Virtual Office Advice

[Weber]

We (2 of us) are due to launch our small project management consultancy practice, our plan is to build a small client portfolio over the next few years, with a steady but sure growth.

We will stay in our respective roles until then (both consulting at the moment), however we don't wish to incur office space costs until such a point that it's neccessary or viable.

Does anyone have experience of virtual offices in the Midlands, Warwickshire would be best.

We need:

1. An answering service in our company name or provided script
2. Ability to covert voice calls to emails and forward these on
3. Good quality meeting room hire
4. Inbound mail handling
5. Registered address

We have looked at the Regus options but pricing seems quite high, other options seem to have lots of hidden costs.

Whats the going rate for this type of service? My only concern is that if there is a lot of inbound cold calling (from sales and marketing companies) the telephone answering costs could spiral.

Cheers..

 

[aprilfloyd]

Hi

I used ereceptionist.co.uk as a free trial and it works fine, kept it after the trial.

You choose a phone number by geography.

I have clients all over, so this made more sense than having an office in a set location.

I also use meeting rooms with wifi and just book on an hourly basis for face to face meetings

 

[jonathansmith7890]

You can find virtual offices easily as many companies provide virtual offices on rent. You can also get meeting rooms at affordable prices.
Hope you find it useful.

 

[Talay]

Get your own phone number and redirect that to the VA. If you use their number and leave, you lose your business telephone number. VOIP redirect to landline is 1p a minute. The VA will probably ask you for around £5 a month to rent one of their landlines or offer you a free 0844/5 number which you seriously do not want.

You're obviously serious about this so look at an annual cost rather than the cost for any one piece of the jigsaw.

I, like you, worried over inbound call costs, so here you do need some flexibility. As ever, start lower and increase if required rather than being tied into a plan which exceeds your requirements.

 

[Dave45]

Hi there.

I am in the process of setting up a virtual office service. We are based in Walsall, which is probably outside of your desired geographical area but you're welcome to come and have a look round if you want to.

A business contact of mine has used the United Business Centre virtual office in Henley-in-Arden for meetings and presentations in the past, which has suited him just fine. I can't post the URL as I've only just joined this site.

Bear in mind that you don't necessarily have to use the same provider for meeting room hire as you do for the virtual office service, and that your virtual office/call and mail handler can be anywhere, so you can shop around for the call package. Most providers offer an inclusive package whereas some charge by the minute or by the second, which may be a better option to get you started as you can gauge your spend for the first month or two and find what represents best value for you (we'll be offering both).

Also bear in mind that some meeting room providers charge extra to use their wifi service, which really ought to come as included in the price.

Dave

 

[FirstClassVirtualOffice]

If you register your business phone number with TPS you will reduce cold calls dramatically, getting only the occasional calls. Some also will not charge you for cold calls if you register with TPS and give them permission to tell the cold caller not to call again on that basis.

I can recommend http://www.call-answer.co.uk for call answering. We do a virtual address/registered address service but as we are not in the Midlands perhaps no good for you.

 

[Weber]

Thanks for the advise everyone, I think we will get my own number and redirect to a VA as that gives me the flexibility to move on. We also want to stay away from 08xx numbers as I want an international +44 number on our business cards.

I know 08xx have a lot of flexibility in terms of mapping call plans but not great for mobile phone callers.

 

[FirstClassVirtualOffice]

We use Voipfone who are a UKBF forum member to buy phone numbers from and recommend to our virtual office clients

 

[BusinessTeam]

Hi

Great to see that you are seeking to set up a business.

You don't need to obtain the services you describe from a single provider. For example, you can obtain a virtual telephone number from a provider like www.voicehost.co.uk. You can find many answering services who don't charge for calls where messages are not left (we only charge for messages taken) and you can always register to exclude your business number from the Corporate Telephone Preference Service to remove your number from calling lists to reduce cold calls.

You might want to look at http://www.virtualofficedirectory.co.uk/ or alternitevely providers like www.firtsclassvirtualoffice.co.uk - whilst not in the area you outline you can obtain a virtual address and hire meeting space locally for client meetings.

If you need any assistance with call answering please do not hesitate to get in touch.

Best wishes

Richard

 

[cjd]

Thanks for the advise everyone, I think we will get my own number and redirect to a VA as that gives me the flexibility to move on. We also want to stay away from 08xx numbers as I want an international +44 number on our business cards.

I know 08xx have a lot of flexibility in terms of mapping call plans but not great for mobile phone callers.

We do 01 and 02 numbers for £2 per month. If you use a VA that also uses our services, the redirect to them is free. There's a list of the VAs that we use us here ( most are UKBF members):

http://www.voipfoneuserforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=3869

You should always have your own number, don't use a VA's number because you won't be with them forever but you are likely to need your number for life.

Info: http://www.voipfone.co.uk/EP_UK_Telephone_Numbers.php

 

[leemason]

If you register your business phone number with TPS you will reduce cold calls dramatically, getting only the occasional calls. Some also will not charge you for cold calls if you register with TPS and give them permission to tell the cold caller not to call again on that basis.

I can recommend http://www.call-answer.co.uk for call answering. We do a virtual address/registered address service but as we are not in the Midlands perhaps no good for you.

We also use www.call-answer.co.uk and can recommend them. Setup is really easy. You get an assigned number for your inbound calls. We use two, one for each of our businesses. We also have a virtual IP PBX system. What we do is to have an IVR on our own number (call 0330 088 1652 if you want to have a listen).

We've had the recordings for that done professionally - make it sound better to prospective customers. The IVR allows callers to choose from a couple of different opitons. Using these we ring a VoIP phone (or more than one dependent on the option) and then if that isn't answered one or more mobile phones. If that isn't answered callers go through to the answering service. In this way we get the best of both worlds - always in touch when we are around but never missing a call due to the answering service (sometimes out of hours we tend to use a voicemail and then get this forwarded via e-mail to us). Oh and the answering service will either e-mail us or send an SMS text message when they get a message.

 

[Weber]

Thanks for all the advise, looking at going with voipfone for a geographic number and will then redirect that to a VA.

 

[leemason]

Then do try www.call-answer.co.uk. They do a free 14 day trial and it really is free. You don't need to give credit card details up front or anything like that and they give you your own geographic number to forward calls to.