What is Virtual Office and How Virtual Offices Work?

In our new age of social distancing, there is a need to restrict travelling and engaging the public to keep as safe as possible. This is leading many corporations and individuals to choose the work-from-home model. According to a report in Stanford, almost 42% of the US labour force is working from home full-time.

While the work-for-home model works great for start-ups, entrepreneurs and professionals may find it a bit inconvenient. Ideally, they would like to work from a business address in a prime location. A good office address helps to create the right impression on clients and employees, resulting in good will and business.

Prime addresses come with their cons, such as traffic congestion, high rentals, the need for people to commute daily, et. To avoid such scenarios, a virtual office is the best option for you to establish your presence and grow your business.

What is a Virtual Office?

Virtual offices are one of the latest offering of flexible work spaces industry from the end of 1960s, which has helped people effectively manage their business remotely without investing huge capitals for office buildings. They tend to replace the concept of traditional offices as they provide perks that are unmissable. Starting from freelancers to bigger business enterprises, entrepreneurs are now open to this new concept of office space. Virtual Office has all the benefits of co-working space and more.

Virtual offices are primarily companies that offer you the option of using their office as a mailing address along with other business facilities. You can use a virtual office in New Jersey when required on a pay-per-use basis.

They save you the hassles of having to physically lease an office, interior design, and managing daily costs which all accumulate in the long term.

Virtual offices are going to be a significant part of the economy in years to come, due to the flexibility and range of services they offer while being highly affordable and easy to work with.

This article will surely enlighten you about the perks virtual work spaces offer and how you can gain advantage from it.

How does Virtual Office Work?

A virtual office physically represents your business. It helps you better coordinate and communicate with your clients, employees, service providers, etc. remotely, without being physically present. Virtual offices help people work from home simply and comfortably.

They also have the latest internet technologies, which makes it possible for individuals and corporations to communicate effectively with each other, without the need to be physically present with one another.

The team managing the virtual office also handles all business inquiries on your behalf. They forward any inquiries to the designated individuals as per your instructions. This helps you manage your business more efficiently and economically.

Once your business starts growing you can even scale up the services offered by the virtual office without worrying about high scaling up costs and time as compared to a physical office.

What do Virtual Offices Offer?

Before signing up for any service you must know what they offer in detail. This is one of the most important steps during product and services research by customers before signing up for it. Virtual Offices enable business to offer the following assistance-

• Official Postal Address – A business address is an essential part of any trade as the business needs to register itself and identify with the address when dealing with clients. This adds to professionalism and product image thus pushing the product in the market.

• Conference Rooms – Meetings with clients can be hassle free as you have a separate space for meetings and business deals. This maintains privacy and a level of sophistication as you keep up with your professional image.

• Receptionist- It is not possible to run a business sole-handedly even if its just starting out. A receptionist is a must as they can keep tabs on your meetings, cliental relationships, documentation etc. They can also create a sense of connectivity making the virtual experience a lot more intimate.

• Mailing services- Your package deliveries will go out from this address and courier services will operate through this address. Virtual offices provide envelope opening and scanning email services too. This means they can differentiate spam mails and important mails for you while making it easy for you to deal with the entire process. They can also scan and fax your urgent mails and other assistance can also be provided if you opt for them.

• Phone and voice mailing- Even your small business should have an official land phone number which gives you the professional feel. As the virtual office provides you with this perk, it also handles your incoming calls. They can keep a check on the call logs and provide you with the important details of calls you missed.

• Other Service – There are tons of other benefits that virtual office provides other than the ones mentioned. You can explore the options and discover many other solutions that different brands of virtual offices provide. They tend to support your business with all the perks of co-working spaces as well. Other services can include- physical infrastructure, printing solutions, cloud-based applications and storage, studio for creative arts, website domains, hosting platforms and so much more. Do not forget to check out the list of all their services before your down payment.

5 Features/Benefits Virtual Offices Offer

Virtual office space offers a range of benefits that will help you manage, grow, and scale your business easily, without worrying about the nuances associated with a leased office. Some of the important benefits associated with a virtual office are:

Better Productivity

With employees no longer being limited to a physical location and having to spend hours commuting to an office, they can be more productive and focused on their work. The time they spend on travelling can be used for recreational purposes and to learn new skills, which could benefit your business and their work performance.

It also helps you offer better flexibility and work timings to your employees based on their time zone and comfort factor. Realising these benefits more than 65% of companies now allow employees to work remotely.

Hire Global Talent

Virtual offices also give you the freedom to hire your employees from across the globe and truly based on the specific skills your business needs. Avoid limiting your options to locals who can commute. A diverse work culture and environment also helps people learn from each other and better shapes the team’s productivity.

Huge Savings

As compared to leasing a physical office and managing its overheads, the costs associated with a virtual office are almost negligible. Since most virtual offices work on a pay-per-use model you need to pay only for the services you need and for however long you need them.

Virtual offices also help your employees save money on commuting back and forth from their home to the office.

In case you need to organize any business meetings or conferences with clients, you can also access the physical location of the virtual office for holding your meeting/conference as and when required by just paying the charges for the same. This is hugely beneficial compared to having your own meeting/conference room setup within your own office.

Prime Address

A virtual office helps you present a prime virtual business address to your potential clients, thereby creating a favourable impression about you and your company to them. Having an office in a prime location tells your clients that you are serious about your business and ready to invest in the assets required to offer better service to your clients.

Using a home address as a business address may not sit well with some potential clients, leaving them hesitant to work with someone who is not serious about their business.

Another key advantage of using a virtual office address is that it helps entrepreneurs avoid the use of their home address for business purposes, which can hugely affect your work/personal life balance.

Work 24/7

With businesses no longer being limited to the local neighbourhood, state, or country there is a need to have an office that can handle all your business inquiries and correspondences around the clock.

This is where a virtual office plays an essential role because by using a virtual mailing address services are now available 24/7. There is always someone present who can receive mail, answer your calls, and even correspond with your clients.

With a virtual office you will share all the emails, inquiries, and queries on a pre-decided schedule so that you can revert to them as quickly as possible.

Virtual Offices are the Sensible Choice for Business

For professionals and entrepreneurs who are just launching their start-up or considering scaling up their existing business, joining a virtual office makes great business sense. With the unique range of services and benefits they offer; you can work smart while being cost-effective.

Such flexibility in virtual offices can be hired and used by all organizations no matter how many employees or clients they have, be it 2 or 2,000. As per Inc. due to the advantages of virtual offices, almost every office will be a virtual office by 2030.

As a new age businessman, it would make great sense to you to compare all the advantages and disadvantages of having a physical office and a virtual office before deciding the one best suited for you and your business.

Factors to Consider Before Choosing A Virtual Office-

When acquiring a service from any provider who should have enough knowledge so as to judge which one is the right kind for you. Choosing the right virtual office space can give your business the extra push it always needed. Here are some factors you should keep in mind while surfing through the virtual office space options-

• Location – The wrong location can break apart your business goals. You should always choose the destination of your virtual office which is client friendly and also commutable. There should be public transport available nearby and the location should be around a safe community of people. If your commute time is long , this can cut off your time and energy that you could invest in growing your business.

• Amenities- Your need of utilities may differ from the next person. Before signing in for your office space, check the infrastructure provide by the company. Do your needs match with what they provide. Are their services enough to support the demands of your trade. Judge the amenities according to your business may need more than what you or your comfort can need.

• Technology- Not all virtual offices are as technologically sound as your business needs may need it to be. Check what are the cloud services they provide, the webinar options they can lay in front of you. If you are a sound engineer, or graphic designer, you may need other applications to be at your service. There are other technological needs as they speed of internet or the software updates. Be sure of what you are signing up as virtual office spaces do run on the backbone of technological advancement.

• Budget- Virtual offices can come in many premium and executive versions providing services that are undeniable. You have to fix your budget before hopping on to choose such options. If you break your budget your basic purpose behind acquiring a virtual office space loses the meaning.

• Membership- Most virtual office spaces have extremely flexible membership with less to no complications. You can hire them for any number of months or years according to your needs. Check their conditions before signing the contract and match your goals to your new space.

• Connectivity- Your aim of joining a virtual office space can be something else but community building and connectivity s a perk that implicitly comes with a virtual office system. You will get to find more people in the same phase of life as you and will connect them as your targets are similar. Certain virtual spaces are custom made for certain community of professions. It is always recommended that you find such a tailormade community oriented virtual space for your business as this may help your development.

Conclusion
Virtual Office for rent spaces are here to stay as they dominate the unorthodox and flexible office space market. They are highly beneficial to a huge number of people for the perks it provides and is the future for the industry. As the pandemic is on the rise and people can’t reach their main office spaces, a large number of professionals have turned to Virtual Spaces to get their job done. The numbers will only rise as people try more non-traditional ways to grow their businesses hassle-free with low commitment and investment.