AUTHOR ARCHIVES :

Beyond Office Hours: How a Virtual Receptionist can Help You Win More Business

A receptionist is essential to any growing business. The more time you and your front line staff spend talking on the phone when you could be working for your clients, the less money you’re making at the end of every month. This is a big problem considering there are only so many hours in the day to get everything done, and still ensure 100% customer satisfaction.

Calling customer service beyond office hour

A virtual receptionist adds a level of flexibility to your customer service plan, enabling you to take only the most important calls, and even allowing you to keep your phone lines open for calls long after the business closes for the day.…

Continue reading →

Freelancing Millennials: VAs are Your Besties

With the “gig” economy well underway, it’s a given that freelancing and other forms of entrepreneurship are the future of employment everywhere. Never has it been so obvious than now that the traditional J.O.B. is about to die a quick death over the coming next few decades. As machines take over most labor and many desk-based jobs, all of us mortal humans need to find ways to provide value to the marketplace and make money all on our lonesome.

Freelancing millennial in a cafe

Though current numbers are hard to find, this study from four years ago showed close to 40% of America’s workforce was freelancers at the time.…

Continue reading →

Virtual Office vs. Co-working Space: Which One is For You?

Answering the question in the title is like comparing a cherry to an avocado. While both belong to the same family, they’re very different and appeal to varying taste buds! Virtual offices and coworking spaces often get lumped together and confused for being essentially the same concepts.

However, as you’ll soon learn, each have significant differences and appeal to an entirely different type of entrepreneur.

Businessman in a virtual office

Virtual Offices

A virtual office space is much different cost-wise than a traditional brick-and-mortar leasing scenario. Businesses who rent them obviously benefit from having a legitimate business address in a commercial office space, as opposed to a home-based address with a residential address.…

Continue reading →

Virtual Office Services: What Separate The Great From The Good?

As a business owner, you know the different kinds of people you need to work with on a daily basis. Plus, you know about the different types of job profiles that these people need to handle to ensure the smooth workings of the company. But as time goes by and a company moves forward, the pressure of delivering quality products often clashes with the pressure of delivering quantity. And that is why it is important to use the fruits of technology which has made life easier in a business setting.

Using virtual office services

One such benefit of technology is the virtual office services which has allowed ambitious businessmen and leaders to set up their own business without the need for a full-fledged company space.…

Continue reading →

When do You Need to Hire a Virtual Receptionist?

Call handling is an important factor in the success of pretty much every business out there. When calls get missed, or a busy employee rushes a client off the phone, your reputation and revenues always suffer. Handling menial calls when you should be focusing on other aspects of the business also inhibits growth, making the need for a receptionist to handle calls essential to success.

Virtual receptionist

Virtual receptionists are fast becoming a popular option, particularly for virtual-based businesses, but also brick-and-mortars who don’t have the office space or budget to allocate space and resources for a non-virtual employee.

The business is getting call volumes you and your staff can’t handle

It should be obvious that when call volumes are spiraling out of control and you and your staff can’t effectively handle each call coming in, you need to hire someone to help take care of things.…

Continue reading →

Why Virtual Phone Number is a Must-Have for an Online Business

The idea of a business phone number without any physical lines attached to it is a relative new one. In days gone by, a business would have to pay their local landline provider a premium for access to unlimited long distance, and shell out thousands in initial costs for multi-line phones, IVR equipment and software, and other physical infrastructure needed to answer incoming calls.

Using a virtual phone number

Now, everything can be done on the Internet, using a virtual phone number that routes calls to whatever device you want to use when calls come in, to any member of your team that’s available to take the call.…

Continue reading →

Your Ecommerce Store HQ: Your Home, Rented Space or Virtual Office?

There are plenty of advantages and disadvantages to running your ecommerce business from home, but an argument can definitely be made for having a separate business address to display on your websites.

Home office space

A proper business address legitimizes your online operations, while comfortably insulating your personal life and family from the business itself. Not to mention, you don’t want angry customers showing up at your house when the postman drops and destroys the bright blue widgets they ordered from you!

A virtual office also offers benefits that both working from home or renting a full-time brick-and-mortar office do not. While the final choice will definitely come down to your own preferences, and the type of online store you run, you’ll find the advantages offered by each down below to help decide which option is right for you and your business.…

Continue reading →

CEOs: Here’s How to Run Your Business Virtually

The stigma behind running a business entirely in a virtual environment has now mostly disappeared, with so many large tech startups over the last ten years showing just how easily it can be done. Running a virtual business is certainly different from a brick-and-mortar model. However, with all the resources now available, anyone can do it.

CEO running her business virtually

Running a virtual business can offer significant benefits over a traditional offline setup:

  • Freedom: No worries about having to stay in the same place for too long. A virtual business can offer you the freedom to work from anywhere at anytime.
  • Minimal investment: No offices to rent or furniture to buy (when going the virtual office route.)
…Continue reading →

How Virtual Offices Can Help You Win the Cost Cutting Game

A virtual office offers benefits to businesses of all sizes, including small startups and large corporations looking to expand operations into new areas. The fact is that in the era of digital, there’s no reason to rent, furnish and maintain an expensive office location, when a virtual office offers all the advantages at a fraction of the cost.

Virtual office

A virtual office gives you a professional address to put on your business card; a place to receive mail, faxes, and even receive visitors; and a facility that’s open for you, your colleagues, and clients to conduct meetings in at your convenience.

Other advantages like virtual answering service and access to virtual assistants for pressing projects means you can, for instance, work in rural Thailand while maintaining your business’s headquarters on Bay Street in Toronto, or Silicon Valley in San Francisco.…

Continue reading →

SMB CEOs: Here’s Why You Should Use a Telephone Answering Service

While it isn’t necessarily true for all businesses, answering the phone is right up there on the list of the most challenging daily tasks to overcome. If you’re running a (busy) small business, this job is likely made even more challenging by the lack of staff available to answer the phones and do all the other things that are important to the success of the business.

Telephone answering service staff

Adding administrative staff to your business might not be financially feasible or even desirable (eg., lack of space, no time to train, etc.) Outsourcing this need to an outside answering service provider is often the only smart option for small business CEOs.…

Continue reading →