Last Updated: June 2025
In today’s competitive business environment, how your company handles incoming calls can significantly impact customer satisfaction and brand perception. Long wait times and missed calls aren’t just inconveniences—they’re deal-breakers.
In fact, nearly 60% of customers say that long holds and wait times are the most frustrating parts of a service experience. That’s why more businesses are turning to the best virtual receptionist services to ensure prompt, professional, and reliable communication.
Whether you’re a startup or an established enterprise, this article highlights the 10 best virtual receptionist services that can help you improve customer service, increase efficiency, and never miss an important call again.
What Is a Virtual Receptionist?
A virtual receptionist is an off-site staffer that handles a company’s incoming communications, i.e. phone calls, messages, or live chats. Whereas a traditional in-office receptionist sits in the office to meet and greet customers as they come in and call in, a virtual receptionist works remotely, using cloud-based programs and other tools to reach out and engage customers right at the moment they are likely to be interested.
These staff members have been trained to take calls, give directions, make appointments, record messages, and forward calls to the right person or department. Most virtual receptionist services will provide you with multi-lingual support and with having them work on a 24/7 basis. You can rest assured that no call or inquiry goes unanswered, even when it is not business hour.
In a nutshell, virtual receptionists act as the first line of communication for businesses, one that conveys professionalism and ensures the provision of superior customer service, without the associated financial burden of in-house full-time employees.
Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Receptionist
Virtual Receptionist can be an incredibly beneficial service for businesses looking to improve their communications, support their customers and save money. As the focus on customer service has become a greater priority for businesses, so has the increased value of virtual receptionists regardless of the industry. Here are a few of the main benefits:
- 24/7 Customer Support: One of the major benefits is that they are available 24 hours a day. Most virtual receptionist services are available 24/7, so your clients are always being listened to. Yes, even on weekends, holidays and after hours.
- Cost Savings: Rather than hiring a full time, in-house receptionist, with salaries, benefits, and cost of building overheads, companies can subscribe to a virtual receptionist service which costs only a portion of the running of anything.
- Professional Representation: These professionals help ensure that each caller is greeted with a friendly, informed voice projecting a professional image for your firm and improving caller satisfaction.
- Scalable Service: And as you take on more calls, virtual receptionist services can scale up to accommodate increased load without needing to provision or train new staff.
- Multilingual Capabilities: A lot of services provide bilingual receptionists, so that you can reach out to a wider audience of non-English speaking customers.
- Appointment Management: They can help maintain schedules, schedule appointments, provide reminders, and even set up cancellations/rescheduling.
- Efficient Call Handling: From message, taking to call screening and routing, they make sure your team only deals with the calls that need immediate attention, minimizing distractions and maximizing productivity.
- More Time for Core Work: And because reception duties are managed for you, your internal staff will be able to concentrate on what they do best, whether that’s sales, operations or strategy.
List of Top Virtual Receptionist services
In such a fast paced digital world today, a missed call could ideally result in losing a prospective customer. In reality, 85% of people who don’t get in touch with a business the first time they try aren’t going to call again.
It’s the reason why finding the right virtual receptionist service is so important, to help ensure your business maintains its professional image. Also, to make sure no potential leads linger unattended.
1. Helplama
Pricing: $399/month or $0.70/minute for pay-per-call services.
Helplama is a U.S.-based customer support outsourcing company, located in Walnut, California. They focus on dedicated virtual receptionist services customized for various types of businesses, such as e-commerce, SaaS, and hospitality. Their representatives are skilled at adopting your brand voice and processes so customers receive consistent and professional service at every touchpoint.
Key Features:
- 24/7 Live Receptionists: Round-the-clock support to ensure no call goes unanswered.
- Customized Call Handling: Agents trained on your specific products, policies, and customer interaction data.
- Omnichannel Support: Coverage across phone, live chat, email, and social media platforms.
- Flexible Pricing: Offers both flat-rate plans starting at $399/month and pay-per-call options at $0.70/minute.
- Bilingual Support: Catering to a diverse customer base with multilingual capabilities.
Helplama’s strategy focuses on developing lasting partnerships with clients and they provide you with a dedicated agent to be an extension of your internal team. Their dedication to flexible and personalized solutions makes them an excellent partner to businesses who are looking to improve their customer support needs.
2. Jill’s Office
Pricing: $39/week
Many small businesses choose to use Jill’s Office to keep a professional appearance while never dropping a call. They offer excellent virtual receptionist services whether you require 24/7 or after-hours receptionist service. Jill’s Office makes it possible for you to capture more leads and enhance customer service.
All receptionists are based in the U.S. and receive customized training in delivering a quality experience. The custom mobile app will keep you in the loop while on the move, so you can monitor activity, on the go.
3. Pink Callers
Pricing: Contact the sales team for a quotation
Pink Callers provides fractional CSR services specific to home service companies with seven-figure revenue. It tackles customer complaints on the initial call, veers into CRM appending territory and also monitors sites such as Facebook, as well as Angi and Home Advisor.
This service is a bona fide extension of your business, making it simple for you to manage calls, social messages, and online leads.
4. Ruby Receptionists
Pricing: $24/month
With more than 20 years’ experience, Ruby Receptionists is a recognized leader in turning conversations into connections and connections into clients! Ruby’s open 24/7 and peaks out high and low call volume times with a friendly, professional greeting that makes the difference between a lost opportunity and a loyal customer, and gives a premium feel to your brand.
The receptionists are well-trained in dealing with conversations and they do their job professionally, chat to them and it feels like chatting to an extension of your business, with special tools allowing them to tap a local phone book and business-specific information.
5. Nexa
Pricing: Contact the sales team for a quotation
Nexa provides virtual receptionist services to enhance customer satisfaction over various platforms of communication. On top of 24/7 live answer services, they offer bilingual assistance, live chat and support for texting, which makes it a great choice for those businesses which want to see the best possible results in terms of conversions and reach.
Nexa has the advantage of real-time messaging and lead capture that makes it ideal for digital-heavy customers.
6. Posh
Pricing: $65/month
Posh provides 24/7 virtual assistant service to businesses who are looking for more than the average receptionist service. Fully based in Virginia Beach, the Posh team doesn’t outsource calls, guaranteeing top-notch interpersonal actions from specialists who know your brand.
You even have the flexibility to determine exactly how you want your calls to be managed – around the clock or just during the night.
7. Abby Connect
Pricing: $329/month
Abby Connect combines AI technology with real humans to ensure that calls and live chats reach a friendly, efficient secretary service. The aim is establish an effortless, customer journey that leads to the growth and retention of their trade.
Each client has their own team of friendly receptionists who become your own personal receptionist.
8. PATLive
Pricing: $235/month
PATLive has a rich history of more than 30 years providing U.S.-based virtual receptionist service. Voted by Forbes as the “Best Virtual Receptionist Service of 2023”, this one’s as flexible as it gets: pick up all of your calls, just overflow calls, or only at certain times.
With bespoke call scripts and a reliable team, PATLive helps you to provide consistent, brand-friendly service.
9. Grasshopper
Pricing: Custom pricing
Grasshopper is a more sophisticated phone system that provides live receptionists to small businesses. It can look after customer communication just that little bit more effectively. Also provides perks such as unlimited minutes, custom greetings, and local or toll-free numbers to choose from.
Grasshopper’s virtual receptionists add a human touch to your business, improving your first impressions and customer service.
10. Smith.ai
Pricing: $292.50/month
Smith.ai is an AI-driven virtual receptionist services for businesses that can effortlessly handle calls, chats, texts and even social media messages. Known for its expert team and unified communication strategy, Smith.ai is more than an answering service.
It filters out incoming inquiries, adds a date to your calendar and CRM to rendezvous with these inquiries, and with follow up texts and emails that improve engagement and responsibility.
The platform’s client dashboard provides in-depth call analytics which also details the intent of the caller, the caller outcome and priority, and predictive insights on business growth and ROI. Smith.ai also assists with reducing lead response time by enabling you to place outbound calls directly from the system, whether it be to follow up with leads, chase invoices or engage with donors.
Virtual Receptionist Pricing
Virtual receptionists can serve as a less expensive option to hiring full-time in-house employees. Something that may make them very appealing to businesses looking to optimize the first tier of their customer communication effort.
Indeed, with the overall virtual receptionist service market predicted to hit $25 billion by 2029, many firms are tapping into these solutions to deliver a 24-hour professional customer experience.
Here’s a quick overview of common virtual receptionist services and what they typically cost:
- Call Answering: Most basic plans range from $250 to $400/month, including answering, call transfer, and basic business information.
- Outbound Calling: Services like appointment reminders or lead follow-ups are usually billed $20–$30/hour.
- Call Recording: Frequently included in packages, but standalone pricing averages $1/minute.
- Call Scripting: Helps maintain consistency across conversations; expect to pay $15 to $99/month depending on complexity.
- Appointment Scheduling: Typically billed $1–$5 per appointment, especially when synced with calendar software.
- Order Processing: Available for $50 to $100/month, depending on the order volume and business type.
- Message Taking: If offered separately, this service often costs $10 to $15/month.
- Live Chat Support: An increasingly popular feature, live chat services start at $100 to $150/month, based on availability and coverage hours.
The total cost will vary and much of that will be determined by things like the services you choose, availability (business hours vs 24/7), and whether you select dedicated agents or shared receptionist models. Yet when used thoughtfully, virtual receptionist services are an effective solution for lowering overhead, leveling up response times, and greatly improving the customer service experience.
Conclusion
Choosing the best virtual receptionist services is essential for businesses that want to ensure professionalism, round-the-clock availability, and increased customer satisfaction. According to industry research, 80% of callers who don’t reach a live person won’t leave a voicemail. This highlights how crucial it is to have a reliable receptionist service in place.
From all-in-one solutions like Smith.ai to personalized, industry-specific support from Helplama, the options in this list cover a wide range of business needs. Each of these top-rated services can help you enhance brand credibility, capture more leads, and provide exceptional customer experiences. By partnering with one of the best virtual receptionist services, you’re not just answering calls—you’re unlocking new growth opportunities for your business.
