A Better Virtual – USA Virtual Offices

The demand for virtual office is surging in New York, London, China and beyond. Now, Regus is offering some numbers to prove it.

Regus is reporting a 30 percent increase in the demand for virtual office services in the last 12 months in London. What’s driving the rising demand for virtual offices? Regus attributes the uptick to home-based and small businesses looking for workspace support that is low-cost, low-risk and can dramatically increase productivity. And those are indeed the core promises of virtual offices.

“With the economy still weak, small businesses are acutely aware of the need to control spending,” says Celia Donne, regional director at Regus. “Virtual offices offer home businesses, start-ups and companies entering the UK market the benefits of a staffed office—such as a professional business address, and a professional receptionist to answer the phone—without the expense, risk and management time of setting up a physical presence.”

Although definitions vary slightly across the industry, Regus outlines virtual office services as a package that includes a business address to use on company stationery, dedicated local phone number and receptionist to answer calls, mail collection and handling, and access to private offices or meeting rooms.

Regus says some companies use their virtual office as a permanent arrangement. Others use it as a staging post, before they expand to a physical presence.

“Using a Regus virtual office gives me a prestigious, city center business address, without the inconvenience of setting up an office there,” says Huw Williams, Proprietor of Belfast-based Powerline Compensation Ltd. “I can work on the move, wherever I need to be, or take the day off, secure that someone will answer the phone and take mail deliveries.”

Regus also reported a 15 percent increase in demand for virtual office services in the first six months of 2011 in the UAE, compared to the previous six months July to Dec. Joanne Bushell, Regus vice president for the Middle East and Africa, “Even though the economy in UAE is recovering, small businesses are acutely aware of the need to control spending.”

Do you operate a home-based franchise? Then the virtual office space could be your new best friend in a tough economy.

Some entrepreneurs are opting for home-based franchises rather than building a start-up business from scratch. But that doesn’t mean they can afford to make anything but a sterling first impression on their new customers.

Let’s face it. It can be costly to buy into a franchise system, even though the eventual dividends can pay nicely. Using your residential address for your home-based franchises—whether it’s a house cleaning service, a consulting service, pest control, a jazz instruction service, or some other type of service where you can run the administrative side of the business from home and do the actual work at client sites—is not always the smartest move.

Using a residential address means clients could show up at the front door of your home, and that may be inconvenient even if they just want to thank you for your stellar service. Using a virtual office address, on the other hand, safeguards your home front from unwanted (even if they are friendly) visitors and also offers you a prestigious business address that makes a lasting impression.

“It’s fine buying a well-known franchise instead of starting a business from scratch,” says Opus Virtual Offices CEO Yori Galel. “But when it comes to franchisees operating from home, the ball can be really dropped. Big fees are paid for a turnkey business, yet the franchisee’s address and home phone are exposed. For only $99 a month, a virtual office offers a solution respecting professionalism and privacy.”

A virtual office program from Opus includes a corporate mailing address with corresponding business phone and fax numbers to keep that residential address and phone private, Galel continues. It includes state-of-the-art technology converting voicemail and faxes to e-mail to be addressed when convenient.

As Galel sees it, give a franchisee’s customers the opportunity to speak to a real person or leave a message, and the choice is clear. That’s why the company offers courteous, trained receptionists answer calls during a full range of business hours.
And prompt communications with a live person can ensure a sale is made. A virtual office system complements the strengths and weaknesses of home-based franchises perfectly. And much more than pays for itself in increased revenue.

TaskRabbit. Now this is a novel idea. It’s an online venue for virtual assistants and then some. After all, not all tasks are virtual.

TaskRabbit bills itself as a way to get you in touch with friendly, reliable people who can help you get just about anything you need done, and put some free time back in your life.

Here’s how it works:

1. Post a task. It doesn’t cost you anything, and you can post just about everything. For example, right now TaskRabbit users have posted tasks like: Interview transcription need, PDF to Excel data migration, online research, editing a blog post, party assistance, pick up pre-paid dry cleaning, and door person for party. Although many of the posts are for virtual office type work, TaskRabbit brings the virtual assistant into the real world for real world tasks.

2. TaskRabbits make offers. After you post your tasks, people, also known as TaskRabbits, make offers. All TaskRabbits have undergone background checks. And they are all bidding against each other so you can choose the lowest price if you’d like.

3. Pay when task is done. You can pay TaskRabbit online. No cold hard cash changes hands. TaskRabbit says most tasks are completed for $20 to $30. Of course, TaskRabbit takes its cut and they pass on the rest to the virtual assistant.

Although there are a lot of personal tasks on the list, there’s a special area called TaskRabbit for Business that specializes in all the office stuff, like filing documents, cleaning the office dishes, helping organize office supplies or a storage closet, or providing customer feedback. You can rent an executive assistant for half a day, for example, or get someone to stuff envelopes. The possibilities are virtually endless.

The only downside is TaskRabbit isn’t in too many places yet. So you can outsource a lot of tasks, but only if you live in Boston, New York, Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago and Orange County. TaskRabbit promised to add Portland and Seattle soon, and the concept seems to be growing.

BOCA RATON, FL-Listen up contractors. Your competitors may be winning customers that you aren’t reaching through the use of virtual office technologies.

Indeed, electricians, plumbers, roofers, pool cleaners, painters, and other individual service contractors who are using virtual offices from Opus Virtual Offices are reporting an uptick in business. That’s because virtual office services can help you manage your office work flow and boost your professional image to your customer base.

Despite the economic downturn, an in-house survey from Opus Virtual Offices shows that contractors who are using virtual offices are seeing sales improvements—some of them are even seeing double-digit improvements. With news like that, you can’t afford not to check out how virtual office services can help you streamline your operations and present your best business face.

“Service industry contractors are some of the most loyal users of our virtual offices,” says Yori Galel, CEO of Opus Virtual Offices. “An independent electrician or plumber, for instance, doesn’t have enough hands to be bothered with details of managing an office, and this showed that our contractor clients were not only pleased with the Opus program for convenience, but that it also translated into increased sales.”

What are the benefits to an individual contractor who works from home? Some of them are obvious. Consider the inconvenience—and even danger—of trying to answer the phone while working on high ladder or under a sink. Or what about the painter trying to grab his cell phone with a spackling tool in one hand and paint all over the other? It’s a mess in the making.

Also, consider the image you give off when you use your home address or a P.O. Box on your business card. And what about the business you lose by mismanaging the administrative work? Get the picture?

With a virtual office, you can opt for virtual receptionist services that answer your calls professionally, and take personal messages across a wide range of business hours. You’ll also get a business phone number with a pre-recorded message, fax number, and premium call forwarding are included. Voicemail and faxes convert seamlessly to email. Oh, and let’s not forget the corporate mailing address that keeps your home life private.

Of all the industries that could benefit from virtual office services, independent contractors is one of the strongest matches. And for as little as $99, it’s an easy expensive to justify if you are trying to spruce up your business image and productivity.

You are a virtual office users. You have a smartphone, a laptop (maybe even an iPad). You work from your home office much of the time, but you’ve been considering coworking facilities, especially during your business trips.

You need help. You are using a virtual receptionist, but the traditional virtual assistant doesn’t really have the skill sets you need to get the job done. What’s a mobile entrepreneur to do?

A Better Virtual is kicking off a series that looks at some of the best outsourcing sites where you can find freelancers to handle specific tasks. Today, we’ll explore TaskArmy, which bills itself as “frictionless outsourcing.”

TaskArmy takes the notion of a virtual assistant to new heights. The site lets you search for freelancers who provide 635 services that will improve your Web site, from logos to WordPress to SEO and beyond. There’s no bidding, a safe online payment mechanism, and the promise of quality programmers.

“Today TaskArmy focuses at fixing the outsourcing of tasks as opposed to projects. A task is ‘I need an icon done for my iPhone app,’ a project is ‘I need an iPhone app,’ says Aymeric Gaurat-Apelli, founder of TaskArmy. “Because of that, we can put the focus on services rather than jobs. You need a new WordPress website? Search for ‘wordpress’ on TaskArmy and you will find all the WordPress related services that freelancers can do for you at a fixed price. It is as easy as going to the supermarket.”

Of course, you can also find a good old fashioned virtual assistant at Task Army, as well as voice over artists, translators, illustrators, tax assistance, book designer, and, well, many other sorts of virtual work support. TaskArmy promises to screen all service providers before you ever see them.

“Having lower prices is not the priority on TaskArmy. We don’t encourage the freelancers to push their prices down, we banned the bidding system you see on all the outsourcing websites because it is an abomination,” Gaurat-Apelli says. “Anyway, another way TaskArmy reduces that gap is by focusing on details. Every single notification you will get from TaskArmy, you will be able to reply to directly from your e-mail client. This is big because it means that you are now working with your outsourced team members the same way as with your employees.”

Follow Task Army on Twitter.

WASHINGTON, D.C.-Virtual law offices are making headlines again.

The Washington Post tells the tale of a “nonconventional law practice” that’s making inroads in the Washington, D.C. market. The story features Axiom Law, a legal services provider that’s billing about half the going rates of its larger law firm counterparts by tapping into virtual office technologies.

“Axiom is not technically a law firm: its attorneys don’t do litigation or give legal advice. But they do offer lower rates (typically between $150 and $275 per hour) for project-based work on transactional matters, contracts and regulatory and compliance-related research—the type of work businesses want done by experienced, skilled attorneys but don’t want to pay big firm rates for,” writes Catherine Ho, a reporter at the Washington Post.

Axion Law is essentially a virtual law office—and this virtual office-based law firm has clients like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse. Most of the attorneys in the firm are pulling in $200,000 a year in salary. If that doesn’t give credibility to the virtual law office trend, what does?

Then there’s Burton Law LLC, a Centerville, Ohio-based virtual law firm that’s planning to move one of its attorneys to Washington, D.C. later this year to establish a new location. According to the Dayton Business Journal, the attorney that’s heading to D.C. expects to hire more lawyers in the capitol region to build a team there.

So it looks like the battle is on for virtual law firms in D.C. But D.C. is hardly the only place that’s seeing the rise and momentum of virtual law offices. This new model is spring up in cities across the country—and virtual office technologies are helping to make it happen.

These days, small business owners need to answer the phone when it rings—no matter where they are when it rings.

They key is to balance staying in touch with high roaming costs and business-grade quality. What’s more, dialing out from your smartphone shows your personal phone number rather than the corporate number, in many instances, and customers could get confused as to which number to call back.

Virtual PBX is aiming to solve all those issues with the latest enhancement to Virtual PBX Complete. Dubbed VoIP Anywhere, the new service lets small business owners use their smartphones and computers as VoIP handsets with business phone capabilities. That means you can use VoIP to reduce or eliminate roaming charges from anywhere in the world—and outbound calls use your corporate caller ID info.

“Our launch of Virtual PBX Complete has generated tremendous demand from our customers. As they embrace our system, they are increasingly seeking the freedom to access their VoIP business features on any device, wherever they are,” says Greg Brashier, COO of Virtual PBX. “By introducing Virtual PBX Complete with VoIP Anywhere, we are delivering that freedom and flexibility to carry their business extension anywhere in the world.”

Clients travelling internationally, for example, often can access Wi-Fi from their branch offices or hotels. By using their smart phones as VoIP phones, they can receive business calls with no roaming charges and get a U.S. dial tone to make outbound calls. That equals huge savings over international dialing rates.

As with any Virtual PBX-branded solution, you can access VoIP Anywhere capabilities using any standard softphone, such as those available for Android phones, iPhones and computers. VoIP Anywhere also allows these devices to appear as VoIP extensions in the Virtual PBX system, so calls to and from the softphone have full access to all system features, such as business caller ID for outbound calls, call recording, call transfers, presence management and reporting.

What do you get when you cross LiquidSpace with Cloud Virtual Offices? A new way for business centers to expand their marketing reach to mobile workers.

LiquidSpace is a mobile application that helps office users find the space they need to work. Cloud Virtual Offices provides virtual office solutions to mobile workers across North America. Now, they are teaming up to tap into the mobile workforce.

“LiquidSpace is not just a cool mobile app or a slick online reservation system for conference rooms,” says Laurent Dhollande, CEO of Cloud Virtual Offices. “It is a comprehensive system which the entire business center industry needs to embrace in order to address mobile workers’ growing demands.”

Here’s hot the new partnership works: Cloud Virtual Office is encouraging all locations it partners with to put inventory into the LiquidSpace mobile app. That will make a variety of workspaces available for booking in real-time via the Web or mobile phone. Currently, Cloud Virtual Offices partners with hundreds of business centers in more than 25 states.

For its part, LiquidSpace has agreed to develop unique new features that address a business center’s specific needs. Cloud Virtual Offices, meanwhile, is developing back-end reporting and a support infrastructure to make it easy for the business center industry to adopt the technology. The app and the support infrastructure will be free to Cloud Virtual Office clients.

“With the help of Cloud Virtual Offices we are addressing a clear mandate for nimble workspaces and frictionless, mobile working,” says Mark Gilbreath, co-founder and CEO of LiquidSpace. “It also happens to be a huge market opportunity. Cloud Virtual Offices is an ideal partner that understands the need for real-time, accessible workspace and has the ability to deliver integrated solutions to the larger business center industry.”

A huge market opportunity indeed. IDG reports there are more than 1 billion mobile workers globally. And that number is only expanding. As it does, there will be an even greater need for corporations to develop goals to reduce occupancy costs, increase productivity, reduce carbon footprint and outsource activities to individual contractors and freelancers.

“This in turn will help us package new, network-wide offerings to benefit a wide range of mobile workers and their corporate sponsors, which is why we are making a significant investment in this exclusive partnership,” says Dhollande. “The barriers to adoption are very low, and yet the upside is significant.”

Here’s a cool virtual office technology. Universal Online Magic just launched a functional beta of VisualHQ, a new breed of web apps that creates a photorealistic virtual corporate headquarters so you can collaborate face-to-face with remote customers.

VisualHQ allows a company, whether composed of remote staff, local staff or a combination of both, to work together in a realistic-looking executive environment. The software offers an always-on webcam connection for personal and group meetings, presentations and collaboration, according to James Auld, president of Universal Online Magic.

“The software also allows a company to invite customers or clients into the environment with one click of an e-mail link — to provide for live, immersive client service,” Auld says. “VisualHQ has a small footprint, leveraging existing PC and Mac hardware and webcams.”

How is VisualHQ different from similar virtual office solutions? For one thing, it doesn’t mandate a real-time 3D video game interface to power it.

“Using photo-realistic, high-definition 2D imagery increases the professionalism of the environments and eliminates the motion sickness that is commonly experienced with real-time 3D,” Auld explains. “No company would want its clients or customers to feel like they were playing a video game. Quite the contrary—our clients want their customers to meet with them face-to-face in a beautiful space complete with ambient sound and stunning visuals, while maintaining a professional corporate feel.”

Auld paints a vivid picture: Imagine inviting clients by e-mail to a meeting scheduled within your VisualHQ space. They arrive in a reception area and are met face-to-face with a live receptionist. At the appointed time, the receptionist leads the group down the hall to the assigned meeting room and you begin your meeting. That, he said, is the VisualHQ experience.

VisualHQ also offers a realistic metaphor whereby users can schedule a meeting in a meeting room or office within the environment, then bring presentation folios. Each presentation folio contains an unlimited number of images, music, sounds, videos and PDF documents for sharing with the group.

So what’s it going to cost you? If you get in on the beta phase, you can pay a one-time fee of $450 for a program that allows 15 staffers and 15 guests. Once the program rolls out of beta, it will cost $120 a month. The software is browser-based, so it works with PCs, Macs and tablet computers.

You’ve heard it said that brown is the new black. Now, there’s a rumor rolling around the virtual office world that 60 is the new 40. Imagine that.

The point is, the first wave of Baby Boomers still think and act like Yuppies. But that’s not stopping the downsizing companies from targeting these older workers or politely pressuring them to retire early.

And here’s the rub: Many of these Baby Boomers aren’t read to retire. With the economy the way it is, they may need to keep working. And with the stock market losses, they may have to. Others may just not be ready for Golden Pond yet. And still others may just have an entrepreneurial bug.

For all these reasons, Opus Virtual Offices is targeting Baby Boomers during this season. The virtual office company’s self-stated goal is to help this generation discover and leverage virtual offices so they can “profit and grow for years to come.”

“We’re committed to assisting laid-off baby boomers transition into new careers as entrepreneurs,” says Yori Galel, CEO of Opus Virtual Offices. “Virtual offices can give them the tools they need to present and conduct their business professionally for only $99 a month.”

So what types of entrepreneurial ventures are Baby Boomers pursuing? And what type of small business lends itself to using virtual office space? The possibilities for businesses based in a virtual office are endless: sales, accounting, consulting, financial, or legal services, and so on and so on.

Virtual offices are the ideal solution because they represent a complete business systems that leverages the latest technology to create flexible online workplaces. Virtual offices give a business an impressive corporate address with business phone and fax numbers. Virtual offices add to the air of professionalism while keeping personal residential addresses and phone numbers private.

The list of virtual office communications solutions is endless. Fax and voicemail now converts to e-mail. You can opt for premium call forwarding or live receptionists answering calls. You can even hire virtual assistants to help you handle the overflow. With more Baby Boomers starting their own business, virtual office solutions can be the ideal solution.