Virtual offices seem to be all the rage at the moment. Everyone is talking about running their business using the latest technology like hot desks, telecommuting, mobile offices or virtual offices. With all these terms being thrown around it’s sometimes difficult to keep up with latest trends, buzzwords and technology so we’ve put together this informative article to explain in detail exactly what a virtual office is, if you might benefit from one and how they actually work.
Virtual Offices – an explanation
Many businesses these days don’t fit into the traditional scope of a building, with workers and rooms coming into an office, located at a physical address every day to work. Many people running businesses may have to travel, or they work from a laptop in different locations. There are many home based businesses or companies that have team members in different cities, states or even countries.
Given the wide and varied types of businesses with the advent of internet, email, chat, skype, online collaboration tools and the plethora of other online services have enabled to prosper, it’s no wonder a traditional, physical office setup doesn’t really suit.
Virtual offices – The office for when you don’t have an office
If your business doesn’t follow the traditional path or have staff that don’t actually come into an office, a virtual office can be incredibly beneficial. Now you may be asking yourself “so what exactly is a virtual office?” and here’s a brief explanation from our Managing Director Carol Bailey.
“Our virtual offices give businesses the opportunity to use our physical address close to the Brisbane CBD as their own address. They get a street address and a PO Box they can use on their website and marketing material, etc. We also offer mail management, phone numbers and reception services if needed and clients can utilise our meeting rooms if they ever need to meet with customers.”
So essentially a virtual office enables you to use our already established business address as your own company address. This is great if you want to have an office address close to the Brisbane CBD.
How does a virtual office work?
Many people when they hear the term virtual office address, virtual office business or virtual office services, think of an office based online (like Office 365, Gsuite or Zoho) but this is not the case. A virtual office doesn’t have anything to do with online tools or collaborating online. A virtual office address simply gives your business a physical address to use on your marketing material, website, business cards, etc. Here’s a rundown of how our virtual office services work.
Step 1 - Sign up
The first step is to sign up for a virtual office – once that’s done we will send you out some paperwork and get the ball rolling.
Step 2 - Choose your package
If you head over to our main website you will see some of the different virtual office packages we have on offer outlining the variety of additional services they offer. Look over them and decide which one best suits your requirements.
Step 3 - Receive Address Details
Once you’ve signed up for a virtual office we will send you all the information about our address, PO Box, communal fax number, etc. Once you have that and your virtual office application has been approved you now have a virtual office... well done!
Step 4 - Change your details
Now that your virtual office has been set up you can go ahead and change all your company information. If you had a home office address or PO Box on your company material, this can now be changed to our address in Milton.
Step 5 - Utilise our offices and training rooms
Now that you have your virtual office setup, you may from time to time want to work outside of the house, meet with clients or run training sessions at your new virtual address. This is where our additional services come in handy as we have dedicated offices, Shared Offices and training rooms that can be utilised for meetings, training sessions, board meetings or staff meetings.
Step 6 - Upgrade to a Serviced Office when your ready to have a physical office space
After some time of your virtual office being up and running and with your customers now used to your new location, why not weigh up your options and see if getting a dedicated serviced office could be a benefit to you. With a serviced office you can get all of the features you need in an office such as furniture, receptionists, WiFi and wired internet, VOIP phones, a kitchen and more for one simple price.
What are the advantages to having a virtual office?
This will depend on how you choose to use our virtual office services. The main benefit is having an address close to the Brisbane CBD that customers see on your company material. This is particularly handy if you work from home and don’t necessarily want customers coming to or knowing your home address.
The other advantage is the centralised address details if you have a team that’s spread over the city, state or country. Having a central address to use gives customers the sense of working with a solid business that’s established.
And finally, having access to our range of rooms, training facilities, conference rooms, reception and secretarial facilities when it comes time to meet or train your customers, you have an impressive, modern building to use with professional support staff and the latest tech.
So as you can see the name ‘virtual office’ can be a little misleading in that it doesn’t have anything to do with being online as such. Hopefully we’ve shone some light and clarity on to what a virtual office is, how they work and if you may benefit from one.
If you would like to know more about our virtual office services, please call us on 1800 629 143 or contact us.