You may already know what virtual receptionists can bring to the table. Just as perplexing, however, is the question, “How much is a virtual receptionist?” Since operating a remote front desk involves specific equipment, it can be easy to think that having virtual receptionists can cost a premium.

While virtual receptionists carry unique expenses, they are worth it in the long run in growing your business. To help guide your decision-making, here are some items to consider:

Four Factors Of Virtual Receptionist Costs

1. Wages And Benefits

Glassdoor reports that the average hourly wage of virtual receptionists is $23.82, or about $49,500 annually. This is close to the average hourly wage of in-house receptionists, which is $25.55, or about $49,000 annually. The wage similarities are to be expected, as virtual receptionists are functionally equivalent to in-house receptionists in nearly every regard.

Both in-house and virtual receptionists enjoy 401(k) and receive other benefits like insurance and paid time off, depending on the company and the work agreement. The main difference is that in-house receptionists also receive benefits like free parking and commuter assistance, which virtual receptionists cannot use. However, these are negligible to virtual receptionists compared to the benefit of remote work.

2. Other Potential Expenses

Wages and benefits take up only a predictable fraction of your expenses with in-house receptionists. A considerable part of your costs also includes variable expenses that depend on sudden absences or receptionist turnover.

Here are some situations involving in-house receptionists that can lead to additional costs to your business:

• Leaves and absences – Untimely PTOs or sudden absences can lead to an unattended front desk with lower ROI.
• Hiring and training – When experiencing receptionist turnover, searching for, hiring, and training new receptionists can be time-consuming and resource-intensive.
• Patient attrition – Poor service can lead to loss of customers.

Since virtual receptionists work remotely, they no longer need to travel to and from the clinic daily. As a result, they’re far less likely to suffer from burnout, become absent, or perform poorly, leading to far fewer potential expenses.

Enabling this requires you to allocate part of your budget to a virtual receptionist platform like WelcomeWare, which offers both software and hardware, including the number of kiosks, a visitor management system, and a reporting dashboard. This scales with the number of locations you manage; however, it’s a small price to pay to lower your variable costs significantly.

3. Return On Investment

Value is a defining factor in whether or not you should get virtual receptionists. Since employing virtual receptionists involves a unique set of expenses from in-house receptionists, you must determine whether paying these expenses is worth it.

To do that, you have to look at the return on investment of virtual receptionists through what they can do for your business:

• Covering multiple areas simultaneously. With an effective remote front desk platform like WelcomeWare, A single virtual receptionist can seamlessly attend to multiple front desks at the same time.
• Streamlined contingent front desk coverage. With a strong virtual receptionist team, you can ensure your front desk is covered even when a receptionist is unavailable.
• Scaling your receptionist team. Hiring new virtual receptionists is unnecessary when you can leverage your current in-house receptionists to enable your virtual front desk.
• Retaining the same receptionists. Because virtual receptionists work remotely, they no longer have to spend much time and energy traveling daily. This may lead to less fatigue and burnout, and thus fewer leaves and absences and lower chances of receptionist turnover.
• Improving customer relationships. Since virtual receptionists are more energetic, they also tend to be more positive, allowing them to be much better at setting a more welcoming tone and environment for your customers.

4. The Human Touch

Virtual receptionists are a highly effective alternative not only to in-person receptionists but also to self-service kiosks. According to a 2024 study by Five9, 75% of consumers prefer speaking with a human over AI for customer service.

Some patients are either unfamiliar with kiosk technology or are simply more accustomed to speaking with a human receptionist. Self-service kiosks lack the human touch, a vital element in customer service. Unlike human receptionists, automated kiosks are unable to provide warmth or flexibility.

Consider the following factors:

• Schedule-outs – Kiosks leave scheduling at the hands of patients, which may cause inconvenience by adding another responsibility, leading to lower schedule-outs. Virtual receptionists retain the art of scheduling, consistently achieving flexibility in matching patient scheduling preferences while balancing provider workload.
• Patient care coordination – Remote receptionists have superior flexibility in coordinating care plans with patients, which is a function that automated kiosks are unable to achieve.
• Financial planning – Receptionists are also highly versatile in facilitating payment, especially when identifying solutions more suitable to the patient’s financial circumstances. In contrast, kiosks are highly rudimentary and restricted to fixed payment methods.
• Upselling opportunities – Additionally, receptionists have the significant advantage of getting a feel for what patients need that aligns with your clinic’s services, enabling them to upsell patients and bring more revenue.

Virtual Receptionists Are Worth Every Penny

The costs of adopting a live virtual receptionist service solution may be daunting at first, especially with virtual receptionists being a novel concept. However, transitioning to a remote front desk setup is a cost-effective solution a more significant ROI for your business that can have a lasting positive impact on your customer relationships and business productivity as a whole.

\WelcomeWare is an all-in-one software and hardware solution that enables you to scale your receptionists across multiple locations through video receptionist kiosks. Discover all the benefits that virtual receptionists offer (and more) with WelcomeWare!