Telecommunications

So, you’ve decided that owning your own business is no longer a dream for the future. It’s here and now. But so far, instead of being a seller, it seems that you’re just a buyer. And money is going out fast. It started with business organization costs and filing fees. Now you’re looking at costs of merchandise, advertising and printing. And what about an office, with telephone service, fax number and fax machine?

Today, most small businesses are starting at home. Many have found a new service called a Virtual Office, which is a bundle of all of the communication services you need to start and operate your business, and look like a successful and established business.

A Virtual Office starts with a telephone number. But what kind of phone number? If you only sell your products or services in your local area, then get a local phone number. But, if you do business regionally or nationally, then you should use a toll free number. Studies have proven that customers are far more likely to call a toll free number than they are to make a long distance call. Finally, if you do business internationally, get a phone number in the country in which you do business. You’ll look like a local company, or at least a company with a local office. An International Virtual Office service provider can give you a phone number in dozens of countries for the same per-minute cost of a US Toll Free number.

After choosing the correct phone number, you then need to consider what your callers will hear when they call it. Why are customers and prospects calling your number? The answer is almost always to talk with someone. Don’t just throw them off to voice mail. Your competition won’t. Ask your Virtual Office provider to add “Follow-Me”. That way, your calls will be transferred to your cell phone, so you can talk to callers wherever you may be. It’s a terrible feeling to call back a prospective customer and hear “No thank you. I’ve already hired someone else.”

You should think of your Virtual Office as more than just a phone number. It’s really a phone system and should have telephone system features, such as an Auto Attendant, station to station transfer and voicemail.

The Auto Attendant will transfer callers directly to the person or department that they’re calling. Station to Station transfer will allow you and your staff to transfer calls that you receive between each other, just as if you were in the same office. Voice mail should do more than merely take a message. It should call you and deliver the message to you, notify you that you have a message waiting, and deliver a copy of the message to your email, to be played on any Internet devise and saved on your computer until you delete it.

A Virtual Office would not be complete with being able to receive faxes. Today, fax machines are no longer necessary, because email fax service receives faxes which can easily be viewed, printed and saved right from your own email. Desktop faxing will also allow you to send faxes from your computer instead of using a fax machine.

There it is. For as little as fifty cents a day, you can have a complete Virtual Office, including a telephone number with advanced phone system features including Follow-Me, station to station transfer, voice mail, unified messaging and fax sending and receiving, so you can operate a world class business from your computer and cell phone.