Jul 20, 2010
AnswerFirst Plans Niche Virtual Receptionist Web Site
If you want to look at a mover and shaker in the virtual receptionist world, look no further than AnswerFirst Communications. This company is moving on Twitter, shaking on YouTube, and is now launching microsites to address particular service niches.
More than a virtual receptionist company, AnswerFirst Communications offers telephone answering service, customer service solutions, messaging services, and contact center solutions. And the company just announced the launch of a new Web site that features information about their telephone answering services. A virtual receptionist site is to follow.
“Previously, we were using one main Web site to feature information about all of our services but it was a lot of information to pack into a single Web site because we offer a wide array of services including basic answering services, call center solutions, technical support, customer care, appointment scheduling, order entry and voice mail solutions and more,” explains Jim Smith, AnswerFirst’s Director of Inside Sales.
The company figured featuring each service on its own site would help customers navigate each option—or find the specific service they needed more quickly. With the microsite strategy, for example, customers who want a virtual receptionist can get detailed information on virtual receptionist services, features and pricing without wading through information about contact center solutions.
This is brilliant for another reason: AnswerFirst can optimize its virtual receptionist site—and all the other microsites—to rank high for search terms that are related to the service that is featured on that particular site. Smith says this method of optimization will make it easier for potential clients to find information about the services that they are shopping for.
“The first site we’ve developed focuses on our core service, telephone answering service, and was developed under the domain name www.answeringservice.org,” Smith says. “We’ve retained our corporate site for providing a basic overview of our services and in-depth information about our business so clients can still access information about AnswerFirst at our main domain.”
This should give AnswerFirst an advantage. Of course, other virtual receptionist companies can play copycat. The difference is most virtual receptionist companies are already offering a Web site that focuses just on that service, because most of them aren’t offering the breadth of solutions AnswerFirst is offering. So, if anything, I expect AnswerFirst to gain some ground on the virtual receptionist front by segmenting out virtual receptionist information for potential clients.
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