Answering Service Care Helps Franchises Fulfill Consumers’ Desire for Human, Not AI, Interactions
Nearly all consumers have experienced the aggravation of automated answering systems that don’t present an option pertaining to their need or never connect to a live, easy-to-understand person. Same thing if a caller leaves a voicemail that’s never returned. Those situations send potential customers scurrying to competitors who offer the human interaction that will end frustration and save time. That’s why franchisees and other small business owners fuel the growing demand for virtual receptionist services such as those offered by Answering Service Care, which has friendly, well-informed U.S.-based real people handling calls.
Just how strong is the growing demand for virtual receptionist services and their human touch? Verified Market Reports valued those services at $3.2 billion in 2022 and projected the market will more than double, to $6.8 billion, by 2030. That’s a compound annual growth rate of 9.8%.
Why Use a Virtual Receptionist Service?
Logan Shooster, vice president of strategic growth for Answering Service Care (ASC), explains that those statistics relate directly to business owners’ priorities. “Businesses have always sought ways to cut costs, improve efficiencies and enhance customer service, and virtual receptionists help them do that. In the post-AI era, however, the real differentiator is the human touch, which is sacrificed when companies eliminate live customer support.
“To put it into perspective, about eight in 10 people prefer speaking to a person rather than AI,” Shooster says. (Forbes pegged that number even higher, at 86%.) “Less than 8% say their issue was resolved by an AI-driven customer service tool. In an increasingly AI-reliant world, real, human-centered interactions continue to stand out, making virtual receptionists more valuable than ever.”
Cost Comparison
Virtual receptionists help various service-based enterprises, from blue-collar contractors to professionals such as lawyers, accountants and physicians, he says. Many service-based businesses found the overhead of in-house receptionists too costly, Shooster points out. “Our virtual receptionist service averages about $300 a month or $3,600 a year for 24/7/365 support. The salary of a full-time in-house receptionist working 40 hours a week will be about $37,000 a year – more than 10 times as much as ASC charges, before adding in benefits, employment taxes, training and other employee-related expenses. And that receptionist would miss work for sick days, holidays and weekends.
“To match our coverage, you would need more than three receptionists, with their salaries alone likely to total over $111,000 a year. And our service provides constant availability. There’s no time off, period. Business owners don’t have to worry about turnover and training either.”
The takeaway is that businesses don’t want to miss customers’ calls, but they want to avoid the overhead of in-house receptionists. “That’s where ASC comes in. Our motto is, ‘We get it, so you don’t have to.’ Our service preserves the human touch at a fraction of the cost, making it an ideal solution for businesses looking to balance quality with affordability.”
Another advantage to using 51-year-old ASC is its 200-member staff, which allows clients to increase our services as their businesses grow, Shooster says. “And owners of seasonal businesses can scale back their service plans with us during slack periods.”
Technology Aids ASC
Answering Service Care brings its human touch to customer interactions (email and online chats as well as telephone calls) while leveraging the latest technology. “We have 7,000-plus integrations with industry-leading CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot and more to enable a seamless data exchange. We have a client portal and a mobile app that give secure access to messages, account details and on-call calendars on the go.
“Our staff has the advanced automation tools of dynamic scripting, automated dispatching and intelligent call handling to respond to calls quickly and accurately. We handle tens of thousands of calls daily.”
As efficient as ASC is now, Shooster predicts even better performance in the future. He sees that in these key areas:
- Smarter automation to improve workflows and enhance both the efficiency of human agents and the customer experience.
- Greater investment in training and ease of use, “ensuring our systems remain intuitive and scalable.”
Growing Demand for Virtual Reception Services
“The future of virtual receptionist services is about enhancing human efficiency through automation, not replacing people. As AI-based solutions continue to frustrate customers, businesses that prioritize human interactions will stand out,” Shooster says. Only about half of customers (53%) surveyed by Vodaphone Business said they were confident that AI technologies could complete day-to-day tasks more effectively than a human, according to an AI Business article about AI’s so-called trust gap. “This further reinforces the importance of keeping people at the heart of customer communication and triggers the growing demand for virtual receptionist services.”
For more information about Answering Service Care, click here.
