We’re thrilled that our video has won a Gold Oregon ADDY award! Our brilliant branding company, Sockeye, outdid themselves when creating this whimsical representation of how our live virtual receptionist service works.
We’d also like to thank again our virtual receptionists and wonderful clients, Shawn Busse with Kinesis, Bonnie Richardson with Folawn Alterman and Richardson, and Matt Burk with Fairway America for their touching testimonials!
Watch the award-winning video below:
Photo by alexkerhead
Many business owners take advantage of rollover or “hunt” lines, where if the line is busy or no one answers, the call will ring to a second (or third, or fourth) line until someone can get to the phone or voicemail picks up. Quite a few clients have asked us whether a rollover lines can work with Ruby. The short answer is: Absolutely!
When you forward your published line to our virtual receptionist service, it will typically break the hunt cycle. Your calls won’t roll to the other lines in your office, but rather will all roll to Ruby where a cheerful virtual receptionist will answer just as if she were sitting in your lobby! And we’ll help you figure out how to make sure you have enough paths for all of your calls to get to us – we can even hop on a conference call with you and your phone provider if you’d like us to make sure everything’s tip-top!
Do you have questions about how Ruby can work with your business and help your company grow? Give us a call at 866-611-7829 or post your query in the comment section below!
Ruby’s taking a road trip! We’ll be exhibiting at the ABA TECHSHOW March 29-31st! Stop on by booth #513 and say hello to our friendly sales team, Diana Stepleton and Ashley Fisher. Ruby Founder and CEO Jill Nelson and our Director of Marketing Kevin Gillam will also be making the rounds!
Aren’t attending and would like to check out the vendors? Click here for a free pass to the EXPO!
If you’re in the Chicago area and would like to meet up, please drop us a line! We’d love to see you!
Taryn C.
Everything we do at Ruby is a combination of great people and solid processes. We hire the best and the brightest, and then we give them cutting-edge tools and training so that they can succeed. Ruby University is our top-notch, ongoing virtual receptionist training program where receptionists learn not only how to connect calls and take messages but also proper phrasing and etiquette so that they can make the most out of interactions.
What’s a phone answering technique that you’ve learned at Ruby that may have surprised you?
I was surprised by how effectively we’re able to calm frustrated callers. There’s a whole section of training on what to do when a caller is upset: we’ll listen carefully to them, restate what they’ve said, confirming we’ve heard them, and sympathize with them. We’ll also them know that we’ll relay the situation and urgency to the client, and it really allows them to feel like you are on their side. And when you let them know that you will do everything you can to make sure that they are taken care of, it can really make a difference.
Plus, it helps our clients be better informed when they take the call or receive the message. Ruby has a very thorough process for caring for callers who are having a rough day, and it feels good to be able to help!
I second this! We really do want to help whenever possible, and sometimes simply being able to comfort someone who’s going through a rough time can be incredibly rewarding!
Want to learn more about our techniques? Check out our Training Writer Phoebe Osborn’s blog post entitled Receptionist Etiquette Tip: 3 Steps to Turn a Tough Call Around!
Photo by Seattle Municipal Archives
“Yeah runnin’ down a dream that never would come to me; workin’ on a mystery, goin’ wherever it leads. Runnin’ down a dream….”
Every morning at 10:10, the Ruby Leadership Team and support staff file into our “Innovate” conference room to the rockin’ tunes of Tom Petty and begin our daily 10-minute standing meeting. As leadership expert (and Ruby client!) Verne Harnish outlines in his book Rockefeller Habits, we go around the room and say what our day looks like – keeping everyone informed of meetings, service upgrades and changes, and marketing efforts, with plenty of personal triumphs and announcements sprinkled in. We also invite 2 receptionists to join us, alternating who attends so that all of our receptionists get to attend the huddle at least once a month.
After going around the room, we look at our KPIs; as you know, we love looking at our call data! We monitor client metrics so we are always cognizant of how fast our virtual receptionist service is growing and when we need to hire the next receptionist, Problem Solver & Happiness Maker, or salesperson. We also look at receptionist metrics such as today’s attendence and how many minutes on average per receptionist the day before; we like to keep our staff happy and stree-free (we weren’t named the #3 best medium-sized business to work for for nothing!), so it’s important to keep these stats top-of-mind.
After looking at all our metrics, we add our own little twist to the daily huddle with “The Finish Line.” One one side of the whiteboard, we jot down large projects we’re working on — anything outside of normal business that could easily get pushed down your to do list if you’re not careful.
For example, we’re attending the ABA TECHSHOW 2012 at the end of March (let us know if you’re attending; we’d love to meet up!). I’m gathering the materials we’d like to bring — pens, handouts, testimonials, etc. — and it would be easy to focus on the day-to-day and put it off, but since I’ve written my project on the whiteboard, in front of all my fellow Rubys, everything will be ready to print and box up tomorrow!
Once a task is completed, we move it over to the other side of the board, usually with a flourish and round of applause. The daily huddle and Finish Line are great motivaters, and they’re fantastic for taking a moment and celebrating successes!
Do you hold a daily huddle at your office? What are your tips and tricks to making it fun and inspiring? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
We love data. And we’re kind of obsessed with KPIs. We keep tabs on call volume, call times, and a range of other metrics so that we can plan for the best virtual receptionist staffing throughout the day, ensure that our clients’ calls are answered promptly (within 4 seconds, on average!) and keep our virtual receptionists happy and stress-free. If you’d like to geek out with us for a moment, we thought we’d share a little about the over-arching trends we’ve noticed.
Below are a few graphs of Ruby’s clients’ total call volume and what we’ve extrapolated from patterns over time.
(Large dips are major holidays when we’re closed like Thanksgiving and Christmas)
People work less (or at least call businesses less often) during December. People take more vacations towards the end of the year, so it makes sense that call volume would start to drop off after the Thanksgiving holiday.
Folks are back in action on the first business day after New Year’s. The skinny sliver at the end of the graph above is the week between Christmas and New Year’s, the lowest call volume of the year. Possibly a testament to strong resolutions, the first business day after January 1st marks the largest jump in call volume all year, and things steadily ramp up again until November.
People work much harder the week following a working holiday. The large dip on the graph above shows President’s Day last month; more people called the day after than on a typical Tuesday, and usually the call volume stays above normal for the rest of the week.
People work hardest on Monday and Tuesdays. Ruby clients tend to receive the most calls at the beginning of the week. Conversely, Friday is the least busy day — perhaps because folks are finishing projects and saving their phone calls for Monday.
We get a little giddy looking at all of our data and love thinking about the larger trends behind the peaks and valleys — we hope you had just as much fun taking a peek behind the Ruby curtain!
Our virtual receptionist service is known for making great impressions, and we know that the right introduction can make all the difference. Though we answer phones for diverse businesses across the nation, most callers don’t know we’re remote. Here are three features we developed in our unique software to help us accomplish it:
Pronunciation guides. There’s a big difference between pronouncing ”Alicia” as ”Al-ee-sha” or “A-lee-see-a.” That’s why we add a phonetic guides for ambiguous or uncommon names for our receptionists to reference. And we can add guides for your company name, too, so your callers always know they’ve reached the right place!
Him or her? Just in our small office, we have receptionists named Pat and Casey! We have a special spot just for heads up on gender neutral monikers; when a caller asks for Alex, the receptionist can glance at her screen and respond without skipping a beat: “I would be happy to see if he is available. May I tell him who’s calling?”
Nicknames. If a caller asks for Jim, and there’s a James in the company, we’ll go ahead and try James’ line and offer him the call. However, if your name’s Bob and your friends call you “Scooter,” we can make a note of it in your account, too!
Our proprietary software makes sure we sound like we’re in the office, but we don’t stop there! Many times our virtual receptionists are the first person a new client will talk to. Eager to help, we’ll pass along whatever info we gather before we connect the call or when we’re taking a message. For example, you might receive a message like this:
If the pronunciation may be tricky, we’ll help you out with a phonetic guide, too! That way, when you return the call, you can put your best foot forward, instead of in your mouth. After all, we’re here to make you look good!
Photo by Robert Engmann
A while back, I wrote about alternatives to publishing your cell number as your business line. It is tempting to give out your cell number as your business phone number; after all, you want to be accessible to your clients and potential clients! But what if you grow and hire additional employees? You won’t be able to transfer their calls to them. What if your phone starts ringing off the hook? No one will be able to help you answer calls. There are a number of reasons using your cell may not be a scalable solution.
Have you printed your cell number on your business cards and your customers already know your number by heart? Don’t panic! Here are five ways you can get around it without anyone being the wiser:
Get a second cell phone: Forward your original cell/business number to another number; you could get a landline where your on-site staff can help ease the phone answering burden or you could forward your calls to Ruby where your calls will be answered by a friendly virtual receptionist. Then, only give your new cell phone number to your friends, family, and anyone you’d like to call you directly. The catch: Your mobile provider may count the time involved in your forwarded calls against your minutes.
Convert your cell number to a remote call forwarding line: Sometimes called a “market expansion line,” this is a number that “lives” at the phone company and forwards to wherever you point it. Then, you could get a new number for your cell that friends and family (and Ruby, if you’d like us to transfer calls to you) may call you on.
Transfer your number to Google Voice: If your current provider agrees to release your phone number to a third party, you can port your number to Google Voice for a one-time fee of $20 — there’s no cost for the service itself. Google Voice has neat features like delayed call forwarding built in, along with several others. But keep in mind that since it is a free service without a contract, there’s no dedicated support if there’s a service disruption, and in the future, Google could decide to close Google Voice and potentially keep your number.
Add delayed call forwarding (also known as Ring Busy/No Answer call forwarding) to your plan: Your calls will ring on your cell a couple times, so you can grab it if it’s a family member or VIP client; your calls will only forward to another number if you don’t answer or are on another call. Verizon has a nice overview of what this looks like. Delayed call forwarding is usually an additional feature, and just like with traditional call forwarding, the call may continue to use your cell phone plan’s minutes even after Ruby picks up.
Use one of the above and phase out your cell number: Get a new number and change it on your marketing where you can (i.e., your website, social profiles, etc.). Send out an email to your clients letting them know about the new number and ask them to call it instead. Even if you don’t combine this with one of the above, the volume of calls to your cell should be more manageable. And if you’re a Ruby client, feel free to use your Ruby toll-free number as your new number – it’s yours to keep!
Did you publish your cell phone number as your business line? What happened? How did you get around it — or did it work for you?
Ruby at the 2011 "Best Companies to Work For" event
To further support our unique Core Values, we are incredibly excited to launch a new sabbatical program at Ruby Receptionists: the “Five at Five!”
In this paid sabbatical program, for every five years at Ruby, our virtual receptionists and supporting staff members will receive five weeks paid time off! During their Five at Five, Rubys are encouraged to explore our Core Values — “Foster Happiness,” “Create Community,” “Innovate,” and “Practice WOWism” – and apply them to a dream that they might not otherwise have had the opportunity to realize.
We really want our employees to succeed, so Ruby will also provide grants and coaching so that they may thrive in their Five at Five. Ruby will fund a $1,000 grant to help each employee accomplish their goal, whether that means traveling around Europe, taking a class, volunteering with a nonprofit, or anything else that would make them deeply happy. Each employee will also meet with positive psychology experts Dr. Robert Biswas-Diener and Positive Acorn in an individual coaching session to discuss his or her aspirations and strategies for making them a reality through the Five at Five program.
Traditionally, sabbaticals have been reserved for global organizations and academic institutions, and as a small business, we are thrilled to be able to offer them to our staff. In fact, when CEO Jill Nelson announced her sabbatical brainchild at our January staff meeting, many Rubys were so surprised that she had to repeat the idea. Once it sunk in, everyone got very excited and a few got a little misty. Virtual receptionist Eve T. explained, “The way Ruby genuinely cares about us and our happiness never ceases to amaze me and warm my heart. This program only furthers my love for working here, and I am already looking forward to sharing my story when I hit my fifth year!” Star Service and Receptionist Cultivator Janel Hodge will be celebrating her five year anniversary with Ruby in November, and she expressed how much this means to her, saying, “A burst of ideas came to mind immediately, and I got especially emotional when Jill announced the coaching session. I love working for Ruby, so I wouldn’t want to leave to accomplish one of my other lifelong dreams — and now I won’t have to!”
The Five at Five joins other beneficial programs at Ruby, such as our paid maternity/paternity leave, employer-matched 401k, and Alternative Transportation program. This year alone, 15% of Ruby employees will be eligible to take advantage of this new, unique paid sabbatical.
Fostering happiness is a big part of our business: when our virtual receptionists are happy, callers are happy, and our clients are happy! And when we invest in our staff’s happiness, they stay with us longer and are in turn invested in making Ruby successful; in fact, the average receptionist has been with us almost a year and a half (exceptional in a field where high turnover is the norm), and all but five of our 70 employees started out as virtual receptionists.
We are committed to living our Core Values, and we can’t wait to see what each bright, talented Ruby will do with their Five at Five!
Many of our clients use virtual offices or coworking spaces for their small businesses. Renting a shared space rather than a traditional office can save money, and it can make a lot of sense for startups and solopreneurs. It’s easy to use these spaces in combination with a live, virtual receptionist service (typically as simple as forwarding your business number), and though virtual office packages may include receptionist services, there are several benefits Ruby® offers that can’t be matched.
If you operate out of a virtual office, here are three reasons you may want to use a virtual receptionist service to answer your calls:
1. Make a stellar first impression. Front desk receptionists at virtual office buildings have a lot on their plates: answering calls for several distinct companies, receiving and distributing mail, and greeting guests all in the same breath. Hold times may be longer for your callers, some calls may be missed entirely, and helpfulness may fall to the wayside as tasks vie for the receptionist’s attention.
A virtual receptionist service, on the other hand, focuses specifically on answering phones – and answering them well. Each Ruby virtual receptionist attends “Ruby University,” training them on the best way to help callers and clients and brighten their days. With a cheerful, attentive person answering your calls, you can make the best impression possible for your business.
2. Additional call handling options. Many virtual office buildings only have the capability to “blind transfer” callers. Your caller’s experience might look like this:
Virtual office receptionist: “Thank you for calling ABC Company. How may I direct your call?”
Caller: “Hi! Is Bob Smith available?”
Virtual office receptionist: “Let me transfer you. One moment please.” Caller hears ringing until you pick up (without knowing who is calling)…or your caller reaches voicemail.
Since a virtual receptionist primarily focuses on answering calls, she can spend more time engaging with your caller and can take messages if the desired party is unavailable (instead of dropping them immediately into the voicemail abyss). Instead your caller will hear something more like this:
Virtual receptionist: “Thank you for calling ABC Company. How may I help you?”
Caller: “Hi! Is Bob Smith available?”
Virtual receptionist: “I would be happy to check for you! May I say who’s calling?”
Caller: “Fantastic! It’s Sam Jones.”
Virtual receptionist: “Thank you, Sam! One moment, please.” The receptionist would then try Bob’s line. If he picks up, she’ll let him know who’s on the line, and he can accept or decline the call. If Bob’s unavailable or declines the call, she will go back to the caller and offer to take a message: “Bob’s away from the phone at the moment. May I take a message?” And then she’d immediately send the message via email or text!
While the call handling from a virtual office may be limited, virtual receptionists are not. They can ask potential clients different questions than your current clients, route calls to wherever you are, and more! You’re welcome to customize your call handling as much as you like!
3. More features. In addition to enhanced call handling options, you can also let your virtual receptionist service know where you are. They can keep your clients informed and set great expectations on when to expect a return call: “Tim’s out of the office at the moment, but he should be back around 3:00pm. May I take a message or transfer you to his voicemail?” At Ruby, you can update your whereabouts in a flash via email, our mobile-friendly Member Services Area, or our iPhone app!
Questions about what we can do for your business? Leave a comment below or give us a call at 866-611-7829 — we’d be delighted to help!