Virtual Technical Support, Virtual Marketing Support

The wrap around our business is our virtual telephone numbers that come with loads of inbound call management features as standard and can be controlled online 24/7.

For our main line we decided to use an 0800 number so that customers can call us free of charge from a landline, we use this in conjunction with one of the call management features known as a Virtual Reception. This is a simple menu driven service with three options, in our case Press 1 for Sales, Press 2 for Technical Support and Press 3 for Accounts. We have set this up so that calls to the sales department are first directed to an external live call answering service at a cost to us of 1 per call, before calls are patched through to one of our mobiles based on the nature of the enquiry.

Calls for the virtual technical support department are directed to our team in Manchester and calls to the accounts department are directed to a voicemail service where the caller is asked to leave a message on our ring back service, these messages are automatically emailed to me and I am usually able to call the customer back within the hour.

In addition to the main line we each have an 0844 number as a direct line. This has a Call to Group feature set up. I love this feature it is so simple, but incredibly effective, whenever someone calls, both my office landline and my mobile ring at the same time, if I am working from home I answer the call using my landline handset and if I am on the road I use my mobile. There is a cost to me of 10p per min when I use my mobile, but I keep the calls short and call people back with help of live answering service.

The majority of telecoms service providers offer a similar service and you should be able to achieve the same for approximately 200 set up and 20 per month.

Well that is how we did it not only are hosted services cost effective, they are quick to implement and scalable. If we take in to account our Blackberrys, mobile broadband plus all of the above services our cost per person per month is less than 125 including the various call charges.

Many site owners believe that the next logical step after outgrowing a shared hosting solution is to invest in their own dedicated server. This is a possible solution, and is necessary for many particularly large or complex sites. However, for small to medium size websites, a virtual web hosting solution may prove to be the ideal solution.

Less expensive than a dedicated server, virtual hosting is an excellent and relatively inexpensive solution for those who own websites that are too large for a shared hosting solution, but don't really need their own dedicated server. It is fine to have a smaller site on its own dedicated server, but it is expensive to do so. Virtual web hosting provides more flexibility than shared web hosting, and provides many of the advantages associated with a dedicated server without the expense.

Virtual Secretary Services – What Benefits Can You Gain?

Virtual secretaries are just virtual assistants who offer you virtual secretarial services through online platforms. Unlike what the name sounds like, they are not a computer or automated programs. Rather, they are independent professionals themselves. There are several offshore outsourcing virtual companies that provide clients with virtual secretary and virtual assistant services. Virtual secretary professionals generally have extensive industry experience of their concerned fields be it (legal, executive or anything else. And they can employ it for the advantage of your business:

Benefits of working with a Virtual Secretary

One of the primary advantages of working with a virtual secretary is that they can help you reduce your work to a great extent and make lives easier. Here are some other benefits:

Specialized Services – Often businesses need skills and expertise beyond what is available in their own company organization for special or unexpected projects. In such scenarios, it doesn’t make sense to hire new employees on-board for a limited period. This is where a virtual secretary comes into ply. They are able to take on such special or unexpected projects that you may not be able to complete at your end, be it because of lack of staff or equipments. You can hire a virtual secretary at a short notice and they can help you grow your client base and revive business without having you to go over budget for administrative support. In fact, they would cost you a great deal less than hiring a full time employee for the company.

No Overhead Expenses

Virtual secretaries help busy executives shed off the extra work and that too without having to raise their overhead expenses such as cost of extra office equipment and office space.

High Cost Effectiveness

Virtual secretaries are highly cost effective because you only have to pay them for the time spend on your work. You can pay them on hourly basis or a flat fee. And because you are outsourcing your projects to an external service provider, you don’t have to pay any taxes as well.

How to recruit a Virtual Secretary?

There are number of freelancers as well as professional companies providing virtual assistant services to its clients. This is the reason why it becomes a challenging and difficult task to find a compatible one for your business. When you post an ad for a virtual secretary, you may be overwhelmed by the number of response you get. Therefore, you need to be very careful while selecting a virtual assistant for your business:

First, organize the search for a virtual secretary and write a clear job posting. Be very specific about the needs and requirements of your project. A clear listing of the duties and responsibilities of the virtual secretary would help you key in on the best candidate from the pool of qualified potential service providers.

After this, conduct a series of phone conversations or email dialogue. Remember to check the references and past projects that they have accomplished. You need to make sure that the potential virtual secretary has a solid work history of being able to work unsupervised for long periods of time and that they have good follow up communication skills.