1. Can you tell us more about Smith.ai?
Smith.ai is a superior 24/7 omnichannel receptionist service that specializes in converting new potential clients who call, text, or visit your website.
2. What are Smith.ai‘s Virtual Receptionists?
Our Virtual Receptionists are North America-based professionals from all across the continent. Like all our staff, they work from home and support our clients 24/7, so they never need to worry about disruptions to service from acts of God or events in one place or another. Our Virtual Receptionists answer calls and web chats but do so much more, too — screening and intaking clients, scheduling appointments, following up with online leads, and even processing payments.
3. What communication channels does Smith.ai utilize?
Smith.ai both receives and makes phone calls so we can capture leads and reach out immediately after they complete online forms. We also answer web chats, and included in that are SMS texts and Facebook messages, too.
4. What type of businesses use Smith.ai‘s services?
We cater to entrepreneurs, solo firms, and small businesses. The legal, IT, marketing, and professional services fields make up a large proportion of our clients.
5. How does Smith.ai differ from other similar services?
Unlike many other services, we offer:
- 24/7 live chat and call answering
- Free spam and sales call blocking
- Pay only for what you need
- Integrates with a large number of CRMs, calendars, and payment systems
- SMS text answering
- Facebook Messenger answering
- Transparent per-call and per-chat pricing
- Month-to-month pricing with no required contracts
- Receptionists with years of experience in the field
- The ability to process payments over the phone
6. What workload does Smith.ai handle after the initial greeting?
Smith.ai conducts lead qualification and intake and can handle appointment scheduling and reminders, text and email follow-up, callbacks, outbound calls, and spam and sales call blocking.
7. How does Smith.ai help in turning new prospects into paying customers?
Smith.ai will capture contact information like phone numbers and e-mail addresses, which we upload directly to your CRM; book appointments; and conduct follow-up calls, e-mails, and texts. Smith.ai also screens out spam and sales calls at no additional charge, so any callbacks you make will be to legitimate clients or leads.
8. What challenges did you face amid COVID-19?
Unlike many answering services, we actually avoided the most serious repercussions from COVID-19 — because our company was already remote, our receptionists were working from home all across the country. Thus we avoided the disruption to services many others faced. The biggest challenge was actually keeping pace with increased demand, since so many businesses were trying to shift to fully remote work on the fly. This was especially true for our Live Chat service, as so many people were on their screens and browsing throughout the day.
9. How did you cope with COVID-19?
Our workforce was already mostly remote and work-from-home, so we were very well-positioned to serve clients with minimal disruption. We have emphasized continuing to roll out useful new features, offering discounts to businesses affected by COVID-19, and adding 24/7 so we can maximize lead intake for our clients.
10. The most responsive businesses have the best reputations. How does Smith.ai ensure such factor?
We do this through superior organization, so we can provide follow-up very quickly for the best client experience. We use a variety of project management tools optimized for remote work to ensure swift coordination and communication. This allows us to have great client service, which you can see in our many 5-star reviews on sites like Clutch and Capterra, who recently honored us as their top Virtual Receptionist and Live Chat services, respectively, based on positive client reviews.
11. Where do you see Smith.ai in the next 5-years?
We hope to see Smith.ai adopted into businesses small and large, as owners and operators are comfortable with outsourcing. Covid has pushed many business owners to innovate with automation and outsourcing, and we see that trend accelerating. In 5 years, there will be substantially more comfort in outsourcing and delegating, so staff can focus on the most valuable work. We see Smith.ai working right alongside those owners to support all of their frontline communications, and far beyond the phone, web, text, and social messaging platforms we have now — at much greater speeds, with greater efficiency, and with even more intermingling of AI and live staff.
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