Managing calls while juggling site visits, proposals, and project deadlines can drain your engineering team’s time and energy. Although you can hire receptionists, managing additional in-house staff comes with additional expenses that include hiring and training costs, workspace setup, telephony systems, and more.

For a more cost-effective and efficient way to manage calls, streamline workflows, and deliver bilingual support without the huge overhead, consider hiring virtual receptionists.

Partnering with a reliable call centre like OCC lets you avoid costly overheads while ensuring responsiveness. They become your high-value, low-cost operational allies delivering remote support with professionalism.

Virtual receptionists aren’t just temps answering your phones. They serve as an extension of your front office, becoming one of the first touchpoints in customer service. Just like partnering with a 24/7 call answering service, they also manage your communication pipeline beyond office hours, keeping things running while your team is offline.

Let’s say a supplier calls at 7:30 AM with a delivery question. Your virtual receptionist can confirm site hours, check your preferred delivery window, and flag the call for your logistics lead well before your internal team has even logged in.

A properly equipped receptionist service would be able to do the following for your firm:

• Handle incoming calls in both English and French
• Screen and route urgent requests, such as on-site emergencies or permit delays
• Capture client intake details with precision
• Confirm appointments or consultations
• Answer basic inquiries on services, hours, or project timelines

Virtual receptionists can also follow customized workflows, such as previously set call handling tiers. They can, for example, flag and route calls as urgent (immediate escalation), routine (message capture), or admin (email follow-up). This keeps your engineers focused where they’re most valuable.

Bilingual receptionists as the first point of contact

In Canada, bilingual receptionists are necessary, especially if you provide services from coast to coast. Your receptionists must be able to switch from ‘How can I help you?’ to ‘Comment puis-je vous aider?’ the moment a caller says ‘Bonjour’. Otherwise, you risk friction right at the first point of contact.

Having receptionists fluent in both English and French also helps prevent miscommunication during technical inquiries and builds trust across cultural lines. Most importantly, clients who are able to communicate in their preferred language are more likely to feel satisfied with your services, ultimately becoming loyal customers.

Lower costs, better control: Why engineering firms are adopting

For engineering firms, call volume is often unpredictable, and standard office hours rarely match when clients actually call. That’s why many firms are doing away with full-time, in-house receptionists. Since virtual receptionists offer a more cost-efficient solution, many engineering firms are now adopting call centre services.

Say you run a six-person firm and get about 30 calls a week. Hiring in-house might mean paying someone for 40 hours when there’s only 15 to 20 hours of actual work.

A virtual receptionist, on the other hand, can handle the same workload efficiently and at a fraction of the cost. They can follow custom workflows, deliver detailed call logs, and triage what truly needs your time. However, you typically only pay for the minutes or call volume you actually use. That’s a measurable value as well as billable time saved.

Moreover, you have better control over the amount of support you need. You can make sure there’s someone to answer calls even after office hours. You can also ramp up with more receptionists during peak seasons or tenders, and scale down during lulls.

Finally, problems don’t just happen during business hours – they happen 24/7, and staffing 24/7 on your own is costly to say the least.  Adopting a call centre as part of your response team enables 24/7 coverage at a fraction of the cost.

Use cases from maintenance dispatch to client intake

What’s great about virtual receptionists is that they aren’t just for basic admin duties. Engineering firms across Canada are already putting them to use in niche, high-impact ways:

• Maintenance dispatch: Virtual receptionists can screen and route calls to your on-call team based on urgency and location.
• RFP & proposal inquiries: New clients calling about submissions get clear, consistent intake. This means no delays and no missed opportunities.
• Field team coordination: When technicians check in or report issues, a receptionist can log the call, alert supervisors, and send status updates.
• After-hours emergency calls: A pipe burst? Power outage on a project site? Virtual receptionists can get the right person on the line or on site fast.

Virtual receptionists can be a strategic asset for engineering firms in Canada. They help you stay lean and responsive while giving your clients and partners a consistent, professional experience from the very first ring.

At OCC, our call centre services are designed with the needs of technical teams in mind. Our bilingual receptionists are flexible, knowledgeable, and always on-brand. Many are trained in technical workflows and are familiar with industry-specific lingo. Your calls are handled intelligently, not just politely.

Ready to engineer your frontline for success? Let’s talk about what your virtual reception could look like—en anglais ou en français.