A virtual office is an office without a physical location where staff work remotely from home using online and communications technology.
In this post, I’ll talk about why I decided to go with a virtual office and provide you with tips on how you can create your own.
After assessing the pros and cons for my type of business, I found a lot of pros for going virtual and not a lot of cons.
My company licenses our solution to associations and we also run our own career sites – BCjobs.ca & Albertajobcentre.ca. All of our business is done online.
Thanks to great staff, great contractors and proper reporting, I’m able to keep track of sales, marketing, web development and day-to-day operations quite easily right from my home.
Benefits for running a virtual office:
- Online technology is more cost effective than running an internal office network
- VOIP phones and hosted PBX systems cost less & have better features than analog phones and hardware PBX’s
- We save money on overhead such as rent & hydro
- My staff and I are happier working from home
- I can write off a portion of my mortgage
- Staff save money personally by not driving to work, plus, it’s better for the environment
- I can work in my pajamas – Awesome!
If the idea of a virtual office appeals to you, here are some simple tools that will help you get started.
First, let me say that the most important thing is communication. You need to be able to communicate effectively with clients, staff and contractors. You also need to make it easy for your clients and potential clients to contact you.
E-mail Communications:
For our e-mail, we went with a company called Mailstreet. Mailstreet is a hosted exchange server that costs under $10 per month for each mailbox. It offers the full functionality of Microsoft Exchange including:
- Synchronization with Blackberry through their enterprise server
- Shared calendar between staff
- Shared contacts
You might also want to consider using Google Apps. Gmail is an excellent web based e-mail program that I currently use for this site. They also just announced integration with Blackberry Enterprise Server so you can synchronize your phone and e-mail in real time.
Phone Communications:
I recommend a hosted PBX phone system. These systems offer:
- Dial staff by extension (phones can be plugged in anywhere there is a decent internet connection)
- Transfer calls
- Auto-attendant
- Set up shortcut keys – e.g. press one for sales, two for support, three for accounting
- Voice mail e-mailed to you as a *.wav file. I can listen to messages directly from my Blackberry – Très cool!
Broad Connect is the company that I use for our hosted PBX system. Switching to Broad Connect has reduced our phone costs by 40% month while increasing the overall functionality of our phone system. My only upfront cost to switch was buying new VOIP phones which cost me $120 a piece
Allstream and Shift Networks are two other companies that I found very comparable. For a more detailed list of providers in Canada and the US, check out voip-info.org.
Another option for those who don’t want to upgrade their home phones but are looking for a more professional appearance is My1Voice. With My1Voice, you get your own number (only 1-866, 1-877 and 1-888 numbers in Canada) and phone extensions that follow you to your cell, home phone or any other number you choose.
They have some great call management features like:
Auto-attendant
- Call-transferring
- Voicemail to e-mail
For a full list of features, visit their site and click on the features tab.
I tried their free 30 day trial and was very impressed with the features and easy-to-use web interface.
Instant messaging and video conferencing:
Use Skype to communicate with staff. Skype has some great features such as:
Instant messaging
- Computer-to-computer calls
- Video conferencing
- Cheap computer-to-phone long distance rates
- SMS to cellular phones
- Online phone numbers (not currently available in Canada
) - Voicemail
Using Skype for business is a great way to coordinate with local staff or internationally depending on your business.
In part two of creating a virtual office, I’ll be covering shared office space, project management tools, managing snail mail and much more.
In the meanwhile, if you know of any great tools for setting up a virtual office, please share them in your comments!
