A Better Virtual – USA Virtual Offices

Black Friday. Cyber Monday. Whatever your mark, the holiday shopping season is in full swing—and for many small businesses December can account for more sales than five slow months put together.

With that in mind, doesn’t it make sense not to waste a single opportunity? You don’t have to when you opt for virtual office solutions. Live answering services are one of the best ways to avoid missing calls for orders on your products or services during this busy time of the year.

Indeed, companies that put live answering solutions in place before the holiday rush are positioning themselves to generate extra sales during this peak sales period.

“The holidays are a critical time to be open for business and live answering services makes that possible,” says Jay Reeder, president and CEO of VoiceNation. “Consumer shopping elevates during the months of November and December when most people like to take time off.”

Reeder makes a good point. Live receptionist services can help drive additional revenue by essentially keeping its doors open for additional holiday sales at a time when owners may want to take a break. Live answering services also offer clear benefits to traditional voicemail for companies that may be closed altogether during the holiday break.

If you work with a reputable company that has trained and experienced live receptionists, they can act as an extension of your company to make sure every call is answered professionally and forwarded to the appropriate person via e-mail, text or fax. If you are shutting down completely, they can offer callers details on specifically when to expect a callback.

Wouldn’t you rather spend time with the family than sit in the office answering phones?—and do it without missing any sales calls? With live answering services you don’t have to put your would-be customers through the inconvenience of leaving a message—and you can present a more professional image.

VoiceNation is definitely a reputable virtual PBX service. The company serves more than 40,000 customers, including FEMA, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, Dell, AIG and the U.S. Coast Guard. If it’s good enough for Dell, it’s probably good enough for your small business.

This is the time of year when many businesses get busier. From retail to service firms, the holiday season opens doors of opportunity for veteran businesses and startups alike. And virtual office space is answering the call for efficiency.

Indeed, small business owners are always eager to maximize income, slash expenses and present a professional image to their target audience. But the economy isn’t exactly booming, even with the holiday boost. That drives small business owners and entrepreneurs to search for the most economical solutions to not only survive but also thrive. Again, virtual offices fit the bill.

“This month has been just awesome for Opus and its clients as new business owners realize it’s a great season to begin experiencing the virtual office solution, and veteran business owners choose to add additional locations,” says Opus CEO Yori Galel. “Acquiring a virtual office now allows them to start off the new year with an established professional image for only $99 a month.”

Galel makes a good point. Looking beyond the opportunities to generate business during the holiday shopping season, the first of the year is just around the corner. It’s the perfect time to prepare for a new beginning—and for some small business owners that could mean virtual office space.

Think about it for a minute. A virtual office means you don’t carry overhead that could break the bank before you get out of the gate. You aren’t paying traditional office rent, utilities, furnishings, staff or other related expenses. But you are getting a prestigious business address, access to office facilities and conference rooms, and much more.

Some virtual office providers even offer local phone and fax numbers, premium call forwarding, fax and voicemail-to-email conversion, and live, professional receptionists who can take messages during a wide range of business hours. So what are you waiting for? If you are looking to make a good impression and leverage technology that will help you become more productive, a virtual office may be the perfect early Christmas present.

For international businesses, having a U.S. presence adds credibility. The U.S. market, after all, is still one of the largest economies in the world–recession or no recession.

But it can be expensive to set up shop in the U.S. In fact, until virtual offices came into the spotlight, international companies looking to establish a satellite office in the U.S. were bound by impractical costs. Virtual office technologies have changed all the rules.

Indeed, virtual offices pave the way for overseas companies to create a U.S. presence affordably and quickly. And it’s not just the prime business address, either, it’s a total solution that includes virtual office communications systems.

Opus Virtual Offices has made an innovative move to attract international companies looking to establish a U.S. presence by facilitating seamless overseas call forwarding using Skype. The Microsoft-owned company’s Voice over Internet Protocol services compliments Opus’ standing virtual office solutions, such as fax and voicemail that converts to e-mail, local phone and fax numbers, and live American receptionists who speak English as a first language.

“Opus offers international companies a complete virtual office solution. This includes Skype so calls are smoothly transferred to overseas clients, presenting them as in the U.S. office,” says Yori Galel, CEO of Opus Virtual Offices. Opus Virtual Offices start at $99 a month. You can get virtual office space for less or more than that from various virtual office providers. So check around for your city of choice and compare all the options before committing.

With a virtual office, businesses can choose a corporate mailing address in hundreds of major metros, like New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle and beyond. Virtual office technologies and communications systems let international companies do business in the U.S. without ever leaving their home country.

Do you need a little front office help? You may want to turn to Front Office Staff.

It’s an answering service that specializes in answering phones for the small business community. And it’s a franchised brand, which means the company is keeping things local.

Front Office Staff is a live receptionist service that provides our clients with top quality receptionist answering from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The company does business-to-business services focusing on inbound and outbound calls, and appointment scheduling. Front Office Staff has dedicated, trained customer service representatives that promise to consistently provide call handling services in a timely and cost effective manner.

Here is the specific list of services:

• Live Receptionist
• Receive Multiple Simultaneous Calls
• Call Screening and Forwarding
• Call Routing and Customized Greetings
• Redirect or Route Calls Anywhere
• Conference Call Hosting
• Voice Mail Boxes
• Voice Mail with E-mail Paging/Notification
• Flexible Capacity: Multiple voice-mail boxes and extensions.
• On Hold Music
• Follow Me Option
• Scheduling/Calendaring Appointments
• Auto Attendant After hours or 24×7

Vincent Tocco just opened a Front Office Staff answering service franchise. The office is located at 4205 N Winfield Scott Plaza in Scottsdale. Tocco says, “Small business customers want to speak to a live person and want to escape from phone technology.”

In addition to the new location in Scottsdale, Front Office Staff also has locations in Mesa, Arizona, Reno, Nevada and six shops in California, including Citrus Heights, Elk Grove, Folsom, Lodi, Natomas and Sacramento.

Another day. Another virtual office provider.

That may be an exaggeration, but the truth is virtual offices, virtual assistants, virtual receptionists, and generally all things virtual are on the rise.

New companies are launching virtual services of one kind or another on a steady basis. Large companies are rolling out new and improved virtual services just as steadily. And virtual office solutions providers are getting more creative with how they package virtual services and the trial offers they market. All of this is great news for small business owners, who benefit from the competition in the virtual office solutions marketplace.

The latest virtual office solutions provider I came across is from Down Under: Verdi Business Messaging. The Australian company has created an “all in one” virtual office package to support staff during busy seasons. The virtual office packages are custom fit for businesses that see large call volumes—and can’t keep up with the flow.

It’s an important service for businesses in Australia or anywhere in the world. How important? Verdi has some answers: A recent study shows the rate of unanswered calls to Australian businesses is at 7 percent and rising. Perhaps worse, businesses involved in the study were not even aware of these missed calls.

Verdi offers a guarantee that all inbound will be answered taking the rate of unanswered calls for Verdi customers to zero percent with its automated messaging service and auto attendant services.

The automated messaging service greets callers with a consistent message while the auto attendant service answers the call, delivers a short message, and connects them with the appropriate department or person. Verdi also offers 1300/1800 premium number services and fax-to- e-mail services to help your small business transition away from fax machines.

Verdi is offering a trial period of its services that lets small business owners see first hand how many calls they would have missed without the virtual receptionist service. Small business owners can see exactly what time of day the calls are being missed and what impact they could potentially make on revenue. If your business isn’t missing any calls, the trial service will show that, too. If you think you may be missing calls that could mean you are missing business, this is a good, no-risk way to find out.

Mobile workers are getting plenty of attention these days. Study after study shows how mobile workers there are, how many mobile workers there will be in the future, and what this new breed wants.

The latest study suggests mobile workers want mobile fax capabilities. That’s why eFAX just rolled out an Android app that makes it possible to manage and move documents anytime and anywhere you have a mobile Internet connection.

EFAX launched new app after seeing the results of a recent subscriber survey it conducted on the changing nature of fax. The survey shows 70 percent of participants believe mobile faxing will be an important or very important part of their business processes over the next five years. What’s more, nearly two-thirds of survey respondents have been in a situation where sending or receiving a mobile fax would have benefited their business.

“eFax continues to evolve right along with changes in the workplace,” says Mike Pugh, vice president, marketing of j2 Communications, the parent company of eFAX. “People that were once bound to their offices now do business on the move. Activities that were once limited to business hours are now done around the clock. The new eFax Android app—along with our iPhone and iPad apps—lets people close deals, place orders, get paid, and perform other common fax activities anywhere, any time.”

With the new Android app, you can accomplish five important mobile faxing tasks:

1. Create and send faxes: Take photos of documents and the app will enhance the images, attach multiple pages, and fax them out just like a fax machine.
2. View and search faxes: Quickly view and search all received faxes. Faxes are converted to searchable documents using optical character recognition technology.
3. Use cover sheets and contact lists: Create customized fax cover sheets and use the Android app (or device) contact list to easily populate them.
4. Tag and archive faxes: Add search tags to individual faxes and archive them for convenient access later.
5. Forward capabilities: Forward fax messages from your inbox as e-mails or faxes to anyone from anywhere.

“The new eFax Android app is fantastic. Not only do I save money, but I never have to worry about where I am because eFax allows me to receive and send faxes right from my smart phone,” says eFax customer, Robert Weller, Purchasing and Estimating at CEDC Construction. “It makes my life so much easier and gives me the freedom to be efficient in my position when I’m on the go.”

Home-based businesses are the breeding ground of many ambitious, bootstrapping entrepreneurs. You can slash your startup budget with virtual office, especially when compared to renting traditional office space.

Beyond the dollars and cents, a home-based business also gives you the freedom to work when you choose and spend time with your family as you see fit. It’s the ultimate freedom, which is what draws many to choose a home-based business as opposed to a corporate career.

But just because you run your fledging operations from the home front with minimal expenses doesn’t guarantee success. Indeed, there are unique challenges that go along with home-based business ventures. For example, answering your own phone can be distracting, and even unprofessional if you have family around.

What’s more, managing high call volumes can cause you to fumble deadlines. Handing out your home address and phone number can cause privacy issues. And giving a P.O. Box address doesn’t display a professional image.

The good news is you can overcome many of those challenges with virtual office technologies. An Opus Virtual Offices survey of 20 successful home-based entrepreneurs offers a unanimous verdict: advanced technologies associated with virtual offices hold the key to overcoming obstacles, increasing productivity and boosting sales.

Virtual offices are an elegant solution to the downsides of working from home. With cloud technologies, virtual office providers are offering complete and robust virtual office solutions that address many of the practical and technology needs of home-based businesses.

Virtual office packages, for example, can include an impressive corporate mailing address, corporate phone and fax numbers, live professional receptionists answering calls and taking messages, premium call transferring, and voicemail and fax to email conversion. Some virtual office providers offer all of this for as little as $99 a month.

It’s a pain to listen to voicemail, at least for me. I am so bad about checking voicemail on my cell phone, in fact, that I rarely take the time until I get that alert that says my voicemail box is about to reach 100 percent capacity.

Apparently, I’m not alone. Phone.com community manager Jeb Brilliant pointed to a similar phenomenon about other cell phone users—they avoid listening to voicemail. These days, you don’t always need to. There are so many services and even phone apps that transcribe your messages. But what about your cell phone voicemail?

Brilliant offers some tips on how to use Phone.com for cell phone voicemail, which means you can have your voicemail transcribed rather than having to dial in and listen. So if you are like me—and like Brilliant—listen up:

1. Add another phone number to your virtual office account at Phone.com.
2. Forward unanswered calls by entering *004*1xxxxxxxxxx*11. Brilliant points out that  the xxx represent the newly added Phone.com number.
3. Press send (or call, etc.).
4. Voila! All your missed calls on your cell phone number are forwarded to Phone.com versus your carrier picking them up.

Brilliant didn’t stop there…Did you know you can have all your incoming cell phone calls transcribed? Wow. What a great tool for virtual office users.

“Then I set up my new Virtual Office number to have all incoming calls go straight to voicemail. At this point you would have the option to have your calls transcribed, which I highly recommend,” Brilliant says. “It’s $1.50/month for automated transcription and ¢25/message (first 4 are free) if you want human transcription. This can be found in the settings section. Don’t forget to also set up notifications so you get an email (that includes the voicemail) and or a text message alerting you to a new message.”

What if you want to turn off call forwarding from your cell phone to your new Virtual Office number? Just type into your phone ##0004# and press send (or call, etc.).
Brilliant, Brilliant! Thanks for the advice!

Do you wish your days were longer so you could get more done and still have plenty of time to have fun? LongerDays.com aims to help you achieve both goals with virtual employee and virtual assistant services.

Unlike many virtual assistant providers that rely on cheap overseas labor, LongerDays.com has built its business on the concept that there is a market for quality, security and service that is only available via U.S.-based virtual assistants. The five-year-old virtual assistant company is proving its point with a growing business.

Here’s how it works: Rather than hiring a single part-time employee, which can be a risk for many small businesses and startups in a recession, companies that need help can hire a virtual assistant from LongerDays.com. A laundry list of virtual services are available, from administrative assistance and web design to ghostwriting and receptionists. It’s a perfect fit or your virtual office.

Hiring a virtual assistant is often more cost-effective for small businesses that need a variety of skill sets that a single person may not possess. By tapping into a labor pool of virtual assistants, companies can mine the skills they need from various virtual assistants. LongerDays.com likes to think of it as having a “super employee” that can do it all, even though it’s a team of virtual employees making it happen.

“You would not believe how good it feels to have those extra two or three hours each day,” Jay Thornton, a former contender for the U.S. Olympic team and owner of American Gymnast said during a 2010 interview about LongerDays for MiBiz Magazine. He added that the additional help he gets gives him more time to grow his business, which is up over 20 percent in revenue, compared to the previous year.

LongerDays.com is one of the largest providers of virtual assistance in America According to the latest survey published by the Virtual Assistant Networking Association. The company has been growing, acquiring new clients and employees, and garnering online buzz from their perch on the third floor of the historic Hovey House in Downtown Muskegon. You can check out LongerDays.com on WGVU’s Morning Show this November.

Check out LongerDays.com on Facebook.

UnOfficePhone. The name got my attention for sure. What is UnOfficePhone? As the company describes it, it’s a smart phone system for the entrepreneur on the go.

UnOfficePhone was launched in the spirit of coworking, community, collaboration, and unconferences. It’s a virtual PBX phone system that targets the startup, solopreneur, freelancer, entrepreneur, small business owner and non-profit organization.

“At UnOfficePhone, we believe in creative and collaborative ways to help you get big business returns without sacrificing your business’ individuality. We believe that innovative people need innovative solutions. That’s why UnOfficePhone offers smart and sustainable technologies for managing your personal and professional calling requirements,” the company says on its web site.

“Your phone forwarding, messaging, and features will be customized to fit you for mobility and professionalism, not the other way around! Customers can reach the right people in your business, and at the place and time you choose, and you can be assured you will never miss that important call. We help your business’ ‘back end’ and give you the tools to evolve your business.”

Here’s how it works: You pick your number, pick your plan and start receiving calls over the virtual PBX that gives you plenty of Fortune 500-style bells and whistles for only $9.95 a month. There’s no long-term contracts, but there are plenty of long-term benefits.

With your toll free or local number you can tap into features like an auto attendant, a custom main greeting, voicemail to e-mail transcriptions, on-hold music, conference calling, live receptionist answering, live call screening, and calendar scheduling.

The benefits are clear. Your small business looks bigger than it really is. You don’t have to give out your cell phone number to the general public. You can set your virtual PBX for day and night modes. You can enable find me and follow me features so you never miss a call. Getting the picture? Of course, all of these benefits are available with just about any reputable virtual PBX system you might choose. They aren’t exclusive to UnOfficePhone.

What’s different about UnOfficePhone.com is its style. It flows with the free spirited coworking concept, and its likely to attract the same types of folks who would frequent a coworking facility. That makes good sense since it’s powered by ThinkSpace, a popular coworking facility in Redmond, Washington.