Automation is absolutely the name of the game these days. Everyone is making more and more of their systems automated, and VoIP is no exception. It’s a fact that there are far more incoming calls that happen in a day to your business then you have any hope of having answered. That’s where an auto-attendant comes in. These are also sometimes called “virtual assistants” depending on the context. But in this context, the auto attendant takes care of incoming calls and makes sure that they their needs are taken care of automatically, or that they are routed to the proper people to take care of them.

How Attendants Help

Attendants, or virtual receptionists as they are sometimes called can dramatically improve any business because they make customers feel like they aren’t being totally neglected, as long as the service is good, while at the same time reducing costs by making it so you don’t need as many employees.  This service usually uses a dial-by-name approach. So if people are trying to get in contact with one of your employees, their name will be listed in the menu, and people will just have to hit the number when it’s listed by the virtual admin on the site. Good systems should also have customizable menus that you can tweak to fit what you want for your company directly.

What Makes a Good Setup

In order to get a right system, you should make sure that you add in contact information for anyone customers are going to want to talk to in general the most. This will include especially sales people, technical problems people, and so on. The important thing is to meet customer expectations. When you’re working on setting up the system you should always ask yourself what you would think if you were a customer calling into this system. What would you expect the system to be like? If you were calling a retail store, for example, think about what sorts of things you’d expect. You’d expect maybe to have something with the store hours, perhaps a way to input a number to check on a store pick-up delivery, and an option to speak with a store attendant right away. Virtual assistants go wrong when you don’t meet one of these expectations. If there are no hours listed, for example, and people expect this, then they will be irritated with the attendant and go off muttering something about bad management.

Avoid Bossiness

One of the most important things to do when designing a system is to make sure that you don’t make the attendant sound bossy. It should sound more like just suggestions or a strict relating of information, and not that the attendant is issuing commands to people that they have to follow or else. Some of the worse attendants will have this quality and it can drive people crazy.

The Right Attendant

The important thing is to make sure you get the right attendant for your particular business. There’s nothing worse than an auto-attendant that really annoys people. This can come down to the quality of the voice used, but it can also come down to other factors as well. Another important thing to consider is whether you want a male or female voice, and this also often comes down to expectations.  Many people expect male voices in more authoritative fields like at a bank, whereas more service oriented areas like a florist people might expect a female voice.

Overall, auto attendants can be of great help to your business, and it may be possible to get some directly through your VoIP provider.  After all, this would be an ideal situation.