- Why does your Virtual Office management matter?
- How Alliance provides the best Virtual Office management
- How Alliance provides the best service outside of the office
- Keeping your Virtual Office robust and healthy
Q: Should I be looking for Virtual Offices that are staffed? Does staff at a Virtual Office even matter?
A: Yes, you should be looking for Virtual Offices staffed by professionals. The staff at your Virtual Office directly influences how enjoyable and fruitful it is to work there.
As the country attempts to return to some kind of normal, several corporations are ready for their staff to return to the office, but workers aren’t quite ready to make this switch.
According to Pew Research, over 60% of American workers were working remotely when the pandemic was at its worst. Now, that number is hovering right under 40%, but it isn’t Covid-19 that’s keeping these workers working remotely.
Due partly to the ease with which workers could do their jobs remotely and in part to a general disillusionment with the often-predatory labor market, the quit rates in 2021-2022 were astronomical. With businesses struggling so much to keep employees, they aren’t in a position to refuse employees the option to work remotely.
Small business owners, especially digital small business owners, are in a similar position.
You might be able to hire employees from all over the world, but how do you keep them? Better yet, how can you grow your business while providing employees with an environment in which they feel proud to work?
Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to employee retention or business growth.
Still, one straightforward method to improve employee retention and position your company for growth is through a careful eye toward Virtual Office management.
Virtual Offices have given entrepreneurs and new business owners a cost-efficient and lower-risk opportunity to break into the market. Similarly, Virtual Offices have given established business owners a streamlined way to expand their operations while cultivating a collaborative work environment.
In this article, we’ll cover why your Virtual Office management matters, how Alliance Virtual Offices provides the best management, how that service extends outside of the office, and how to keep your Virtual Office robust and healthy.
- Why does your Virtual Office management matter?
- How Alliance provides the best Virtual Office management
- How Alliance provides the best service outside of the office
- Keeping your Virtual Office robust and healthy
Why your Virtual Office management matters
Before we dive into an entire Virtual Office management presentation, let’s take a moment to explore what a Virtual Office is.
A Virtual Office is a suite of virtual solutions that entrepreneurs can use to register their businesses, handle mail forwarding, and access physical workspaces or meeting rooms.
Not all offices are created equal, however.
Read more: What is a Virtual Office and How Does it Work?
The lower-quality Virtual Offices don’t typically include access to workspaces, they might not be usable for business registration, and the provider might not be adequately staffed.
On the other hand, high-quality Virtual Offices come with additional add-ons and amenities. The in-person workspaces associated with these offices are equipped with professional and friendly onsite staff to assist in any issues that might arise.
Now that you have the Virtual Office definition, let’s also look at the Virtual Office management definition.
Simply put, Virtual Office management is the onsite staff in the physical workspaces and meeting rooms and the virtual or over-the-phone support teams that help with any issues.
So, why does Virtual Office management matter? To answer, we’ve put together a small list of some of the benefits associated with office management.
- Workability
- Cleanliness
- Access to amenities
- Legitimacy
- Safety
Workability
The way a Virtual Office is managed directly influences how enjoyable it is to work there.
Without management, there is no order. With friendly staff onsite to help answer questions and solve technical issues, the other workers are quieter, more professional, and as a result, more focused.
Coworking spaces are supposed to be areas that give you a chance to recharge and approach your work with renewed vigor. Why bother if you’re dealing with the same kind of distractions that you faced at home?
Cleanliness
You’re paying your hard-earned money to work in your Virtual Office. Shouldn’t it always be clean and functional?
When you use an office without management, the cleaning typically happens on an ‘as-needed’ basis. This should be unacceptable.
Your Virtual Office is the hub of your business’s operations. When using meeting rooms or coworking spaces, do you want to deal with extraneous litter and other people’s trash?
With a high-quality provider, you can ensure that the space you’re using is always clean, functional, and ready for use.
Access to amenities
Virtual Office management also dictates how easy it is to find and use the amenities in your office.
Having someone you can ask questions of makes your life inherently easier. When you’re using an office without management, you’re effectively on your own.
Sure, you might get lucky and find a workspace that has clearly labeled items and a small bulletin that perfectly explains where everything is, but this is highly unlikely.
The onsite staff gives you an authority figure to whom you can direct your questions. Also, being able to find answers quickly allows you to focus almost exclusively on expanding your operations while you’re in your Virtual Office.
Legitimacy
Your Virtual Office management helps you put your best foot forward when dealing with clients or customers.
Imagine that you have a potential investor who wants to make a surprise visit to your Virtual Office’s physical workspace. Unfortunately, you’re working from home this day, so when they arrive, there’s no one to greet them, no one to explain anything, and no one to help them find out where you are.
You want investors, clients, customers, and even new employees to see your Virtual Office in its best condition if they choose to call or visit.
Not to mention, having onsite staff who can eloquently explain that you aren’t available is a great way to establish legitimacy and prove that you’re serious about your business.
Safety
An unstaffed Virtual Office is an unsafe Virtual Office.
Using Virtual Offices with high-quality management keeps you and your customers safe. When working from an office with an active staff, you’re checking in, checking out, and providing clear information about who should and should not be in the office.
With an unstaffed office, this isn’t the case. Unstaffed offices also create security vulnerabilities if you use the same office to handle mail forwarding or pick-up.
An unstaffed Virtual Office is a haven for scammers and scam businesses. Even if your business isn’t doing anything wrong, sharing an address with another company that’s been caught using predatory practices or outright scams is a quick way to decimate your business’s legitimacy and public image.
This is why it is paramount to use Virtual Offices that take the proper steps to vet their clients before giving them access to their office.
Read more: Scammers Hate Us: Only Legitimate Businesses Use Our Virtual Offices
How Alliance provides the best-managed Virtual Offices
Now that you’re familiar with Virtual Office management meaning, it’s time to look at how Alliance can provide the best-managed offices.
There are three steps we take to ensure that your Virtual Office management system is flawless, straightforward, and well-equipped.
- We keep bad actors out
- We coordinate with each center
- Customizable professionality
Gatekeeping scammers
The first thing we do to provide the best Virtual Office service is only allowing prestigious, well-run offices into our network.
Alliance Virtual Offices has physical addresses in every state and almost every city. Our network is already robust and healthy, so we aren’t in a rush to add shoddy offices or business centers that aren’t up to our standards.
Additionally, Alliance properly vets each of our clients to ensure that we aren’t letting any scam businesses set up shop in one of our Virtual Office locations.
To do this, we first require address verification to prove that we’re dealing with a legitimate business. Next, we use document verification to authenticate the individual further.
With an address and document verification, we can determine that an individual is who they say they are and live where they say they live.
Unsurprisingly, most scammers aren’t willing to give up their personal information when so many other offices employ a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.
We focus so much on keeping scammers out because we understand that one scam business hurts every business in its immediate vicinity.
Part of ensuring high-quality Virtual Office management is keeping the businesses using the service safe.
Coordinating with business centers
Communication between your Virtual Office center and your provider is required if you want cohesive Virtual Office management.
At Alliance, we coordinate with each specific center and send them a test letter to start to facilitate fantastic responsiveness and organization between our company, the center, and you.
Because we already vet the business centers we use, the test letter is a way to start a conversation with the business center in addition to determining how timely and effective the staff at the business center is.
Once we’ve established this line of communication, we can increase the turnaround time on correspondences and provide you with an easy way to contact anyone you may need to contact.
Customizable professionality
Your Virtual Office management should be able to walk you through the best plan for your business and the best amenities for your unique operations.
With Alliance, our staff can direct you toward the add-ons and amenities that will make running your business as smooth as possible.
In the past, office space wasn’t near as flexible as Alliance’s Virtual Office service.
Historically, commercial leases lasted anywhere from 3-5 years and required a sizable deposit, exorbitant monthly rent, continued upkeep, and constant utility payments. Through Alliance, however, you can pay for what you need, when you need it.
If you aren’t in the office much this month, you don’t need to pay for the time.
Have a slow mail month coming up? You can easily reduce the tier of your mail forwarding.
Read more: Small Business Bookkeeping Got You Down? Use Our Guide To Get Organized
Keeping track of your company’s books is a task in and of itself. Why add to that stress with a Virtual Office that is unmanaged, unstaffed, and difficult to use?
As you can see, Alliance’s Virtual Office management is a step above. But how is the service outside of the office?
How Alliance Virtual Offices supports you outside the office
Outside of the Virtual Office management services listed above, Alliance goes above and beyond to keep you supported both inside and outside your office. As remote work continues to prove that it is here to stay, you’ll want all the help you can get.
Our first method of doing this is through communication with your Virtual Office business center to ensure that you have everything necessary and fully understand how to make the most of your Virtual Office.
This step is criminally underrated.
All too often, business owners who are too proud to ask for help find themselves stuck in an unmanaged Virtual Office with no clue how to get the most of the services they have access to.
With Alliance, we don’t give you the chance to be too proud. By sending the test letter and cultivating relationships of our own, we do our best to determine what you need before you need it.
You’re paying your hard-earned cash to use your Virtual Office. Why shouldn’t it be perfect?
The second method we use to support our clients is staying available to help with any Virtual Office questions or concerns through our customer service lines and email.
On our website, there’s a chat box that you can use without any issue to ask some basic questions about the services we provide. Once you’ve signed up for a Virtual Office plan, you’re given additional resources that allow you to quickly contact someone from our team.
Similarly, if you’re in a position where you need the contact information of your Virtual Office’s business center, we’re just a phone call or email away.
Alliance prides itself on answering any questions, comments, or concerns as quickly as possible to ensure that your business is never caught in a tricky situation.
Even more important than the support that Alliance offers your business is the flexibility and convenience that Alliance provides to your managers.
If you’re using one of Alliance’s Virtual Offices and enjoying the well-managed facilities, that won’t matter much if your team isn’t well-managed too.
Read more: The Unexpected Secret to Better Small Business Management
Remember, working remotely can get difficult sometimes. The stress of a constant routine and working from the same place you sleep can get exhausting and lead to job burnout.
The best thing you can do for your employees is to provide them with flexibility, a collaborative working environment, and something to feel passionate about.
Below, we’ve put together a quick list of some effective ways you can better manage your employees in your Virtual Office.
- Set clear and concise deadlines
- Use the tools at your disposal
- Ample communication
Deadlines
Collaboration can be difficult. Especially if your team isn’t sure when their work is due and who they need to hand their projects off to next.
As a manager, it’s your responsibility to create stringent deadlines that everyone is familiar with. When your workers can’t use “I didn’t know when it was due” as an excuse, they’ll be forced to comply or get left behind.
These deadlines can extend beyond working assignments too. You should establish guidelines explaining which tasks to prioritize, the minimum communication among team members, and any times your team should be available.
Doing this will help keep your team on the same page while improving communication and getting more out of collaboration.
Tools
Part of the beauty of owning a business in the modern world is the digital tools entrepreneurs have unfettered access to.
Your Virtual Office is already a service itself, and there are countless other kinds of tools that are available for you to use as well.
There are video conferencing applications like Zoom and Skype to help personalize your conversations, file storing applications like Google Drive or OneDrive, project management and communication applications like Asana or Slack, time tracking applications, and many more.
Use these tools to connect with your employees while ensuring that they can locate the tasks they need to prioritize.
With these tools, you can easily tell how often a person looks at the material necessary, how often they’re working, and how often they pretend to work.
Build a robust team by using the digital tools you can access.
Communication
You want your employees to feel like they can talk to you. You must establish clear channels of communication and straightforward ways for your employees to contact you.
Whether it’s email, text messaging, video conferencing, or another kind of correspondence, you need to make sure that all of your team members have the same access to your time as each other.
Clear communication allows you to locate any issues within your business before they grow to an unmanageable size.
If your team feels like they can communicate, they’ll feel heard. Once they feel heard, they’ll be more loyal to your company and far more willing to contribute.
Keeping your Virtual Office robust and healthy
The modern office looks completely different than its traditional predecessor. However, one aspect that has remained the same is the need for high-quality management.
Your Virtual Office management can massively influence the value of your Virtual Office.
We only allow well-managed Virtual Offices into our network, ensuring you get the most out of your office, whichever way you choose to use it.
To get the most out of your Virtual Office management, you might consider using some of Alliance’s other digital tools.
First, consider our Live Receptionist.
Running a business and answering the phone alone can get incredibly frustrating and distracting. With a Live Receptionist, you can eliminate those distractions.
Not only can you eliminate a position you would have been forced to hire, but since every call is personally answered and screened, you can focus on the more nuanced aspects of running your business.
Don’t risk upsetting potential customers or losing your train of thought during an important conversation. Instead, allow our Live Receptionists to handle your phone while you work toward scaling your business.
Another great service that Alliance provides is the Virtual Phone Number.
Having a well-known and professional business address is great, but adding a designated business phone number completes the image.
Through our Virtual Phone, you can keep your work and private lives separate.
In addition, you have a new business phone number you can use on your company’s branding material. With unlimited extensions, you can easily onboard new team members while giving them the same improved work-life balance.
The best way to keep your Virtual Office healthy is through constant check-ins and reevaluations.
Remember, your Office is customizable. Get the most out of these customizations!
Further reading
- What is a Virtual Office and How Does it Work?
- Scammers Hate Us: Only Legitimate Businesses Use Our Virtual Offices
- The Unexpected Secret to Better Small Business Management
- What Are Digital Products? Your Guide to Creating and Selling
Alliance Virtual Offices provides several tools for established entrepreneurs and new business owners. The best way to get the most out of your digital operations is by using a provider that ensures high-quality Virtual Office management.
Contact us today to see how Alliance Virtual Offices can put your business into a Virtual Office that meets your needs and allows you to plan for the future. Don’t forget to check out our Virtual Office Blog for more tips on business ownership.
