Remote Virtual Receptionists: Betty, Eli, and Michelle.

Our remote virtual receptionists are at the heart of what we do, answering calls for our clients around the clock with a friendly, professional voice. Whether they’re based in Oregon or Florida, Texas or Idaho, Utah, Montana, or North Carolina, our teams take care of our clients (and their customers) to help them with great customer service.

A few years ago, we moved to a remote model, where we bring the calls to our virtual receptionists at their home offices rather than making our people commute to the work. Since the average American commute is 51 minutes a day, this model gives our teams back valuable time to spend with their friends and families, or just doing the activities they love.

Because we operate 24/7/365, we have a wide variety of shifts available—morning, noon, and night, weekday and weekend. Our virtual receptionists pick their own shifts, which allows them to schedule work around their lives, rather than life around work.

Without our people, we couldn’t do what we do. Here are just a few of our virtual receptionists, who work hard for our clients every day.

Betty: Feeling like a princess

Betty Mapes has been with AnswerConnect since 2008—even before we went to our current remote model. She was one of the last to start working from home, continuing to go into the small office we kept after most of our customer experience associates started working remotely.

“I was scared,” she says. “I thought, I’m not going to like that at all, because I love being around people.” Eventually, though, Betty gave remote working a try. “Actually, I love it,” she says. Not only is her “14 stair” commute pretty convenient, but being at home means she gets to spend more time with Obie, her sister’s puppy.

Another benefit of working from home is that it makes it easier for Betty to take care of her bad back, which has been causing her a lot of pain at times. On breaks she can lie down just a few feet from her computer, giving her a chance to recover.

Betty remembers one day when her lead, Katie, told her she needed to have a video call with her and a couple of company leaders, including CEO Natalie Fung. Betty was a little worried, but Katie promised her it was good news. It turned out she had been chosen for a weekend trip to Salishan Spa on the Oregon coast, in recognition of her excellent work!

After dealing with chronic back pain for a while, Betty says, the trip gave her a chance to get the full spa treatment, complete with massage and facial. “Just to be able to be by myself, just me, God, and the music. It was so relaxing and so beautiful,” she says. “I cried a lot because I didn’t think I deserved it. I came back feeling like a princess.”

We’re glad to have dedicated, experienced virtual receptionists like Betty on our team. And for her part, Betty says she’s sticking around. “I love working here,” she says. “This has been the longest I have ever been at a job and I plan on staying until I retire.”

Eli: Scheduling quality time

For Eli, who lives and works in El Paso, Texas, self-scheduling is all about family. Her husband works in law enforcement, and has a schedule that changes every two months—working days, mid-shift, or overnight depending on his assignment. With commuting time, he’s often gone from home for 12 hours at at time.

AnswerConnect’s model not only allows her to work from home, giving her back precious time she used to spend commuting, but it also means she can match her own schedule with his. That wasn’t possible when she had a regular 9-to-5 position. “The fact that I can go from days to afternoons, weekdays to weekends, means so much to me,” she says.

Flexible scheduling also helps Eli take care of another family member, her “fur baby” Wookie, a 10-year-old Cockapoo (spaniel/poodle mix). She schedules herself a one-and-a-half or two-hour break so they can visit one of four local parks. “We walk quite a ways to get there,” she says, “and he just loves it.”

Lately, Eli and her husband have been trying out a paleo diet. “There’s a lot of prep work,” she says, but working from home makes it easier to cook healthy foods, such as a lettuce wrap with chicken and avocado. “I can’t believe we are able to schedule ourselves this way,” Eli says. “Being able to work remotely has been such an amazing opportunity for me.”

Michelle: Caring for Chris

Michelle knew her life would change when she moved with her boyfriend Chris from West Virginia to Orlando. When Chris developed epilepsy, had a seizure in their kitchen, and would up with a traumatic brain injury, her life changed in ways she couldn’t have predicted.

Suddenly, in addition to working full time at a small car dealership, Michelle had to take over all the housework, as well as caring for Chris. “I was a basket case,” she say, “I was so stressed out trying to manage everything.”

Then, a woman named Linda came in to Michelle’s work to make a car payment. “She could see on my face I was so stressed,” Michelle says. “She told me about this great job she had working from home. It sounded too good to be true, but she was there making her car payment so obviously she was getting paid.”

Now, as a customer experience associate for AnswerConnect, Michelle has the flexibility to choose her own shifts. “It has just changed my life. My work revolves around my life, instead of my life revolving around my work,” she says. “I can work a 40-hour week without being stretched too thin.” That means she can schedule an hour off to check on Chris, do errands, or just relax. She tends to work late at night, she says, because she prefers it and because Chris doesn’t need as much help then.

“I work better with less supervision,” Michelle says, remembering that her boss at the car dealership used to sit right behind her and micromanage her every move. At AnswerConnect, she says, “I can make or break my QA scores. I can work my way up in the company or stay where I’m at. I love the focus on improvement.”

Customer service is about people

Betty, Eli, and Michelle are just three of the hundreds of remote virtual receptionists who make AnswerConnect run. By trusting them to work from home and pick their own schedules, we attract and keep the best in the business. And that helps us deliver quality customer service to our clients, 24/7/365.

Want to work for us? Check out our open positions!

Source: Eli, AnswerConnect