With internet connections getting faster every year and more and more people using the web to run their business, it’s little surprise that more businesses are looking to run their operations from home-based premises or from multiple locations via the internet.

Technology has enabled us to work in a virtual environment from pretty much anywhere around the country. Your team can be working in different states or cities and still be able to collaborate and work together like they’re sitting in a room together.

Whilst this ability gives flexibility to business – making them malleable, customers can sometimes be put off with having to deal with different people in different places, using different phone numbers and in a different time zone. This is where a virtual office can come into play.

What is a virtual office?

Think of it like this – if your website is your businesses presence online, a place where people can contact you, learn more about your services or find out email details, phone numbers, etc a virtual office is a place where people can call, send mail or leave messages for you in a real-world environment. Here’s how it works...

A Virtual office space offer a wide range of services from mailbox addresses, dedicated phone numbers, receptionist services and even message taking services. If you run a business from home, have a business that sees you travelling a lot, or you are an overseas business and need an Australian virtual business presence, a virtual office will help you consolidate all your messages, phone calls, etc whilst having trained professionals answering your calls, taking your messages and dealing with your physical mail.

Why are virtual offices a good idea?

There’s a wide range of different reasons people opt for a virtual office, here’s a few that we think make sense.

Increase your productivity
This is a very big advantage. There are several reasons why productivity can increase by running a virtual office. Firstly you can choose whether or not you want to get interrupted. With a professional receptionist answering your calls you can focus on your business without interruptions.

Reduce commute times
Having a virtual office means you eliminate the need for your partners or employees to travel (sometimes for hours) to work in a central office environment. They can work from home, a coffee shop or anywhere they can connect and do so to suit their own routine, timelines and hours. This helps increase productivity as they will have more time to focus on their work instead of what train or bus they need to catch next, where to get a park or how to avoid a traffic jam.

Reduce office costs
Rent, security, electricity, air conditioning, fit outs, tea and coffee, desks and furnishings all cost money. You can eliminate almost all of this with a virtual office these days – that’s going to save you much more than the cost of a virtual office so you’re pretty much guaranteed to come out in front.

Inner city address
Our virtual office services give you an inner city address without the cost of renting expensive office space in the heart of the city. All your mail can come to our centrally located offices where it will be managed for you.

No more office issues
Like the great Paul Kelly song says, ‘from little things, big things grow’ – working in an office environment can certainly sometimes exasperate this issue. Food going missing from the fridge, dishes piling up in the sink, water cooler talk and fellow employees venting, chatting or catching up whilst on the clock can all impact negatively on a business. With a virtual office this all goes away.

Good for the environment
Whilst this might not directly affect you or your workers in the here and now, not adding to road congestion, electricity use from trains, pollution from using your car, etc is a positive for the environment.

Cheap Meeting Room Hire
If your clients insist on meeting in person and you want to meet at somewhere nicer than your local Starbucks, you can feel safe in knowing that with a virtual office you can get access to a spacious and comfortable meeting space at an affordable rate. 

What is a virtual mailing address?

This is actually a misnomer as it indicates that the address is somehow in a virtual space. A virtual address is simply an address that you can use to have your mail sent to (instead of say, your home address).

In our case it would be our office location & PO Box

• Level 3/349 Coronation Drive, Milton QLD 4064
• PO Box 1843, Milton QLD 4064

What is a virtual receptionist?

When you sign up for a virtual office, you will be allocated with a phone number that you can use on your business cards, letterheads and email signatures.

This phone number is put into our system so that when customers call it, our professional and on site reception team will know that it’s a call for your company and can answer accordingly.

You can let us know how you would like our virtual receptionists to answer the calls – be it in a particular tone with a particular sentence or we can work to scripts you provide. Calls can be answered, diverted or messages taken – it’s up to you. Having a virtual receptionist gives you the ultimate flexibility.

What’s the difference between a virtual assistant and a virtual receptionist?

The only major difference between the two roles is that traditionally the virtual receptionist (like in a normal office) is a client facing individual and the assistant is not. The receptionist answers phone calls, books appointments, answers emails and deals with clients directly and the assistant works more typically in the back end of the business doing paperwork and filing. As the two roles are so similar we have opted to merge the two under the banner of virtual receptionist, with our virtual receptionists able to work under both role sets if required.

How long can I rent virtual office space for?

Depending on the company this will vary. From our perspective you can rent a space with us monthly if you like or get a discounted rate if you pay for your virtual office on a yearly basis.

What types of business use virtual offices?

Virtual offices are used by a wide range of different business types. We have many self employed people using our virtual office services and sole traders and small businesses frequently use us as their virtual office service provider.

Hopefully this article has outlined what a virtual office is and how your business can benefit from signing up to a virtual office service. 

If you want more information please check out our services page , This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or call 1800 629 143