionists can take it off your hands and ensure that payment collection and processing activities are handled promptly, professionally, and accurately. You’ll find that they can collect all types of payments, from consultation fees to registration costs, and they can even deal with slow-to-pay and non-paying clients (collections actions).

Screening leads

Creating an ongoing stream of interested, vetted leads is vital for your business. However, sorting through the leads who call your business, weeding out those who are not well-suited, and then prioritizing those who are is a time-consuming and thankless task. As a business owner, your time is better spent elsewhere. You can offload that task to a remote receptionist team and ensure that your leads are screened, and intake is handled correctly, all based on your custom criteria and target audience. 

Follow-up after calls

Failure to follow up after an initial consultation, demonstration, or other touchpoint can be a major reason for low sales and poor business performance. To improve those outcomes, you may take these tasks on yourself. That makes sense on the surface, but your skills, expertise, and experience are better spent elsewhere. Let experienced remote receptionists handle your follow-up after calls. Email and SMS follow-ups help boost outbound engagement and drive sales success while you can focus on areas where your efforts are more likely to yield results.

Handling website chats

‍Website chat is an important capability today. More of your customers than ever probably start their journey at your website, and having chat enabled ensures that they can reach out and get answers to their questions without having to pick up the phone. However, trying to answer those chat requests yourself is time-consuming, and because many chat requests won’t convert immediately, they’re relatively low value. By combining advanced AI with professionally trained remote receptionists, you can provide accurate answers to questions and guide leads into the sales funnel.

Expert remote receptionists waiting to help

Business owners often take on administrative tasks to save money, but your time is more valuable than that. Working with the remote receptionists at Smith.ai allows you to leverage our award-winning capabilities while ensuring that you’re able to put your time and energy into more growth-oriented tasks. 

To learn more, schedule a consultation or reach out to hello@smith.ai.