Virtual Receptionists Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are Virtual Receptionists? A virtual receptionist is a person who is trained to answer your business phone lines from a location outside of your business offices. Virtual Receptionists provides complete answering services that allow you to efficiently run your business without constantly being interrupted by phone calls when you're occupied with clients, thinking, or lunch. Virtual Receptionists can answer your phone lines during the day, during off-hours, and weekends on any schedule that you prefer. Professional answering service operators will answer your incoming telephone calls live, using your business name. Your Virtual Receptionists telephone number can be answered by our professional operator staff, or can be immediately transferred to any telephone number that you'd like. You can access your voicemail account through 24-hour remote access, and you can call in to your telephone number to receive text messages from our virtual operators. You can also have your text-based messages sent to you by email, fax or SMS text messaging to your cell phone. Emergency notification services are available for all our customers.


2. How does Virtual Receptionists handle my telephone messages? There are two ways to handle the telephone messages that you receive with your Virtual Receptionists account. If you are unavailable to receive your phone calls, your virtual operator will direct your callers to your Virtual Receptionists voicemail, or to another voicemail system that you specify. If you prefer reading your messages, our friendly, helpful virtual operators will accurately take text-based messages that you can receive by fax, email, paging systems or instant messaging. If you're on the go, call us and we'll read back your messages to you.


3. How fast can you set up and activate my account? We ask that you allow us 48 hours to activate your account once we have received your first month's subscription and account activation fee. This will give us time to study the nature of your business, train our Virtual Receptionists about your calls, and make sure everything is in order to receive that first call!


4. Do you accept checks for payments? Yes. We accept checks as payment if you place your order with Virtual Receptionists by phone. We can even process your check by phone! If you prefer to order your Virtual Receptionists service over the internet, we have a secure and user-friendly payment system to process orders we receive online. All major credit and debit cards are accepted.


5. I see that you use PayPal® to process payments, I do not have a PayPal® account. What do I do? You do not need to have a PayPal® account to make payments to us. PayPal® is merely our payment processing center. PayPal® accepts payments for Virtual Receptionists answering service by all major credit cards.


6. How do I sign up for Virtual Receptionists services? First, you will need to fill in all the required information on the Order Now page, and hit the Submit button when you are done. Be sure to download, print, and read the Legal Statement and Terms/Conditions Agreement before you submit your order. By hitting the Submit button, you acknowledge receipt and acceptance to the above-mentioned agreement.
   
   Next, you will proceed to the payment processing center to process your initial payment of $269.85. This payment includes your first two months and your final month of Virtual Receptionists service at $89.95 per month.
   
   Last but not least, once the payment has been completed, you will advance to the Set Up page where you specify your call handling requirements and instructions for our Virtual Receptionists. Take your time to decide the best communication system you want to set up for your company. When you're ready, hit Submit to forward these instructions to our virtual receptionists who are ready to work for you!
   
   You will receive an email confirmation that your account is being processed, and then receive another email within 48 hours, or two business days, containing information about your Virtual Receptionists assigned toll free number for you to forward all your business calls to, and the date of your account activation. Your virtual operators will be standing by to assist your callers!
   
   If you prefer to pay by check, please call us at 1-800-348-0500 and a friendly Virtual Receptionists account executives will help you create your account and process your order.


7. Do I have to sign a contract with Virtual Receptionists? No, we do not require our clients to sign a contract with us because we are confident that our clients will be satisfied with the professional services we provide. We provide the virtual operator answering service to you on a month-to-month subscription basis. The monthly contract is renewable, and we will continue answering calls for your company unless we receive a written notice from you requesting cancellation of your Virtual Receptionists account before the next billing cycle.


8. How do I manage my Virtual Receptionists account? When you choose Virtual Receptionists as your answering service provider, you can easily call in to either our toll-free customer service telephone number, or into your dedicated business telephone number to modify your answering service preferences and set up your answering service account status instructions. A call to our customer service department will answer your questions regarding billing and account upgrades. You'll receive one single, monthly bill with no hassles and no hidden costs.


9. How does call forwarding work when using Virtual Receptionists? Virtual Receptionists will answer your incoming telephone calls in your business name. Based on your specific instructions, your virtual operator will forward your calls to any of your designated telephone numbers. This telephone number can be almost anything - a cell phone, a central office telephone number, your home office. Your clients don't need to know that your business is using an answering service, unless you'd like them to know.


10. Can I distribute and advertise the toll-free or local telephone number that I use for my answering service?Yes, you can advertise and distribute your Virtual Receptionists telephone number, call-forward to the number or both.


11. How do your answering service operators know what questions I need asked of the caller, and what information I need from them? Your Virtual Receptionists account executive will ask you an in-depth series of questions about your business and the types of incoming telephone calls that you anticipate receiving. Our account executive will create a free call center script and work with our programmers to design a screen layout that allows your virtual operator to efficiently answer each call that you receive.


12. Will Virtual Receptionists take credit card information for order taking? Yes. Our virtual operators are trained order takers and we can easily handle telephone retail for your business. Credit card information can be securely stored for later processing, or we can access the your web store to input credit card and order information. There are many different kinds of secure order taking methods available for your Virtual Receptionists account.


13. What is "call patching"? Our virtual operators "patch a call" when you ask us to manually transfer your live incoming calls to you or your designate on another telephone number. In other words, when call patching is required, the virtual operator will take details from the caller and then place the caller briefly on hold while they attempt to make contact with you or your designate. Once you've been reached and briefed with the details of the conversation, the virtual operator will patch (transfer) the caller through to you. This service is routinely used in connection with emergency calls for medical practices, emergency social services and legal accounts.


14. Does Virtual Receptionists offer its services nationwide? Our virtual operators go everywhere you go! We serve businesses US-nationwide and international business clients.


15. Do you offer inbound customer service and support services? Virtual Receptionists can accommodate most support services. We specialize in providing customer service, account information and order taking services for a wide variety of companies. For more complex support services, like multi-tiered technical support, speak with your Virtual Receptionists account executive. Our reps are full of creative and useful ideas. They'll be able to work with you to create the perfect customer service and support solution for your business.


16. Are you PCI Compliant ?– The Gold Standard for Call Center Security
    1-800 We Answer is one of a few PCI certified Call Centers in the United States. SecurityMetrics ® Site Certification Vulnerability Scans are performed at regular intervals throughout the year,ensuring security standards are maintained for all electronic transactions and transmissions. 1-800 We answer is setting the gold standard for security in the Call Center Industry.

If you have other questions that are not answered on this page, please submit your questions to us by using our Contact Us form, or call us toll-free at 1 800 348 0500. We look forward to handling all your telecommunication needs.

Let us help you. Give us a call at 1 800 348 0500 today!