What to Ask Before You Hire a Virtual Receptionist

Most comparisons between virtual receptionist providers are written by the providers. This one is too, so read it as a checklist rather than as a verdict. The questions below are the ones that separate services that sound alike, and you can put every one of them to us as well.

1. What happens to a call you cannot answer?

Every provider answers calls. The interesting case is the call that needs something they cannot give: a clinical question, a legal question, a price on work nobody has seen. Ask what the script does at that moment. If the answer is "it handles it", ask to see the handling.

The answer you want names the boundary out loud. Ours is written into every placement: the regulated part of your work stays with your own licensed people, and the call gets captured and routed rather than answered.

2. Where does the information end up?

A message that exists only inside someone else's dashboard is a message your team will not read. Ask where a captured call lands, who sees it, and what happens if nobody opens the dashboard that day.

Ask the same question about your records. A service that becomes the only place your caller information lives has made itself hard to leave.

3. What is the pricing when the month is busy?

Per-call and per-minute pricing looks cheap in the quiet month you are shown and expensive in the month you actually need it. Ask for the cost of your worst month, not your average one.

Ours is a flat monthly fee by level, starting at $297, with a one-time $99 setup charged when you order and credited in full against an annual payment. Busy months cost the same as quiet ones.

4. Who writes the script, and who can change it?

If the provider writes it, you will spend the first month correcting things you would never have said. If you write it alone, you will spend that month discovering what callers actually ask.

Ask how a change gets made after go-live, how long it takes, and whether it costs anything. This is the question that predicts your second month more reliably than any feature list.

5. What does the handover look like when a human has to take over?

Ask what the caller hears, what your team receives, and how a genuinely urgent call reaches a person. Then ask what happens when nobody picks up that handover.

6. What can you see afterwards?

You should be able to answer two questions at the end of a week: how many calls arrived, and what happened to each one. If a provider cannot show you that, you are buying coverage you cannot audit.

7. What is not included?

The most useful question in the list, and the one most likely to produce a pause. Ask it plainly, write down the answer, and compare the answers rather than the brochures.

A note on how to use these

You will not get perfect answers from anybody, including us. What you are listening for is whether the answer is specific. "It depends on your setup" is a real answer when it is followed by what it depends on, and an evasion when it is not.

If you want to put these to us, the place to start is kepply.com.