Virtual Offices
Making A Virtual Company More than Talk
Published August 7th, 2009 by Jennifer LeClaire
Two of the biggest challenges any new company faces are finding the right talent and controlling overhead. No one doubts that it’s important to get the right people with the right skill sets and mindset if the company is to succeed and grow.
At the same time, keeping expenses as low as possible without sacrificing quality of service allows start-ups to weather the inevitable rough patches so they have the opportunity to find their rhythm and take the organization to the next level.
One of the ways small companies are meeting both challenges these days is by going virtual. Rather than following the standard model where everyone connected with the company works out of a single office, these progressive organizations are allowing employees to work from home or their own individual offices in some cases.
As a result the companies are free to seek out the best talent wherever it resides (instead of being forced to hire the best of whoever is in the area), and they’re able to severely reduce or completely eliminate one of their biggest monthly expenses – leased office space.
The downside is the potential loss of a singular corporate identity. With workers spread all over the region, the country, and/or the world, customers and prospects can become confused and disoriented when they have to call one phone number to speak with someone in sales, a completely different number for technical support, and a third with a billing question. It doesn’t exactly make for the direct, personalized, friendly service they expect when working with a small company.
While e-mail overcomes some of this feeling of separation, there are times when only a phone call will do. When that happens, it’s best if there is just one number to call.
Getting the Proper Placement
Proper Placement, Inc. was founded in July, 2008 with a mission of helping individual business professionals market and advertise their businesses online more effectively. The company’s primary focus is on assuring its clients’ Web site and other links appear on the first page of both organic and sponsored search engine listings on key search terms.
The Proper Placement client list includes insurance brokers, real estate agents, new and used car dealerships, doctors, dentists, lawyers, cosmetics salespeople and other types of small, locally-focused businesses. It currently has 17 employees scattered throughout the U.S. and Canada.
The Virtual Company Challenge
When Paul Roper, president and CEO of Proper Placement, was launching the business he knew it would be a virtual company right from the beginning. The people he wanted to be a part of it lived in different areas, and since they already had established lives there they’d be unlikely to move. And the idea of not being committed to a monthly “nut” to lease office space for 17 people definitely appealed to his pragmatic side.
What that meant from the logistics side, however, was that each person in the company would have their own phone number, whether it was a home, cell or separate business line. In that case, clients who called to speak to one person in the company and then needed to speak with someone else would have to hang up and dial a whole new number. Clients who needed to speak with multiple people in the company on a regular basis would have to have a laundry list of numbers, which potentially would be both inconvenient and (at times) confusing. There was also another issue that concerned Roper.
“Having multiple, individual numbers in different area codes or with different exchanges would make us look rather unprofessional,” he says. “Our clients would be investing what they considered to be a lot of money with us, so we needed to make sure they felt comfortable in doing so. We needed to be sure we had our act together.”
Voice-mail was another consideration. Having worked in corporate settings before, Roper knew the importance of a good voice-mail system. He did not relish the idea of clients calling a home office and being greeted by a personal answering machine message. At the same time, employees who would be working from home were concerned about receiving business calls at odd hours. They wanted to have more separation between their home and business lives.
Roper knew he needed a professional business phone system that was designed and priced to work with a small, virtual business. He performed an online search for “virtual office” and “phone service” and came across one that, while it would work, cost a lot of money, particularly for the features it offered. It was then that serendipity struck.
The Virtual Solution
Roper had already started using the MyFax Internet fax service, which allows anyone in the organization to send and receive faxes from a PC, laptop or mobile device, anywhere they can get an Internet connection. As he spoke with a customer service representative for MyFax one day, he mentioned his search for a virtual phone service that was designed specifically for the needs of small businesses. That’s when he learned about my1voice.
“The timing couldn’t have been better,” Roper says. “MyFax’s parent company was just in the process of introducing my1voice. When he told me what it could do, and how much it would cost to do it, I was sold. I signed up for the 30-day free trial on the spot, and have been an avid user ever since.”
Roper opted to obtain a toll-free number for the business. It was something he wanted to do anyway, and with my1voice there was no extra charge for it. He felt that having a toll-free number would make the business look larger and more professional as well as make it easier for their widespread clientele to call.
Once the account was set up, Roper immediately assigned extensions to all 17 of his employees and used the online control console to establish formal business hours. During business hours, when a call comes in the virtual receptionist helps direct it to the proper extension. After business hours, the message changes to let callers know the “office” is closed and direct them to voice-mail. Roper also showed all employees how to use the console for their individual extensions so they could set them up to ring an office phone, forward the call to a home or mobile phone, or even go directly to voice-mail. Roper has his extension set up to ring his mobile phone after hours to make him more accessible to clients.
As voice-mails are received, employees also have messages forwarded to an e-mail account so that orders can be constantly monitored and reviewed in case immediate action is required.
“We are a service business, and so are our clients,” he says. “They depend on us to stay on top of things. Since some of our people are out in the field a lot, having voice-mail messages funnel in to e-mail gives us a failsafe to make sure any urgent client requests or questions are handled quickly.”
Roper was also quick to take advantage of a new feature that was introduced as part of my1voice’s program of continuous product improvement – the “Call Us Now” button. This button is placed on the Proper Placement Web site. If visitors are seeking more information about the company or its programs, they can click on the button and it will first call the phone number at which they want to be reached, then will connect to one of Proper Placement’s top salespeople.
“A lot of our business comes from word of mouth,” Roper says. “A satisfied customer will tell a friend or business associate, and that person will check out the Web site. Having the ‘Call Us Now’ button makes it easy for them to make a connection with us while they’re in a buying, or at least serious inquiry, mode. We’re seeing it being used more and more.”
The Real World Results
Because the whole search engine business is still a mystery to many, particularly small service providers, Roper says Proper Placement is still very much a relationship-oriented business.
“Customers have questions that can’t be answered just with an FAQ or other Web document,” he says. “They’ve probably seen all that already anyway. Most questions we receive require some level of dialog that is best handled over the phone, and many involve more than one person here. I’d say at least half our current business is due to my1voice’s ability to keep everyone within the company connected.”
Perhaps the greatest benefit, however, is taking a disparate, virtual company and helping to make it into a single unit.
“Everyone is amazed that there is a phone service that works like this,” Roper states. “If we didn’t have it we wouldn’t feel as connected and whole as a company. With my1voice we can be a very professional, service-oriented company while still allowing people to work where they’re comfortable. It’s really enabled us to achieve the vision we set out in the beginning.”
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Melanie Jones August 7th, 2009 at 9:00 am
This is a really interesting study. I love this. It really helps folks see how virtual office technologies practically work in real experience. I hadn’t ever heard of this company, but it seems like they are doing some good work on the virtual office front. Phone services are definitely vital and this article really drives that home.
Marcus Hester August 7th, 2009 at 9:02 am
I haven’t heard of my1voice either. I used to use e-fax, which is a competitor of MyFax. There are so many of these virtual office companies and phone service companies coming into the market that it’s hard to tell which one to use. It seems like Mr. Roper is thrilled with his service and this article, although it features my1voice as the solution, does a great job of spelling out the benefits of virtual office and phone services in general.
Rob Zeus August 7th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I am sure a lot of small businesses can really relate to this story. This is probably very typical of what entrepreneurs and smaller companies go through on the communications front. In this case, a virtual phone system with a receptionist was the answer. That might not be true for every company, but I think it’s becoming more true for more companies all the time.
Maggie Correta August 8th, 2009 at 7:43 am
This is a common dilemma for small but growing businesses and this story did a good job of outlining one potential solution. Virtual offices are the absolute best solution for so many small companies. I am not sure that many of them know these technologies exist and how much it can positively impact their business.
Bill Brookshire August 8th, 2009 at 7:47 am
I like the “real world results” part of this article. That’s what it’s all about. 800 number services with virtual receptionists are a key to growth for small businesses because it breeds customer convenience in a distributed workforce. It’s just that simple.