EBizInsider

Whether you sell jewelry, pet supplies, video games, or sexy lingerie – all e-commerce professionals strive for efficiency. By creating a virtual office, you can streamline your operations, and often create new possibilities for your company. This month we’ll look at ways you can use technology to create your virtual office.

Voice Communications We’ve all seen the advertisements for Vonage – for $25-$50 a month you can get yourself a phone line or two that use your Internet connection to get a dialtone. Keep in mind that you’ll need 128k of upload AND download speed for VoIP to work properly, and that using an Internet phone will reduce the bandwidth available to other computers on your network. Do your homework on choosing a provider that offers Quality of Service (QoS) controls.

Look at SoftPhones – special software that allows you to turn your computer into a telephone with the addition of a microphone and speakers. Popular applications such as Yahoo! Messenger, Skype.com and other providers allow for free VoIP communications, as long as all parties are using the same service.

Certainly one of the most attractive and compelling qualities about Voice over IP is the fact that you take your phone number anywhere you have an Internet connection. If you travel, you can literally take your number with you everywhere. Perhaps even better, you can also have staff members all over the country using your same telephone exchange – with the ability to transfer calls as if they were in the next room. This pays the dividend of giving your business a central and ultimately more professional “feel” to customers.

Faxing

For a small business, fax machines are often expensive to maintain – they require toner, paper, a phone line and someone in one place to monitor the machine. Providers like jconnect.com provide a local phone number (or toll free) number that is dual purpose. If a voice caller dials the number, your voice-mail greeting answers. The message is delivered as a .wav or .au file to your inbox. If sending you a fax, the system detects this and delivers the fax to your inbox as .pdf. Sending a fax is simple, using a special client.

E-mail

If you’re using your ISP’s e-mail system (e.g. verizon.net, aol.com, comcast.net) consider using a hosted web-based system. Google Apps (www.google.com/a) and the related gmail.com are popular web-based e-mail clients. Google Mail will interface with Microsoft Outlook and Windows LiveMail easily if you use it, but it will also give you access to your e-mail from virtually any web-browser including mobile web browsers on your cell phone/PDA. Another advantage of the web-based hosting system is that you won’t need to change your e-mail address if you move, outgrow your current ISP, or become dissatisfied with it.

Virtual Meetings

Do you need to meet regularly with clients out of the area, or do you have trouble matching schedules with important people? Consider meeting virtually. For $50 a month Citrix Systems GoToMeeting.com allows you to share your computer’s desktop so you can collaborate on projects. You can also use the conference calling services of FreeConference.com to get everyone on the same line. The calls are toll calls, but if you’re using a VoIP or SoftPhone interface (as outlined above) you aren’t paying those tolls. Almost all VoIP/SoftPhone services have built-in 3-way calling for smaller conferences. In fairness I should admit that meetings can also happen over instant messaging – but gee–tone of voice just doesn’t come across the same when typed!

You don’t have to make the jump all at once. Add features as you become comfortable with them and begin to utilize them. The virtual office can save you time and money and give your potential customers the impression that you are an integrated, sophisticated, fluid business. Those qualities alone make the virtual office worth examining. eBiz

Resources

Voice Communications

• Vonage – http://www.vonage.com
• Skype – http://www.skype.com
• bbtelsys – http://bbtelsys.com
• Yahoo! Voice – http://voice.yahoo.com

Faxing

• JConnect – http://www.jconnect.com (Voice & Fax)
• eFax – http://www.efax.com (Fax Only)

E-mail

• Google Mail – http://www.gmail.com
• Google Apps – http://www.google.com/a *more on this next month*
• Yahoo! Mail – http://mail.yahoo.com
• E-mail to Web – http://www.mail2web.com

Meetings

• GoToMeeting – http://www.gotomeeting.com
• ZohoMeeting - http://meeting.zoho.com
• WebEx – http://www.webex.com
• FreeConference – http://www.freeconference.com

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