We sat down with Jeremy Hurewitz, Head of WelcomeWare, to discuss their recently launched live-stream receptionist service.
1.Describe what your company does in 256 characters
WelcomeWare® provides businesses with an integrated web-based platform that harnesses people, software, and hardware to deliver an all-in-one check-in, reception, and customer service solution.
2. How did you get involved in this industry?
Our parent company, Civicom, realized the need to provide businesses with a virtual solution to their hiring and turnover problems in front desk employment. COVID accelerated this opportunity, which eventually led to the creation of WelcomeWare.
3. What made you think of the idea/what inspired you to create your technology?
Civicom developed a safe way for their receptionists to work remotely at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. They realized the enormous potential to offer a virtual front desk solution to businesses that are struggling with the same problems, so they created WelcomeWare as a result.
4. How is this going to benefit people/society?
The WelcomeWare platform will help businesses reduce costs and improve customer service while providing employment solutions for hiring and reducing turnover among receptionists and front office staff almost anywhere in the world. In addition, one receptionist can cover multiple locations, creating greater efficiencies and assuring that someone is always there to help a customer in need.
5. What’s innovative about your company and technology?
WelcomeWare provides solutions that are custom-tailored for every client, regardless of location. Our software, hardware, and roster of dedicated remote receptionists are all very flexible and can attune to the needs of each of our clients.
6. How, in your opinion, has your industry changed in the past 5 years?
Before COVID, there were few options to transition the front desk to a virtual setup. Businesses had remained almost unanimously inclined towards in-person receptionists until the pandemic struck, which is when ideas of a virtual front desk – and WelcomeWare – eventually came to fruition.
7. What has COVID done to your company/industry? Has it been affected? Does your solution assist with the pandemic?
COVID drastically affected the customer service industry because it made face-to-face interactions highly unsafe due to the risk of transmitting the virus. This led companies to struggle in finding long-term receptionists to attend their front desks. WelcomeWare’s primary goal is to solve their problems by turning the front desk virtual, making customer service safe while retaining the functionality of receptionists.
8. Describe the future of your industry. What does the future hold? What is society going to look like?
We firmly believe that the customer service industry will make the virtual front desk ubiquitous in business. Companies and organizations will look to having virtual receptionists as the key to a successful front office, and being a virtual receptionist will become a viable career choice for anyone across the globe.
9. What plans do you have coming up?
We are aiming to expand our customer base to other lines of business, such as hotels and airports – currently, many of our clients are in the medical industry. We are also improving our software and hardware. Currently, WelcomeWare is able to greet customers, take data input and signatures, and capture IDs with Optical Character Recognition.
10. What would your advice be for people trying to get into your industry?
Never neglect your receptionists – they can be the key to launching your company to success.
Jeremy is the head of WelcomeWare, a new business within Civicom that provides virtual front desk solutions for companies worldwide. Before joining Civicom, Jeremy was a program manager at Bridgewater Associates and management consultant at ZS Associates. Jeremy holds an MBA from the Wharton School, and a BAS in engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.
