Never miss a call with 24/7 live receptionists.

The job of an educator is truly never done, and for tutors, that means jam-packed schedules all year round. From giving one-on-one lessons to providing general guidance, tutors have enough on their plate to worry about. That's why when it comes to administrative tasks, like appointment scheduling or call answering, it can be easy for tutors to let them fall to the wayside. But leads aren't going to wait forever to get a response. Thankfully, a reliable tutoring answering service can make sure busy tutors can capture these leads and still keep their work days running smoothly. An answering service has been proven to provide professional tutors the help they need most, whether that's appointment scheduling, lead screening, or call answering. Below are some examples of the benefits that tutors have experienced when using answering services like Smith.ai:

• Expanded availability‍

When an answering service is there to cover your calls, your clients will always speak with a real human being, regardless of whether you're busy or unavailable. With dedicated virtual receptionists available 24/7, your customer service will be unmatched, and your leads will be blown away.

• Increased leads captured  

Missing calls? Then you're missing opportunities. Don’t let leads slip away just because you can't reach the phone. Answering services provide nighttime, overflow, weekend, and after-hours availability, so your students, new and old, will get the responsiveness they deserve. 

• Boosted work productivity 

By handing off your call-handling duties to an answering service, you can spend less of your work day on the phone and more time on productive work. And with more work done in less time, business will boom.

• Enhanced client satisfaction and business reputation

Smith.ai is well-trained in exceptional customer experiences, so whatever your business size, we got you covered. All of our virtual receptionists are highly proficient and well-versed in customer service, so your students are always in good hands. Let us put our award-winning practices to work for you. 

• Get more for less

For the price of a gym membership, get the experience of several highly-trained in-house receptionists wrapped into one easy-to-use service. Customers who use Smith.ai instead of hiring in-house receptionists can save upwards of $30,000/year, not to mention precious office space and training hours.

• Keep up with leads and clients

Smith.ai's virtual receptionists send over detailed call summaries after each call, and even provide your clients with chat, social media, and text messaging so your clients have more than one way to get in contact with you, offering them diverse communication options to choose from.

A live tutor answering service can revolutionize the way you do business. Smith.ai's virtual receptionist services are specifically designed to keep your business needs in mind. Whether you're on a limited budget, overwhelmed by growing business demands, or simply looking to enrich your customer service, Smith.ai can provide the unique support you need, wherever you need it. With multiple virtual receptionists at your disposal and dozens of practical features available for you to take advantage of, you can rest assured knowing that Smith.ai has all the tools you need to push your business to new, unprecedented heights.

Smith.ai’s answering service can offer tutors much-needed services, like…

24/7 availability

After-hours & overflow answering

Bilingual answering

Outbound call-backs

Spam blocking

Appointment scheduling

Sales development

Payment collection

CRM Integration

Lead development

And much, much more…‍

With a lengthy list of features and plenty of resources, Smith.ai’s answering service is the clear choice for tutors looking to improve their long-term productivity, revenue, and outreach. Smith.ai is proud to dedicate their time to offering comprehensive administrative support to tutors like you. For years now, our dedicated team of professionals have been able to provide award-winning services to thousands of satisfied clients from across the world. Read some of the 5-star reviews from clients like these to learn why tutors from all over trust Smith.ai to deliver exceptional virtual receptionist services.

When deciding between an in-house receptionist and an answering service, it's important to consider the options that keep costs low and quality of work high, but with an in-house receptionist, you're not likely to get the most for your money. In fact, you might end up spending a lot more for a lot less. To give you a better understanding of the cost comparisons, we've compiled a breakdown of the costs tutors can expect to pay when hiring an in-house receptionist.

The average salary nation-wide for an in-house receptionist is about $37,000 and they usually come with pricey (frequently hidden) fees, such as:

• Medical, dental, and vision insurance, costing about $11,000/year
• Life and disability insurance, costing about $2,000/year
• 401K’s, retirement and pension plans, costing about $2,000/year
• Paid sick leave, holidays, and vacations, costing about $5,500/year
• Commuting reimbursement, costing about $5,000/year
• Child care subsidy and parental leave, costing about $3,000/year
• Health and wellness programs, costing about $1,000/year
• Bonus pay, costing about $2,000/year
• Company retreats, team bonding events, and employee outings, costing about $4,000/year
• Free lunch, snacks, and drinks, costing about $3,500/year
  

Total Cost in Addition to Salary: $77,000/year

If your tutoring company is located in any major city, that price is going to be a lot higher. And with all the time you'll have to spend on-boarding and training your new hire, the up-front costs for an in-house receptionist will most certainly be enormous. Unfortunately, over time, prices will pile up, especially when your receptionist inevitably comes in late, calls in sick, requests time off, takes personal leaves of absence, goes on vacation, etc. Contrarily, Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can complete nearly the same amount of tasks as an in-house receptionist can, and they may even complete them better. Our virtual receptionists are also much more affordable overall, because our receptionists' benefits and salaries are never your responsibility.

Smith.ai’s answering service costs as little as $255/month, with no hidden fees. Ever. By hiring an answering service instead of an in-house receptionist, your business could save over $33,000/year on salary alone, and possibly up to $40,000/year in benefits beyond salary payments. Not only will you save big time, but you'll also witness a noticeable improvement in your overall productivity, lead conversion, and net profit. Unlike in-house receptionists, virtual receptionists can answer calls outside of regular business hours, enabling you to capture and covert nearly 27% more leads. Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can even respond to live chats, texts, and social media messages, which is how 46% of customers prefer communicating with businesses, allowing for tons of potential leads you may have never known existed to find and get in contact with your studio.

Virtual receptionists also offer additional sales assistance as well by making outbound calls to capture potentially interested leads, which is massively impressive to the over 67% of clients who base their decision to hire a business on the initial responsiveness to their call or email. With potential clients receiving the timely, professional responses they'd like, your lead conversion rates will soar. With Smith.ai’s trusted tutor answering service, you can experience all the benefits of an in-house receptionist minus the cost. Read our article to learn more about the differences between an in-house vs. a virtual receptionist.

As you very well may know, it takes plenty of elbow grease to keep a business up and running. From organizing day-to-day errands to supervising general business development and growth, tutors have no shortage of projects that require their attention. With bustling work environments like this, unexpected problems tend to sneak their way in every now and again, and with a never-ending list of classes to teach, lessons to plan, and schedules to coordinate, tutors may need to bring in some outsourced support to help them effectively tackle those problems. Common scenarios that we've seen tutors get stuck with that have required a virtual receptionist service's assistance for are:

• I need administrative support, but can't afford it

Nowadays, "front desk” support is a must. Allowing a trained professional to take over the responsibility of administrative tasks for you can quite literally mean the difference between productivity and pure chaos. Private and independent tutors don't often have the budget to afford pricey in-house receptionists or call centers, leaving them without that crucial front desk support.

• Constant phone calls distract from work

Calls are guaranteed to come in whether you have time for them or not. And for tutors looking to capture leads, it's imperative they pick up the phone, but when they repeatedly have to take time away from lessons to answer calls, it can steal away their focus. When it takes, on average, about 23 minutes to get back to a task after being interrupted by a phone call, after multiple calls, tutors can expect their productivity to plummet.

• Growing business demands are overwhelming

Businesses grow and while that growth can be great for a tutors' profit margins, it can be increasingly challenging for tutors to keep up. Growth means more: more calls to answer, more classes to schedule, more students to take in. To-do lists will expand by the minute, making it challenging for limited staff or solo tutors to accomplish everything they need to, let alone prepare to take on more.

• I can't offer the around-the-clock availability clients want

When the work day ends, tutors should be able to go home and spend time away from students. But when you clock out, you miss calls. And when you miss calls, you miss out on the over 27% of leads who call outside of regular business hours. Plenty of tutors would like to offer after-hours answering in order to capture these leads, but unfortunately, overnight in-house receptionists or expensive call centers tend to be out of their price range.

If any one of these scenarios sounds familiar to you, an answering service can be your saving grace. By handing off your administrative duties to professional virtual receptionists, you'll get the additional helping hands you need while your students, new and old, will enjoy top-tier responsiveness around-the-clock. Smith.ai's virtual receptionists are available 24/7, so whether your tutoring company would use lead screening, consultation booking, or call answering assistance, our team of highly-trained virtual receptionists can accommodate your business needs so you can get back to the work that matters most.

While it would be nice to get everything done by yourself, it simply isn't realistic. Inevitably, issues will come up that you won't be able to resolve on your own, and you shouldn't have to. Any kind of outsourced support, like an answering service, can help you out of even the toughest spots, and may just be the answer to some of your other more frustrating problems. Here are some of the most commonly reported issues we've noticed many tutors need virtual receptionist services for:

• I'm unable to offer the responsiveness leads demand

Back-to-back class schedules and heavy workloads can exhaust even the most experienced tutors, leaving them with little to no time to dedicate towards customer service. Responsiveness has time-and-time again proven crucial for any client-facing business, but with limited spare time in their day to spend generating, nurturing, and converting leads, private and independent tutors are often unable to offer the customer experience that leads expect.

• I'm struggling to get productive work done

Pricey in-house receptionists mean many tutors are forced to try and take on administrative duties themselves. But with an endless list of responsibilities, tutors who choose to take on these administrative responsibilities themselves have a tough time balancing their regular teaching duties with incessant administrative demands.

• I can't get to new leads in time and it's costing me money

Though they may do their best to answer calls as often as they can, tutors will inevitably miss calls, whether they're preoccupied overseeing lessons, coordinating routines, or scheduling appointments. Attempting to get everything done while still providing decent customer service can be a real challenge, and with a tight schedule, call handling and lead screening duties are one of the first priorities to be disregarded, leaving leads unanswered and unconverted.

• My competitors are responding to potential clients faster than me

Tutors often struggle in the current aggressive market to set their services apart from their competitors. Providing superior customer experiences through immediate, thoughtful responses can place any tutor in good standing with leads, but high-quality customer service takes time that a lot of busy instructors simply can't afford to take away from lessons.

• Capturing and converting leads is challenging

One of the most significant, yet often burdensome aspects of building a successful business is finding and converting new clients. With so much on their plate as it is, many tutors struggle to balance their growing to-do list with their customer service responsibilities. And when calls are left unanswered, leads will quickly turn their attention to the nearest tutor they can find to answer their questions.

• I don't know how to keep track of all of my clients’ data

Maintaining detailed phone records and call summaries isn't as easy as it may appear, and for tutoring services who, like many client-facing businesses, disperse client data across varying software platforms. Naturally, knowing exactly how, when, and why clients call is critical for tutors looking to attract and retain more students, but when information about a customer's experience is stored incorrectly, tutors lose out on lead generation and conversion opportunities.

If you or your staff is struggling with any one of these tedious issues, a virtual receptionist service can equip you with the tools you need to resolve them and get back on track. One of the most beloved aspects of Smith.ai answering services is that our virtual receptionists adjust their services to address the unique problems you face. This means that our virtual receptionists will spend time where you need it most, whether that's something as straightforward as call handling or something more complicated, like lead screening. Smith.ai always suits to your business needs, not the other way around, so you can rest assure knowing your tutoring service is in good hands. Sign up risk-free with our 14-day money-back guarantee and experience first-hand how Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists can handle even the most challenging issues your tutoring services face.

When preparing to hire a virtual receptionist service, it's important to consider which areas you've noticed yourself or your team needing additional support in. To figure out which services your company might benefit from the most, ask yourself which problems or challenges seem to create a consistent barrier for you:

• Do you find it difficult finding and converting new clients? 
• Could you use a little help screening out spam calls? 
• Does chasing down payments take up too much of your day? 
  

Regardless of what you struggle with, Smith.ai’s virtual receptionists will seamlessly adjust their service to pick up wherever you leave off. 

Once you've got a good understanding of the issues Smith.ai receptionists can help you with, consider your tutoring company's activity level: 

• Do you receive more social media messages than phone calls?
• Do you have trouble returning calls from leads?
• Would your business benefit from 24/7 phone answering or would you prefer a particular time frame, such as 9-to-5, for answering calls? 
  

Whether you get twenty calls a month or 2,000, Smith.ai can customize your virtual receptionist service to fit your business activity so you only pay for what you need. 

All you have to do next is sign up. Getting started with Smith.ai’s virtual receptionist service is quick and simple. No annual contracts, no hidden setup fees, and no scripts required. 

To sign up with Smith.ai, follow these three easy steps:

1. Customize your instructions – Just answer a few, quick questions about your team and the preferences you have, and we’ll get you started. We’ll use your answers to customize the way our virtual receptionists answer your calls and your clients’ questions. 
2. Send your calls to us – We work with every major phone system and can set up customized rules for when we answer your calls, or we can answer every call, 24/7!
3. Try risk-free with our 14-day money-back guarantee – Fully experience our call answering, scheduling, payments, and other phone services completely risk free for 14 days. If you find that we're not the right fit for you, you can receive up to $1,000 back within the first 14 days.

Whether your tutoring services needs a full-time virtual receptionist or just an overflow or after-hours call answering service, Smith.ai can offer the customized assistance you've been looking for with quality customer service, lead screening, and sales development, in addition to dozens of other helpful services. When you sign up with Smith.ai, you aren't just choosing a virtual receptionist service, you’re choosing a professional, reliable, and friendly team of well-trained experts who can transform the way you do business for good. And once you start using Smith.ai's virtual receptionist service, you'll wonder how you or your team ever got by without it.

‍Learn how to get started with Smith.ai’s virtual receptionist service.