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Sole traders and small business owners working from a home-based office actually have a lot more pressure put on them when compared to doing a paid job working from an employers office space.

While the majority of people imagine that being your own boss comes with a lot of freedom, but in most cases the opposite is true.

You may think that every solo entrepreneur or small business owner can sit around all day in their pyjamas, drinking coffee and having the TV on in the background while they work from a laptop.

This image may seem really appealing, especially if you have to face the daily grind of commuting to an office every day, sitting in slow moving traffic, feeling uncomfortable sitting at your desk all day while wearing a suit, tie and tight shoes.

However, there are a lot of things that you can take for granted in your employed job that a small business owner must factor in. We are talking here about time-consuming, yet very important tasks, such as emptying your office waste bin, keeping your office environment clean and free from dust that can seriously affect the inner workings of your electronic equipment, and more....

More responsibilities than you think!

But it is not only the added tasks of a bit of office cleaning that you will need to take care of – the security of your home office will also fall squarely onto your shoulders.

An employer will provide their workers with a safe environment to work within and this includes having Health & Safety policies in place to keep staff physically safe and free from injury, but also Data Protection procedures that prevent sensitive data breaches and company information falling into criminal hands.

Working for an employer will also mean that your boss will be the one paying out for security staff, CCTV, security access points, fire alarm systems and equipment, smart locks and physical window and door locks.

Just because you run your business from your home office doesn't mean that you don't need to have security measures in place to protect your customer information and business data to remain compliant with the current Data Protection Act.

However, there are a lot of steps you can take to help automate your home office and free up your time from your day-to-day administrative tasks that are essential to the success of your business.

How to utilise digital assistants in your office

With the introduction of digital assistants in the form of Amazon's Alexa and others, we have been able to revolutionise our homes. Digital assistants have fundamentally changed the way a growing number of us interact with our digital devices.

Voice-activated AI technology is growing more versatile by the day. We are now seeing Alexa and other digital assistants being able to take on many different tasks in the day-to-day operation of our small businesses.

Setting up Alexa or an Echo-dot in your home office can immediately start to pay for itself through automating task such as scheduling your diary, conferencing calls, running productivity tools to keep you focussed on your work, organising your to-do lists, and delivering data.

Here are just three useful examples of how using a digital assistant can save you time and effort:

Automate your conference call schedule:

You can use a conferencing managing tool to sync with Google Calendar. This will help to remind you of your next conference call and will automatically connect your call without you needing to dial the number. You would simply need to say out loud: "Alexa, tell Conference Manager to start my conference call."

Organise your travel with email assistant:

If your home business involves visiting clients, then you can sync Alexa with an email assistant tool. This handy tool will parse your email inbox to find and read back travel confirmations, so if you want a quick rundown about your car rental, hotel booking or flight details, you will get the information you need without needing to physically check your emails for the information. You would simply need to say: "Alexa, ask Email Assistant what time is my hotel check-in."

Get up to date web analytics:

As well as delivering current news and curated data, your digital assistant can also give you real-time website data. Alexa offers web analytic tools that can sync with Google Analytics to deliver you fresh, real-time updates on your website data, such as visitor numbers and web traffic.

There are new skills being added by the day to digital assistants such as Alexa and Google Assistant. It is worth keeping up with the latest releases and useful tools that can help free up your time and keep on top of your office based tasks.

Automating your business bookkeeping and accounting

Balancing your books and keeping track of your business expenses can be an incredibly tedious job for most small business owners. Rather than sitting and pouring over your business bookkeeping and accounts for hours each week or month, you can look at automating these essential, yet quite boring tasks.

By using an online bookkeeping and accounting service, such as Quickbooks for example, you can transform how you do your company accounts.

Many sole traders will start out simple and use free tools and easy systems to get them off the ground and the money rolling in. This can involve creating a simple invoice in Word and sending this to your customers at the end of each month, or on the completion of your work project.

A physical paper-based cash book would then be used to note down all income and outgoings, along with petty cash and recording of business-related receipts.

Instead, by automating your bookkeeping and accounts through an online service, you can save yourself a lot of time and effort. Your accounting service will sync with your business bank account and any merchant trading accounts you have. Every time you make a business transaction it will be recorded. You can scan in physical receipts for petty cash and non-electronic spending.

What is also a major time-saver with online accounting software is that you can create and send invoices in seconds. These will be logged and tracked and you will be sent an automatic reminder of any late payments and outstanding invoice details.

You will be able to see at a glance how much you are owed, how much you have spent and know instantly the state of your business cash flow. This is so much better than having to work out all of your figures by hand.

Automating your Annual Reporting

As a sole trader or small business owner, you will need to complete and submit your annual tax return based on your income and expenditure for each tax year. You can prepare and submit these easily by yourself by using an online accounting solution, such as Quickbooks or a similar option.

As a sole trader, you will need to pay tax according to your income tax band. You will also need to pay either Class 2 or Class 4 National Insurance contributions, depending on your total business profits. Again, your tax and NI contributions can be automatically worked out for you using your online accounting solution.

If you are a limited company, you will also be required to complete and file your audited company accounts each year. This is necessary to keep your company compliant with the law, but it will also show you the financial health of your business. Your figures will also be used to work out how much corporation tax you will need to pay.

Ideally, you should have your company accounts drawn up by a qualified business accountant. This can be an expensive overhead for a lot of micro-businesses owners, especially if they are used throughout the year to keep checks and balances on your business finances, so using an online accounting system to do all of the legwork for you can make your record keeping as simple as possible.

You can set up your own personal gateway online with HMRC and this portal will allow you pay your self assessment tax bill each year, as well as check on things such as your pension entitlement assessment for when you retire, and details of any benefit payments that you currently receive, such as Tax Credits.

Freeing yourself from your home office

As a business owner working from home, you will have important day-to-day tasks to perform that are essential to keeping your business ticking over. This includes completing menial tasks without becoming distracted or sidetracked.

It can be hard to concentrate on your work if you are worried about what is going on right outside of your home office door. You may have a sick child at home that needs your attention, or you may be trying to work during school holidays and your kids are causing chaos.

Before you know it, you have lost a day's worth of productivity and important business calls have been missed or cut short. Your incoming business mail is piling up and left unopened, and your emails are stacking up in your inbox, but you are unable to work through them because you are struggling to juggle with so many other office tasks.

You can take steps to free yourself from your everyday office tasks and be there for your family whenever they need you. It is possible to escape your home office to take care of family matters knowing that while you are absent all of your important business telephone calls are still being answered promptly, professionally and in a friendly manner.

Now would be a perfect time to make use of very flexible and cost-effective virtual office services, such as those offered by Capital Office, London.

Whether you want to have your business phone calls covered when you need to concentrate on work, meet with important clients, or simply spend time looking after a family member when they are sick, you can use our unlimited business call answering service or you can go the whole hog and have our complete virtual office services at your fingertips when you need a little extra help.

By using virtual office services to free you from your every day time-consuming administrative tasks you can focus your time and energy on other more important things, such as getting a work project completed to meet an impending deadline, meeting with customers or potential new B2B partners or trade suppliers.

Capital Office, London is here to help you if you are struggling to run your own business from home or find your everyday business admin tasks are becoming a little overwhelming. You can find out more about the benefits of using an unlimited call answering service and how it can set you free from being tied to your home office telephone. Or you can discover how using a complete virtual office can actually be good for you and your business if you are a sole trader.

For a business owner on a tight budget, making good use of a live business call answering service can make a lot of sense. Firstly, using an unlimited call answering service such as the one provided by Capital Office, London will actually save you a lot of money.

Because you don't actually have to go to the expense of hiring your own reception staff and providing them with costly offices and IT and telephony equipment to be able to take your incoming business calls, you can reap plenty of financial benefits from using an all-inclusive service instead.

Let's take a closer look at the five major benefits of using our Professional Unlimited Call Answering services:

1: Have your own receptionist without hiring one

You can enjoy the full benefit of having your very own company receptionist without actually having to go through the motions of employing one. When you take on a salaried employee, your responsibilities towards your staff can be huge!

Think about your commitments to providing them with a contract, full-time salary at around £25,000 + per year, holiday and sickness entitlements, pension and NI contributions. This is just to employ them to answer your phones.

Instead, you could choose to use a live telephone answering service that provides you will all of the benefits of having a real-life company receptionist, but without having to shoulder all of the associated financial costs and your employer's commitments and obligations.

At just a fraction of the costs associated with hiring your own staff, you can get your virtual receptionist to handle all of your business calls in the way you want. Plus the fact that because you will be using a virtual service like ours with multiple receptionists, we can handle high volume calls to your business.

This means that you will never miss a single incoming business call, no matter how busy your phone line gets. If your budget would only allow you to stretch to hiring one in-house receptionist to handle all of your incoming business calls, how many prospective new customer calls do you think would be missed while your receptionist was busy dealing with just one incoming call?

A professional call answering service such as ours is a perfect fit for a sole trader, solo entrepreneur or a small business or partnership with very few staff members.

2: Present a professional company image

As a business owner, you will appreciate that your customers are key to your success. If you want your business to survive and thrive, then you need to provide exemplary customer services. This includes the very first impression you make when prospective new customers call your business telephone number.

Instead of having their call greeted by a very flustered and tense business owner, they can have their called answered in a professional and courteous manner by a fully-trained and highly experienced virtual receptionist using the business greeting of your choice.

Your customers will get an immediate great first impression of your company and be filled with confidence that you are a professional outfit that takes your work seriously. Your callers will have no idea how large or small your business really is.

This is why our call answering services are so valuable for new start-ups and lean businesses that don't want the extra expense of running a physical office. You can set up your office structure to be as lean and cost-effective as possible by making good use of virtual office services.

Depending on what you have planned each day, we can take care of your calls to allow you to focus on an urgent work project that demands your full attention, or allow you to hit the road to travel to a client without having to pull your car over to answer your phone, or allow you to lock yourself into a business meeting for the day without being disturbed or interrupted by your phone.

Whatever your day-to-day business tasks involve, having your calls answered swiftly and politely by skilled professional receptionists offers you an outstanding customer service experience without the risk of missing out on potential new customers because you are too busy to take your own calls.

3: Hit the ground running

By using a professional call answering service such as ours, you can start from day one with our team of skilled virtual receptionists seamlessly integrating with your company.

Because you don't have to concern yourself with any staff training you can use our services in the full knowledge that our team of receptionists are fully trained and ready to handle your calls.

We literally hit the ground running with our virtual services. This means that you get a 100% professional service right from day one without having to invest a single moment of your precious time into any staff training.

4: Free up your working day

We all know how crucially important it is to make sure you answer your business phone calls. However, when you are trying to focus your time and energy on actually doing your work and running your business, you can often be left wishing that there were more hours in the day or that all of your callers would ring you within a one-hour time slot so you could get your work done in peace.

By using a professional live call answering service such as ours, you will be able to untie yourself from your company phone. You will be able to take your time back and use it more constructively while your callers feel like they have been well looked after.

Our Professional Unlimited Call Answering Service will make sure that your day can be used more productively, whether that is meeting an up and coming deadline, conducting a business meeting or even spending the day balancing the books when you don't want your concentration broken.

We can relay your messages to you as and when you want us to, plus if you are awaiting an important client phone call, we will know to put that call directly through to you.

5: Free yourself from cold callers

What can be more frustrating for a busy business owner than having their day constantly interrupted by cold callers?

By using our live call answering services, you can be left completely free from the nuisance that is business cold callers. Not only are cold callers frustrating but 99% of the time what they are offering has no importance to your business or are of any interest to yourself personally.

Your virtual receptionist will be able to screen all of your incoming calls so that no cold callers get past them. Our screening process will ensure that only your important calls are put through to you when you want to hear from them in person, and your phone messages that we relay to you are from genuine business callers.

Our services offer great flexibility that allows you to choose which callers you want putting through live, and which caller messages you want to look at and call back at a time that is convenient for you.

Find out more information about our Professional Unlimited Call Answering Service or do not hesitate to talk to us if you want to discuss your virtual office needs. We are here to help!

Whether you are a sole trader running your business from home, from a workshop, or providing mobile services where you to your customer, you still need to be able to dedicate a lot of your time towards your everyday business admin and office-based tasks.

When you are a 'one-man-band' (or one-woman-band) it can be extremely difficult to keep on top of all your essential admin duties while you are busy working for your clients or customers. This is where getting the support on offer from a range of different virtual service providers can be a real life-saver.

There are many types of business set-ups being run by sole traders from e-commerce, business consulting and private tutoring to trade services and childcare providers. In fact, according to Government figures, sole traders make up nearly 65% of UK businesses. This really shows that the self-employed really are the backbone of the UK economy.

Home-based business owner

One of the easiest and most low-cost options for a sole trader is to set their business up from home. This can help greatly to keep overheads down, especially when you are starting up a new business on a very limited budget or maybe by using your own personal savings to get started.

While this can be a very convenient option, just like any other business set-ups, it doesn't come without its own set of inherent issues.

Because you are based at home you can save yourself a lot of time and money not having to commute to an office-based job every day. You could spend your whole day working from your home office or spare bedroom without even changing out of your pyjamas! As long as your work doesn't involve any face-to-face meetings with your clients, you could get away with not having to buy yourself any smart work clothes too.

Never escaping from work

There are so many benefits for sole traders to choose to work from home that the thought of never having to go out to work in the cold wind and rain, or even stepping out of your cosy slippers can be too tempting not to take up.

However, because you can never really escape your home office it can be difficult for you to switch off and disconnect yourself with your work at the end of the day. Too many sole traders admit that they are constantly checking their emails and phone messages throughout the evening when they should be relaxing or spending time with their family.

A vast majority of home-based sole traders will also often find themselves catching up with their business administration tasks in the evening after they have finished for the day with their clients or have completed their other business duties.

Making the best use of your available time

Ultimately the success of your business boils down to how effectively you use your time. If you want to make your business a success, but don't want it to take over your life 24/7, then you need to become good at leveraging the tools that are available to you.

As your business grows you will notice that your to-do list will also grow at a matching rate. There will be a point where you will start to struggle to spread your time thin enough to cover everything and perform your tasks to a satisfactory level.

You need to accept that you can no longer manage to do everything by yourself, right? So, what can you do to ease the pressure on your shoulders while at the same time ensuring that every single business task is done properly and effectively?

If you prefer to keep your business small and don't want to hire a full-time assistant to help you out, then you should seriously consider making good use of professional virtual services that will help you complete everything and will continue to help your business to grow and become more successful.

Let's take a look at the four top reasons why you should consider using virtual services to help you run your home-based business more efficiently.

1: Keeping your business overheads as low as possible

It is fantastic that you have launched a successful home-based business, but if your success now means that you need more help and support, you will have to look at renting office premises and hiring staff to help you manage your day-to-day essential business tasks.

Renting office premises and hiring employees can be incredibly expensive. You will probably need to wave goodbye to your hard-earned business profits as you will need any spare cash you generate to cover your increased overheads.

Your business will now not only be operating to support you and your family but also to support your new employees and cover your extra business overheads, such as office rent, power and utility bills, business premises insurance, IT and infrastructure maintenance etc.

However, if you would prefer to forgo all these extra expenses and keep your business small and to remain operational from home, you can avoid all of these extra drains on your business income by choosing to use professional virtual office services instead.

Using virtual office services such as those offered by Capital Office, London, will open the door for your business to run more efficiently without the need to spend your money on expensive office rent, employing staff and all those extra bills that come with going down this path.

You can benefit from:

• A professional receptionist to take all of your business calls and messages
• Having your business post managed for you
• Having a prestigious business address in the heart of London's business district
• Have your own 0207 or 0203 Business Telephone Number that is separate from your home number
• Out of working hours voicemail to email service-based
• Business packets and parcels signed for
• Mail forwarding to an address of your choosing
• Free central London business meeting room use to impress your clients

Above all of these benefits, you get to keep your overheads small because you will not have a need to run an expensive office. Plus the fact that because you are using virtual staff, you don't get the headaches or stress associated with looking after the financial and physical needs of your own employees.

Using an expert team of trained administrative staff through our virtual office services will mean you can concentrate 100% of your efforts on your business, whether that is meeting with clients, fulfilling your customer orders or creating your products without constant interruption.

2: Give off a professional business image

We all know that in the business world 'first impressions count' so rather than let your customers think you are running a kitchen-table business from home, your customers will think that you are a professional set up with your own suite of offices.

Running a home business where you are dealing with face-to-face customers can also run into trouble because it becomes impossible to separate your work life from your family life. How does your other half feel about you inviting strangers into your home, especially if you have young children around?

There is also the worry that should you have a disgruntled and unhappy customer, they will know where you live. Do you really want to risk them bringing trouble to your front door that will disturb and upset your family? It is a thought that scares a lot of people working from home.

You need to consider your business reputation, especially if you are going after any high-priced contracts. In a lot of industries perception is important, so a large company isn't going to trust a contract with a hefty price tag to someone working from their spare bedroom, even if you could do the job with your eyes closed.

When you think you could own your own prestigious Central-London business address and telephone number set in one of the world's most highly-desired business districts for just a few hundred pounds per year, there really is no argument!

When you need to meet with an important client that you want to impress, you can arrange to use one of our smart business meeting rooms. Our meeting rooms are unbranded and your business guests will be greeted at our London offices by your very own professional receptionist. This will leave a very lasting positive first impression of your business in your client's mind.

3: You can be available for your family

One of the main reasons why so many people choose to work from home is to build a flexible business around the needs of their family. Because you are at home you will always be able to be there for any of your family members, so if one of your children catches a sick-bug and needs to take a couple of days off school, you can be there for them.

You can take care of your family members while still being able to do some work-related tasks at home knowing that your virtual team members will still be handling all of your day-to-day administration duties that help to keep your business ticking over.

4: Outsourcing the tasks you don't like

Let's face it when you start up your own business your enthusiasm and passion for your business extends to making and selling your product or offering your services, but all those dry and boring administration tasks that need doing are not the reason why you started your business in the first place.

In an ideal world, you would be left to your own devices where you simply focus your time on doing what you enjoy and do the best. However, in the real world, a business owner needs to wear many different hats.

Take an objective look at all your essential business tasks that you need to do to have a successful business. Look at outsourcing those tasks that really don't interest or inspire you to others that can take care of these tasks on your behalf.

We cannot be an expert in everything, but sole traders are expected to be competent in all aspects of running a business and are expected to comply with rules and regulations set forth by HMRC and other regulatory institutes.

By utilising the services of virtual office providers you can get the help you need to get things done. This includes all of your day-to-day administration tasks that will allow you to be free to carry on doing what you do well.

With a complete virtual office package, you can level-up your business without having to change your business structure or payout to move location. Why not take a look at our range of virtual office services to see how cost-effective our services truly are.

Do not hesitate to contact us should you need any further help or guidance about our professional services. We are here to help!

CALL US +44 (0) 207 566 3939

EMAIL: OFFICE@CAPITAL-OFFICE.CO.UK

Capital Office , Kemp House, 152 - 160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX

There are many benefits of using a virtual receptionist for your business no matter what the size, but the business owners that most often gain the most benefit are sole traders, microbusinesses and small start-ups.

It may come as no surprise to learn that self-employment numbers are on the rise, but did you know that currently 60% of all UK businesses are made up of sole traders, while 33% are companies and 7% are partnerships. The UK also saw the launch of nearly 200,000 more small businesses between 2017 and 2018, meaning more people are creating their own business opportunities.

The one thing that links all these different business types in their size. It is undeniable that small businesses are the backbone of the UK economy and that they need all the support that they can get to help them make a success of their business ventures.

The rise of the Virtual Receptionist

What has perfectly mirrored the rise in self-employed numbers is the demand for virtual receptionists and other related virtual office services, such as the ones provided by Capital Office, London.

The rise in the popularity of virtual office services is closely linked to the increased number of individuals choosing to work for themselves and needing the help and support that these virtual services can offer, such as providing a call answering service to take care of all their incoming business calls while they are busy focusing on their business tasks.

Sole traders especially can struggle to juggle the demands of their business, especially when they cannot afford to miss a single incoming business phone call that could be a potential new customer or new business lead. Because a sole trader is usually working with very limited finances, they can not often afford to rent office space and employ a permanent receptionist to look after their business phone calls.

This is where hiring a virtual receptionist can be a Godsend for a sole trader or microbusiness operator. Not only can you be rest assured that you can continue to perform your everyday work tasks without missing a single vital phone call, but you can also project a very professional image to prospective new customers by having their call answered by a trained receptionist.

Improving your business image

Your business image and reputation is incredibly important if you want your business to be a success. While there is no argument that presenting a professional front for your business can help to build and improve your reputation, your first point of contact for your customers or potential business partners will be your receptionist.

Having a fully trained professional receptionist in place is fantastic for helping you present the right company image and for providing exceptional customer services. There can be nothing more off-putting for a potential new customer than having their phone enquiry met by a flustered business owner that treats your enquiry like it is some sort of inconvenience for interrupting their day. The likelihood is that your prospective customer will not call back because of the gruff way that their call was handled.

The benefits of virtual office services

Hiring a full-time professional receptionist to answer your phone calls may be out of your price range, but there are fantastic alternative options that can provide an ideal solution to your problem in the form of a professional, unlimited call handling service, such as the those provided by us at Capital Offices.

By making good use of virtual office services such as these you will be giving yourself a consistent, professional business image coupled with a good reputation for customer services. For a small start-up business, every single point of customer contact can make or break your business reputation. This is why many small business owners choose to outsource their telephone call handling and other administrative duties to professional service providers.

Using professional virtual office services can help you to manage your growing customer base and help with your customer retention at the same time. Your customers will be able to call you with confidence knowing that their call will be answered promptly in a very professional and polite manner. They will also be confident that their phone call or message will reach the right person without fail.

Why choose Capital Office?

When you first start out you may be working from a very limited budget. This is why it makes sense to choose your virtual services provider carefully. Working with a flexible company such as Capital Office means you can choose from our range of virtual services and scale them up or down as you need to fit your requirements.

Let's say for example you want to start out by simply using our call answering services to cover your business calls and allow you to work without interruption. Then as your business grows you may find that you are struggling to deal with the increasing amount of your incoming business post. This is when you decide to take up our mail sorting service where we can take care of all your incoming post, saving you a lot of time and effort that can be focused back into your work.

Or you may decide that your time is too precious to spend answering your telephone and dealing with your business post from day one. If you really cannot bear the thought of dealing with all of your everyday administrative tasks that come with running a business, then you can jump right in with our complete virtual office services to completely relieve you of these time-consuming daily tasks.

You can even benefit from our professional meeting room hire for when you need to hold an important business meeting and want to impress your clients. Just because you don't have a physical office of your own doesn't mean you need to meet your clients in a coffee house to discuss business. Our meeting rooms are completely unbranded and you will get a dedicated receptionist to welcome your business guests and deliver them to your meeting room. Your clients will never know that the meeting room isn't actually owned by you.

No matter what support your small business needs, we are here to help fulfill your needs. Capital Office, London can provide you with a highly trained professional virtual receptionist to answer your incoming business telephone calls quickly and professionally in a greeting of your choice. Your receptionist will then deal with your calls exactly as you instruct us.

You can have the call directed through to an appropriate member of your staff so that they can help your caller immediately. You can have your virtual receptionist take a message from your caller and then pass it on to you directly.

You can even change the way you want us to deal with your calls on a day to day basis. For example, maybe you don't want to be disturbed by your phone for three days while you are at a business conference, trade event or workshop. Just let us know so your messages can be relayed on to you at the end of the day so you can choose who you want to call back at a time that is convenient for you.

The flexibility we build into our virtual office services is one of the reasons why we are one of the leading virtual service providers in the UK.

Why not join our base of happy customers by contacting us to discuss your virtual receptionist or virtual office needs. Our friendly team are here to help you!

You can call us on 0207 566 3939 or email us: OFFICE@CAPITAL-OFFICE.CO.UK or if you are in London, why not pop in to meet us at Capital Office, Kemp House, 152 - 160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX. We would be pleased to meet you and discuss your needs in person.

Many London-based businesses find that using a professional telephone answering service, such as the one provided by Capital Office in London, to be very beneficial in many ways. Like most things in the capital city, the costs associated with starting up and sustaining a business in London can often far exceed the costs paid in other less expensive areas of the UK.

One way to keep your business running costs down is by taking advantage of the services offered by a professional business call answering service. Luckily, London is home to one of the best call answering services in the country and offers businesses of all sizes the help they need to significantly reduce their overheads while at the same time maintaining a very high level of customer service and customer satisfaction.

How can your business call answering service save me money?

Well to put it in plain English, your business gets to benefit from a full-time receptionist answering every single incoming business call you receive without you actually having to employ any staff or provide an office or reception area for them to work from.

Using virtual office services such as these can save you thousands of pounds because your business will no be paying out to cover the wages of any reception or office staff. You will also be saving a lot of money on office rent, utility bills, IT infrastructure and equipment costs.

When you think that the average salary for a London-based receptionist on a full-time employment contract is in the region of £25,000 per annum, by choosing to use a professional call answering service for your business instead will be making you an instant saving of thousands of pounds. This is an obvious saving, but when you add on all the extra savings from not having to include office rental, IT and telephony-related equipment, power, heating and water bills etc. it makes so much sense to go with a virtual service provider that can deliver you the professional services you need at a remarkably low price.

Why choose Capital Office Call Answering Services?

With our professional business call answering services, you get to benefit from our services immediately. Think of the time you will be saving not having the hassle of finding your own receptionist – from paying for a job advertisement, sorting through job applications, short-listing candidates, going through the interview process and finally appointing the best candidate.

In most cases, you may also have to wait while your new employee serves out their notice at their previous employment before they can even start working for you. Then you need to provide your receptionist with an office to work from and the equipment needed to answer your calls. You also need to work out an employment contract, work out National Insurance contributions, pension payments and holiday entitlements etc.

Instead of all this hassle, why not simply save yourself a lot of time by booking our professional call answering services. There are no setup fees involved and instead of waiting around for weeks, you get to benefit from our services from day one. You can directly benefit from the services of a fully qualified and experienced telephone receptionist at the fraction of the cost of employing your own.

How does your call answering service work?

Our friendly staff at Capital Office can quickly and smoothly set up your fully personalised call answering service the same day. We will need to know your preferred greeting so that your virtual receptionist can answer your calls exactly as you like.

You will get your own unique London based telephone number that you can use as your own, or if you want to keep your existing business number, you can choose to have your calls diverted to your personally issued new number.

Our professional call answering team will recognise your telephone number and will be able to answer your incoming business calls swiftly, politely and efficiently. Your callers will get to hear a professionally trained receptionist answer their call and they will never know they are speaking to anyone other than an in-house staff member.

Your callers will also interact directly with a real human being, so this means they will not be put off by being greeted with an automated answering service or a robotic recorded message. In reality, our London-based call answering staff are a friendly team of real-world receptionist with many years of collective experience!

You can tell us exactly how to handle your incoming business calls and what you want us to do with them. For example, you may want us to log every incoming call and take messages that can be passed on to you later in the day. Or you may prefer us to filter your calls and only put through genuine calls directly to you from existing customers or B2B clients.

Your business callers will never know

Because our team of dedicated virtual receptionists are all professionally trained and have plenty of experience, your existing and prospective customers will be delivered with a very high level of customer service. Their call will be answered quickly with your preferred greeting and dealt with accordingly. This can include being directed to one of your staff members as appropriate, a message taken and relayed either immediately or at a convenient time as dictated by yourself via either text message or email so you can call them back at a time that is more convenient.

Having a real-life human answering your phone calls creates a much better first impression of your business than being greeted by an answering machine. You may consider using an answering machine to take your calls and messages while you are otherwise engaged, but research has shown that a high percentage of first-time business callers are put off by encountering an answering machine. Most callers either put the phone down without leaving a message and never bother to call back, or they will leave a message and then worry that they will never be called back.

The reassurance of speaking to an actual person on the end of the line can make all the difference. Callers are much more happy to leave messages with a real receptionist and are more confident that their message will get through to the right person and be called back accordingly.

This is a much better plan of action to take for the success of your business than sitting and listening to the playback on your answering machine only to hear many callers immediately hang up on hearing the message. Research shows that as many as seven out of ten business callers do just this when met with an answering machine. To you that can mean you are missing out on up to 70% of potential new customers coming to you via your business phone. Can you really afford to lose so many potential new customers to the coldness and detachment of an answering machine?

Sounds too good to be true!

You may be wondering if there is any catch to our call answering services. The truth is that there are none! It is so much simpler, quicker, cheaper and less hassle to use a good call answering service such as ours for the following reasons as well as the ones already mentioned above:

• No more cold callers: As your calls are screened by our service, you will never be disturbed by cold callers wanting to sell you something.
• Privacy and protection: Your home telephone number will be kept private, this is especially important for those small business owners that work from home.
• No interruptions: You don't need to break your concentration or interrupt a business meeting with a client to constantly answer your incoming business calls.
• Higher productivity: When you need to get your head down and get a work project completed in peace or to meet a tight deadline, you can get great peace of mind knowing that your calls are being answered.

Capital Office London can deliver you with a professional unlimited call answering service at an incredibly cost-effective price, especially when you compare prices against hiring your own in-house staff.

Our professional call answering service can help your business to grow in so many ways and free up your cash flow to reinvest back into your business instead of spending it on expensive overheads.

To get a clear idea of how our call answering services can help you, watch our quick video or contact our friendly team at Capital Office to discuss your business needs and how our flexible service can help you.

There has been an increasing rise in popularity of using virtual receptionists and professional call answering services amongst solo-entrepreneurs, small and medium-sized businesses across the UK in recent years. The reasons for the rise in popularity of these services is quite obvious once you take a look at the many benefits that using these virtual services can bring to your business and how they can help you to improve your productivity levels and bottom line.

Let's take a closer look at ten ways that using a professional call answering service or hiring a virtual receptionist can help your business to improve.

1: No need to hire and train new staff

One of the most obvious benefits for your business, especially if you are a sole trader or solo-entrepreneur that employs no other staff, is the fact that you will have a fully trained professional virtual receptionist ready to take your business calls from day one.

Professional call answering services, such as our own team at Capital Offices in London, are all fully-trained individuals with years of experience of working as a virtual receptionist. This means that as soon as you book our services, you will get immediate telephone coverage with polite and professional receptionists answering your calls using the greeting of your choice.

You will be saving yourself a heck of a lot of time and money hiring a virtual receptionist rather than employing one for your business by yourself. Employing your own receptionist will mean paying for a job advert, sorting through tons of job applications, shortlisting the best candidates, scheduling interviews, conducting interviews and then having to complete all the legal paperwork, registration with HMRC and drawing up of a contract of employment.

All this hassle and expense even before you can start to benefit from having the help of a receptionist! Then there is the settling in period and the training needed, especially if you have chosen someone with little receptionist experience.

It is so much simpler, quicker, cheaper and less hassle to use a good call answering service instead!

2: No more cold callers!

We all know that you cannot afford to ignore your ringing phone, especially if you are running a business where you are encouraging prospective new customers to call you for more information about your products or services.

Advertising your business number and making it visible to the general public will not only enable you to receive calls and enquiries from prospective new customers, as well as existing customers, but you are also opening yourself up to calls from sales reps and cold callers from all sorts of different industries. It can be incredibly frustrating to answer your business phone to find that maybe three out of five incoming calls are from sales reps or survey companies.

With a professional call answering service, you will never need to take the call in the first place. Your own virtual receptionist will be able to screen all of your calls for you, which means that you will only get genuine business calls coming through to you that actually want to get.

3: Put your productivity into overdrive

By using our high-quality call answering services you can truly maximise your productivity levels and take them to new heights! We all know that constantly being disturbed by your phone ringing can break your concentration and take your focus away from your important work tasks.

Having your own virtual receptionist will enable you to safely ignore your phone and allow you to continue to focus on your work projects without disruption. You don't need to worry about missed sales opportunities or missing important messages from your clients or customers because your virtual receptionist will intercept your calls on your behalf and leave you in peace to get on with your work. Your business caller will still feel very valued in your absence because their call has been answered swiftly, politely and professionally.

4: Travel between meetings safely

If your business involves you being on the road a lot travelling between customers or clients, then you will have a problem with answering your phone safely. It may be incredibly frustrating and time-consuming to constantly need to pull your car over to the side of the road to simply answer your phone each time it rings.

We all know that it is against the law to drive while on a mobile phone, so ignoring this can seriously put your safety at risk while driving. If you are spotted driving while on your phone by a police officer or a surveillance camera, you can face a hefty fine and points on your driving licence.

You can travel more safely between your appointments with more concentration and with fewer interruptions when you put your business calls into the hands of a professional virtual receptionist.

5: Phone cover while in meetings

There can be nothing more frustrating for your clients or customers than you constantly interrupting your business meeting by taking incoming calls on your phone. Your call answering service can take down important messages for you while you are busy in your meeting and quickly deliver them to you once you are free and able to respond to your messages.

6: Prioritise your callers

When you are busy working or in a meeting, you need to focus on what you are doing at the time. This can often mean having to miss a call or query from an important existing customer or B2B partner. Your virtual receptionist will be able to take messages from your general callers, but will also be briefed about any very important callers that need to be prioritised. This can often mean putting these calls directly through to you regardless of where you are or what you are doing.

7: Make your business look bigger than it is

Your prospective new customers will call you for more information about your products and services. When they have their call answered by a professional receptionist, they will immediately get an impression of a large and successful business with an organised set-up. This is a much better first impression to create in your customer’s mind than to have their call answered by a very flustered and irritated business owner that is trying to juggle too many tasks at once.

This can help to reassure prospective new customers or B2B clients that may be a little wary about dealing with a small, unknown company.

8: Much better customer service

The success of your business starts and ends with your customers. Without them, you would have no business! Keeping your customers happy and well treated is of vital importance for your business success, so having a very professional virtual receptionist on hand to answer customer calls promptly, politely and with a friendly manner, each and every time they call will add so much power to your ability to convert prospects to paying customers.

A consistent level of high-quality customer service can build a lot of trust and loyalty in your customers that means they are more likely to repeat-buy from you rather than go to one of your competitors.

9: Flexible services

Hiring our call answering services gives you a lot of flexibility that you couldn't get from employing your own staff. You may be working from a very tight budget that means you cannot afford to employ a full-time receptionist for your business. Staff wages and all the added expenses that come with providing your employees with the IT equipment and infrastructure needed for them to do an effective job all costs a lot of money.

The great thing with professional unlimited call answering services such as ours is that you can tailor it to suit your needs. You can save yourself a lot of money by using our virtual solution for just one month, three months, six months or twelve months – as you need us!

10: You get to keep more of your money

Quite simply, it is far more cost-effective for you to use virtual services such as our Professional Unlimited Call Answering Service because it is far more affordable than employing your own staff and kitting out an office or reception area of your own.

In many cases, a sole trader or solo-entrepreneur that is happy working from home can completely avoid the necessity and costs of setting up a physical office for their business if they are happy to continue along as they are and have no plans to expand their business beyond creating a job for themselves alone. Or if they prefer to have a small and flexible workspace where their team can collaborate together without having any designated desk space.

With our professional call answering service, our team of PA's answer your phone calls allowing you to have great peace of mind that you haven't missed any important business calls while you were unavailable on were busy in a meeting. This means that you will be left with more money in your bank account that can be invested in other important areas of your business.

Find out more about our professional call answering services and how cost-effective our services are!

An important part of any business set up is their office base, even a solo-entrepreneur needs some sort of office set up to work, from even if you are starting your business from home using a spare bedroom or maybe even your kitchen table!

Sorting out your office can be a daunting task, especially if this is your very first business set up and you have no idea where to start. You need to figure out how much space you will need if you are going to employ staff, will they need their own desk space or would they be better off with a flexible shared workspace? Do you actually need an office at all? If you are starting small, is there any reason why you cannot outsource your office tasks to save yourself some money on office rent, wages and utilities?

There are so many questions to ask yourself before you can even get your business up and running efficiently, but you need to find answers because your business will not work properly without having a good office structure in place.

What sort of office space is your company going to need?

One of the questions you may not have asked yourself is what type of working space your company is going to need. If your business involves the manufacture of a product or the assembly, repair or rebuilding of a physical item then you will obviously be going to need some sort of workshop space with plenty of room for your necessary tools, machinery, spare part storage etc.

However, just because you need plenty of productive workshop area doesn't necessarily mean that you will also need to rent huge office space to go with it. There are many small businesses, such as motor mechanics, car repair operations, florists, small bakeries etc. that simply don't need to have a large on-site office.

If you are starting a business that needs more workshop space rather than office space, don't be conned into renting out unsuitable premises that have a 50/50 split floorspace between office and workshop areas. Many garages and workshops have large ground-floor spaces that are ideal for this type of business, but will often come with built-in offices on the floor above that are exactly the same size as the floor below. You may well end up paying through the nose to rent a property and be spending out your hard-earned cash on renting empty and unwanted office space when it is really only the workshop space you need.

The changing face of office leasing

If your business is actually office-based, then obviously you will need to look at renting office space to accommodate your staff. These days new business owners are looking for more flexibility with their office needs. Fortunately, the days of strict and inflexible long-term office leases are long gone.

In the past many office leasing companies would inflict harsh financial penalties on their clients should they want to end their contracts early. This could happen if the office space being rented no longer met the needs of the company and they wished to move to larger premises, or even downscale to smaller facilities. It didn't really matter what the reason was for breaking the contract, the office leasing companies would almost always put a clause in the leasing terms and conditions to include a harsh penalty for not seeing out the contract.

This often left the client in a frustrating situation being stuck in unsuitable office facilities for the duration of the lease or paying to get out of the lease. Either way, the old system was expensive no matter which way the business chose to go.

These days modern companies don't just look for one type of office space, instead, they recognise the need for more flexibility to allow their staff to share workspaces and resources. They need areas where they can collaborate and converse with their teammates on joint projects and to share information easily.

The way we work is changing, and so the type of workspace we need will also need to change to meet our needs. Let's take a look at some popular office set-ups and why they could be a good fit for your business needs.

Virtual offices

The popularity of virtual office services has boomed in recent years. This is mostly down to the rapid rise in the numbers of self-employed people in the UK. Most new solo-entrepreneurs are happy to work from home to help keep costs down to an absolute minimum, but still need to portray a very professional business face to build trust in their clients and their company.

This is where the virtual office stands head and shoulders above simply renting office space in your local town or city for your business. With a virtual office service, such as Capital Office's Complete Virtual Office service, comes with a very prestigious business address that is centred in the heart of London's business district.

Choosing to have your business admin handled by a professional virtual office service provider such as us will also mean that your business gets to use a London telephone number and a high-quality call answering service with experienced virtual receptionists using your personalised business greeting.

You will never have to worry about missing a vital and important business phone call ever again, which can be especially reassuring when you are busy concentrating on a project or in a business meeting with a client. You will also be able to keep your professional work number separate from your private home number, meaning you will not be inundated at home with sales calls and scam artists trying to get your financial details.

Because you get a professional central-London office address for your business with your complete virtual office package, you also get a reliable and efficient mail sorting service where all of your business post will be sorted and forwarded on to you.

You can choose to have your business mail collected and forwarded to an address of your choice at regular intervals that suits your timetable, or you can drop by our offices to collect your mail in person. You can also have a scan and email service where we open your business post on your behalf, scan your mail and email the scanned documents directly to you. This can ensure that you never miss any important statutory mail coming from Companies House or HMRC that you cannot afford to ignore or mislay.

Complete virtual office services are ideal for solo-entrepreneurs and SME's that want to keep their costs down, yet still, ensure they run an efficient office while building a prestigious business profile for their company.

Co-working spaces

There are a number of co-working hugs springing up around the country in response to solo-entrepreneurs looking for more flexibility. These sort of spaces can be very handy, especially if you are running your businesses on a part-time basis, and don't want to have the expense of renting a full-time permanent office that will sit empty for the majority of the week.

With co-working, you can choose to use the space as and when suits you. In most cities, you can find co-working facilities that operate 24 hours a day, so if you were planning on starting a business on the side of your full-time job, you can get access to a co-working area during your free time in the evenings and at weekends.

The greatest benefit of using a co-working space is that you will be mixing with like-minded people who can help to give you a sense of community. This means you don't need to feel so isolated or alone if you are a solo-entrepreneur working from home. You can mix and mingle with others in a co-working environment as much or as little as you please.

You never know, there may even be some very useful contacts that you can make within your co-working community that can come in handy to help you with your work or a particular project that you are working on.

Mostly, co-working is great for anyone just starting out and not wanting to blow a huge chunk of their budget on setting up a physical office.

Fully Serviced offices

Probably the most expensive of these alternative office solutions to invest in fully serviced offices are just that – a complete turn-key walk-in and operate solution for a business owner that is itching to jump in and get started.

Everything you need from a working physical office space will be included in one monthly bill. So for example, your office rent, power, internet service, heating, maintenance, cleaning and IT equipment are all in place and ready to use. You will also benefit from a permanent on-site front of house receptionist that can receive your visitors and deliver them to your offices.

You may be offered optional extra services such as in-house mail sorting and telephone call handling, but you will need to check the small print carefully to see what is and what is not included in your service charge.

Leased offices

A more traditional approach that may be suitable for already established businesses that have outgrown their current available workspace or have grown too large to operate from a co-working space. Leased offices offer you the opportunity to truly put your own stamp on your office space. You can choose exactly how you want to plan and layout your office instead of having to adapt to an existing setup, such as what is offered by a fully serviced office solution.

The costs of this type of office set-up will need to be carefully considered. Unlike fully serviced offices that charge one regular monthly fee, you will be paying a monthly rent for your office, but you will also need to add on the costs of kitting out your office yourself, plus utility costs, business rates, IT infrastructure and maintenance costs etc.

Choose the most flexible option

No matter which of these office set-ups appeal to you, it would be wise to take some time to carefully think about your decision before going ahead. Think about how rapidly you expect your business to grow and whether your choice of office set-up will still be suitable for your needs in two, three or five years time.

Choose the option that suits you right now, but make sure you have the ability to scale up or scale down your office needs easily to match the ebb and flow of your business.

If you would like to find out more about our Complete Virtual Office solutions, do not hesitate to chat to one of our live agents from our website or give our friendly team a call.

Call us: 0207 566 3939

EMAIL: OFFICE@CAPITAL-OFFICE.CO.UK

Call in to meet us at Capital Office, Kemp House, 152 - 160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX. We look forward to meeting you!

Running your own business takes a lot of hard work and effort. Any business owner will agree and appreciate that fact, but a big part of making your business a success is to be open to the latest ideas and innovations in technology.It can take a good while to establish an efficient and productive workplace with a lot of testing, trial and error along the way to find what works best for you. However, if you want to stay on top and run your business to maximum efficiency than you cannot risk becoming complacent about your work processes and procedures.

How is technology improving the workplace?

There has been a technological explosion over recent years that has seen the rapid adoption of new technology and computer apps and tools that have provided great advancements in the workplace. This has meant that a lot of brand new startups have jumped in with a completely different workplace design that looks nothing like how a traditional business was structured, even as little as five years ago.There is no denying that the workplace has been gradually evolving over the years with small improvements and updates, but throughout many decades the humble office has pretty much stuck to the same tried and tested structure that existed 150 years ago, or even longer.New start-up businesses are finding new ways of working that not only help to improve productivity in the workplace, but also enable entrepreneurs to start their new ventures as a lean business operating on a minimal budget.This involves creating the right workplace environment to attract and retain their key staff members that will act as the foundation nuts and bolts of their business. Many new business enterprises are started these days on a very small scale with just a handful of key staff that are essential to the company. Modern technology has enabled more entrepreneurs to launch their successful business ideas without needing huge financial backing or business loans for large-scale office and workspace premises to work out of, or the need to hire as many employees as would have been needed on the ground as say 15 or 20 years ago.Modern technology has now been providing new business owners with the right tools for productivity, effectiveness and efficiency at the fraction of the cost of having to pay in-house staff to do certain essential everyday tasks.

Flexibility to grow and expand or scale down as needed

A lot of business owners can face fluctuations in business revenue throughout the year. This is quite commonly expected for seasonal businesses and for those who's manufacturing output depends on the consistency of incoming orders. Navigating the ebbs and flows of a variable cash-flow and managing it well is one of the key elements to running a successful long-lasting business.The flexibility that modern technology offers a business owner means that they can scale up or scale down their operations to match their workflow and will mean that they are not paying out a huge chunk of their business revenue on costly office rental contracts or staff wages.These days your company staff no longer need to be chained to their work desks or glued to their computer screens to ensure that their tasks get completed. The introduction of portable IT products such as laptops, tablets and smartphones have enabled workers to carry their work with them. This has lead to a lot of employers offering flexible work contacts to their employees that has enabled many of them to hire remote staff that can work from home so they don't have to pay out to supply their workers with a physical bricks and mortar office, the IT and telecommunications infrastructure needed, or power and water services that go with a standard office lease.For the business owner, this is a very freeing approach because they can simply take on more remote freelance or contracted staff to help them complete an incoming large project that their existing team may struggle to cope with on their own. It also means that they don't need to turn down any opportunities that come their way simply because they lack the capacity to handle large projects with the staff they currently have.The use of online collaboration tools such as Slack and Smartsheet means that you can control all of your team members from one place, no matter where in the world they are! Your team can collaborate and share files, progress and essential information in one place and you can keep an eye on everything that is going on without needing to leave the comfort of your office.

Scaled-down workplaces

With the use of modern technology combined with flexible working patterns, many business owners find that they no longer need as many office desks or workstations than before. Because not every employee is in your office all day every day, you can look at saving yourself a lot of money by having a scaled-down office structure where desk spaces are shared between employees.Technology is a wonderful thing for productivity and efficiency at work, but you may not want to go as far as using smart sensor technology to monitor your desk occupancy, but it is useful to know how many people are using desk space at any one time.Knowing how long desks are left vacant can help you analyse how much desk space your company actually needs. You could look at incorporating hot desks or workspace benches where your employees have somewhere to work from while in the office, but isn't their own designated area and is shared by your team as a collective.

Virtual Office Options

Is there actually a need for you to have a workplace office or reception area at all?This is a very important question to ask yourself, especially if you are setting yourself up as a sole trader or solo-entrepreneur. You may be thinking of starting up a small business from home or from a small workshop or retail shop where you either don't have the space for an office set up, or you simply don't need to run an office or have a reception area.Of course, if you are setting up on your own, you will have to realise that you need to handle all of your business administration tasks by yourself and that includes answering your business calls, doing your own bookkeeping and business accounts as well as opening and dealing with all your business post.For a lot of solo-entrepreneurs with big ideas, the thought of doing everything yourself, right down to being your own receptionist and office clerk, can be very frustrating. The time it takes to do your everyday administration tasks can be huge, and it is time that could be better spent more productively elsewhere on your business.This is why Complete Virtual Office Services have taken off in recent years, especially amongst small business owners that are trying hard to start and grow their business on a limited budget. Virtual office services are wonderful tools for a solo-entrepreneur simply because they don't need to blow their budget on leasing office space and hiring administrative staff to look after these essential business tasks.By using virtual services you can free up your time to spend engaging with prospective new customers or building your business network, or simply actually doing your work instead of getting distracted and interrupted by answering the phone every time it rings.If you think you can handle your incoming business post by yourself because that is just one task per day and can be handled in the morning, then this task is still time-consuming enough to tie up a decent chunk of your working day. Answering your telephone on top of this is different because the phone can ring at any time during the day. This is why it makes good business sense to look at using a professional call answering service such as the one offered by Capital Offices.Professional call answering services can free up your time and allow you to concentrate on your work without constant interruptions. This means that you can become more productive and are able to better meet your client deadlines. Your business calls will be in the safest of hands and will ensure that not a single phone call is missed because you are busy working or are with an important client that needs your full attention.With a call answering service alone you will greatly benefit because you will never lose any new opportunities coming from curious potential customers and your callers will be impressed that you have a professional receptionist answering their call instead of the stressed-out boss who is obviously struggling to manage everything on their own.

Better communications

Winning new clients and holding on to your existing customer base is crucial if you want your business to remain sustainable. A lot of business success is down to your customer service and the way you communicate with people.There is so much modern technology available that you can take advantage of to make managing your customer relationships easier, and that includes outsourcing some of your essential business tasks to experts in their field that can help you.Rather than struggling with numbers and balancing your books, you can look at hiring a professional accountant or using an online bookkeeping and accounting solution, such as QuickBooks. For your business administrative tasks, you can look at hiring either Complete Virtual Office Services or just having your business calls taken care of via a Professional Call Answering Service.Additional physical workspace such as meeting rooms are also being changed for the better by modern technology. No longer do you need to pay out rent on a meeting room that is hardly used on a regular basis. Instead, you can look at taking advantage of hiring ready to use meeting room space in London for your important client meetings or as a gathering place for your annual AGM.All these advancements mean that you can help your business to reach high levels of productivity, collaborate easily with all of your team without the need to keep them tied to your office, and save a lot of money by using apps, software tools and virtual services.If you would like more information about any of our professional business services, feel free to call our friendly team on 0207 566 3939 or email us: OFFICE@CAPITAL-OFFICE.CO.UK or why not pop in to meet us at Capital Office, Kemp House, 152 - 160 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX.

When starting up a new business your mind will automatically start thinking about why type of office set up you will need to get your new enterprise off the ground. This can be a very easy choice for a solo-entrepreneur that plans to start off working from home in a spare bedroom, home office or even from their kitchen table. However, the time will hopefully come where they will need to make plans for some sort of office as their business grows and expands.For those who are planning to jump-start a small business or a partnership where you need to facilitate an office or a workspace to operate from then there is the option of choosing to rent a fully serviced office. This type of office space can save you a lot of time and money because you don't need to actually set up your own physical office space at all – you will simply be able to walk your staff right into a fully set-up and working office space as soon as you sign on the dotted line of your serviced office agreement.

What is a fully serviced office?

Serviced office spaces isn't exactly a new thing to the business world. Rented service office spaces started to pop up in the USA back in the 1960s. The providers most often offered serviced offices as a temporary solution for business owners that were planning to relocate their business to another area or larger premises and who needed an immediate stop-gap solution to keep their business ticking over while their move took place.In most cases back in the early days of serviced offices, the space was only ever used for the short-term so were pretty much overlooked by well-established businesses that had no plans to move premises. It is only in recent years with the rise in the numbers of entrepreneurs and lean business start-ups that the idea of the fully serviced office has really taken off. The idea soon spread to the UK, mostly during the late 90s and in fact, the UK alone has recently seen a 157% increase in serviced office take up.There are many benefits to choosing a fully serviced office set up when compared to setting up your own physical office from scratch. Let's take a look at some of the key advantages:

Greater flexibility

Probably the most beneficial element of working from a fully serviced office space is the flexibility that this can give to your business. Most serviced offices come with short-term contracts that you can choose to renew over again, should you need to. This is in stark contrast to setting up your own physical office space where you may have no other choice but to sign up for a lengthy fixed term contract that could see you tied up with for several years.Leasing your own physical office space is not only costly for your business and can seriously impact of your budget, but it can often leave you tied into a long-term lease that comes with financial penalties should you decide to break the contract early.There are many rapidly growing businesses that need to start off small and can only afford a small office to start with, but may find that within a couple of years they have quickly outgrown their existing space. The need to move to larger premises may be made more difficult if you have signed a five-year lease on your office space that comes with a hefty fee for severing it before it expires. Not many growing businesses can afford to hang around and wait for their lease to expire while working out of very cramped and unsuitable office conditions.The perfect solution here is to hire fully serviced registered office space that you can pick up quickly and operate on a pay-as-you-go basis. This means that you can get the right sized office space that you need when you start up but also have the in-built flexibility to expand your office and take on more office space as and when you need to.

Adapting your office space to suit your needs

Flexibility and adaptability are two very strong features of hiring a fully serviced office space. Say for example that you hire a space that is suitable for your needs, but then you land a large project that means you need to add some extra office space for a few months. This is where using a serviced office space can work to your advantage. You can simply take on the extra office space for the duration of your large project, and then scale back to your original sized space once the project is completed and delivered.For your business, this means that you can have office space that is right for your business at every stage of your journey. Being able to upscale or downsize your flexible office space and renew or extend your lease gives you the freedom operate more efficiently without wasting any precious resources or be left with uncomfortable office space that isn't suitable for your changing needs.

Relocating from a different country

Many businesses are global these days, so this often means a company will simply up-sticks and relocate their operation to any part of the world. A lot of international businesses decide to expand into a new country so under both scenarios a company will look at using serviced office space to help their transition into the new country. Many companies will use fully serviced offices to set up their UK branch and establish their brand here while their permanent business premises is being prepared.Many international businesses are now using serviced office space as a solution for testing out a new location before finally deciding whether or not to branch out and move or open their operations up in that country. This is a very flexible approach to their expansion plans and means they can successfully test the waters before committing to anything in the long term.

Cost-effective solution

When you sit down and actually factor in every expense and overhead that you will need to pay for when setting up your own office space from scratch, you can see that choosing serviced office space rental is a very worthwhile investment.Because absolutely everything is included in your fully-equipped and fully-furnished office space, it completely removes the headache of having to sort everything out by yourself. Everything you need is included in one monthly pay-as-you-go bill, including your IT infrastructure, building maintenance and cleaning, power and water utilities and sanitation facilities.

Alternatives to fully serviced offices

Having said all this, there is also another very flexible alternative to hiring a fully serviced office. This solution is actually ideal for those solo-entrepreneurs, sole traders and small partnerships that are setting up an online business or small creative business and may be happy to work from their home office, or choose to have a workshop or warehouse set up without the need for a physical office.This solution is also ideal for new start-ups who want to run a lean business infrastructure where they operate using the bare minimum of resources to keep costs down and enable them to divert the time consuming everyday tasks of running an office elsewhere to avoid distractions.We are talking here about using a complete virtual office set up that can be even more cost-effective and flexible than taking up a fully serviced office space.There has been an incredible rise in the numbers of people going self-employed in recent years with many thousands of people looking for home business ideas that they can successfully launch from the comfort of their own home, while at the same time outsourcing many essential office tasks to virtual service suppliers.One of the major benefits of using a virtual office service provider such as Capital Office in London is that you can literally start using your office services right away.With minimal set-up times involved, you can get your own virtual office operating quickly and functioning at maximum capacity. This will allow you to focus your attention towards more urgent and important tasks, such as your R&D projects or meeting with clients or prospective new business partners without the fear of interruptions coming from phone calls.There will be no need to worry or fret about the levels of your incoming business mail piling up in the corner of the room. We understand that most small business owners have little time or patience to dedicate to dealing with your business post. This is where our mail sorting services will prove invaluable to you. You will no longer need to think about your mail and there will be zero risks of you losing any important pieces of mail coming from your clients or your statutory mail coming from HMRC and Companies House that you cannot afford to lose or ignore.Why not give one of our friendly Capital Office team members a call on 0207 566 3939or email: office@capital-office.co.uk to discuss your virtual office needs. We are here to help!

Modern-day offices are nothing like what they used to be. The digital revolution has brought about great changes to the workplace that allows for a greater level of flexibility than was afforded to business owners in years gone past.In the old days, it was simply a matter of providing four straight walls, a roof and desks for their office workers to sit at for the whole of their working days, weeks, months and years.These days many businesses both large and small are demanding greater flexibility for their workers and this doesn't always mean having a permanent office style set-up in the workplace. More employers are realising that they need to incorporate more agility and amenity in their workspaces that include open-plan office space, rest areas where staff can go to get a mental break from their desks and connect and collaborate with their work colleagues.

Fully serviced offices

A lot of new tech start-ups that don't actually produce physical goods or need workshops are creating a rise in demand for very adaptable, fully-equipped, ready to go offices and workspaces that provide new business owners with everything they need to launch their business, but with the convenience of only needing to pay one monthly fee for its use.This means that many digital entrepreneurs and app developers can walk into a fully-functional office with their R&D development team and programmers and be ready to go from day one with none of the logistical nightmares of having to rent premises and set up their own workspaces.Compared to how business owners used to operate this new approach is nothing short of a workplace revolution. Fully serviced office spaces are becoming the new norm for many new start-ups and has long been an anticipated requirement for new enterprises according to many leading business experts.

Virtual office options

The huge rise in popularity for a flexible virtual office approach to running a business has also proved to be a game-changer in the business world. According to information from the Office of National Statistics, the number of self-employed in the UK increased from 3.3 million people (12.0% of the labour force) in 2001 to 4.8 million (15.1% of the labour force) in 2017.The vast majority of the self-employed are either sole traders working a home-based business, solo-entrepreneurs, small partnerships and small business start-ups with just a handful of key workers on staff. This means that the demand for virtual office services such as those offered by Capital Office, London has been steadily rising in recent years.There are obvious benefits to outsourcing many of the day-to-day administration tasks performed in your office and reception area. Freeing yourself from these time-consuming tasks will allow you to focus your time on more pressing jobs and free you up for meetings with clients or B2B negotiations. The cost savings alone will help give your bottom line a healthy boost because you will not need to employ administrative staff solely for the purpose of handling your business calls and keeping on top of your company mail.You can also make massive savings on office rent as you won't need to hire staff and provide them with office space to work from, not to mention the savings made from all the extra overheads of running an office such as your power, heating, water supply and IT equipment infrastructure.

Scalability of flexible office services

The boom in alternative office solutions offers you the agility and smooth scalability that allows for businesses to plan for rapid growth. With both fully-serviced offices and virtual office services, you have the ability to have a fully scalable solution that will grow with your business.This can be very beneficial to entrepreneurs who may be looking to expand their business and even take on staff for the first time, but still be able to run a lean set up where they don't have a large chunk of their revenue spent on administration and office rent that delivers no returns for their business.Even if you run a business without any physical office space, you can still find fantastic solutions such as our registered office service that provides a business a valuable EC1 London address, while allowing you to hold business meetings with prospective new clients by using a fully serviced meeting room to meet with and impress your clients. There is very little point to paying out rent for an office with additional meeting room space if this room is going to sit empty for the vast majority of the year.In the beginning, it can be very convenient and cost-effective to simply start off with one virtual service that can greatly help you free up your time, such as using a virtual call handling service to always be there to answer your incoming calls and handle them according to your specific instructions.Alternatively, you could choose to start off with a mail sorting service that will keep you free of the burden of having to spend your time opening and dealing with your business post each day.What is most appealing to modern business owners is the very convenient ‘pay-as-you-go’ basis that virtual office services are based upon. This means they can have a perfect solution to provide them with all the administrative support they need at a cost-effective price, yet can scale the amount of help they need according to the ebb and flow of their income and business finances. This sort of set up is of particular use to those nimble, entrepreneurial companies that need to be able to quickly adapt to change.

Capital Office over-delivering on virtual services

Because Capital Office offers virtual office services that go beyond the obvious, this has proven to be our key to success for the very many years that we have been offering business owners these top-class services. We set the bar very high for our competitors to reach and any other virtual office service provider will need to be a truly outstanding company in order to compete with us.Our team of dedicated staff are committed to a mission to keep our finger on the pulse of what our happy clients want from our services. This means that we are constantly looking to evolve and adapt to draw the best advantages from new technology and communication techniques.We are proud to offer a vibrant and innovative range of virtual services to our clients and are very passionate about continuing to refine and add to the services that we can offer to help and assist business owners across the country.

Achieving a healthy work-life balance

We at Capital Office understand that new and growing businesses are ambitious to make their company a success. This can often mean working long and gruelling hours to keep on top of everything that needs to be done, including being fully responsive to your incoming business calls and not becoming overwhelmed with your continuous incoming business post.Sometimes entrepreneurs will sacrifice a lot of their evenings and weekends to dedicate to their business, but quite often their efforts are spent just keeping on top of everything rather than to successfully push their business forward.Family life can suffer as a result, as can your own mental health and well-being. Outsourcing your essential day-to-day administration tasks to a virtual office service to handle on your behalf can not only give you the peace of mind you need to know that every single business phone call is being professionally handled, but also will free up your time from being bogged down opening your business post and sorting through acres of junk mail. The time you can free up from these tasks can be better spent at home enjoying your family life.We understand that you really want your business to become a roaring success, but you don't have to achieve this at the cost of your personal health and well-being or risk putting extra pressures on your personal relationships. Achieving a good work-life balance is crucial if you want to get the best of both worlds from your business and your home life.

Moving with the times

According to employment data predictions, by 2020, millennials will make up 50% of the global workforce. Don't forget that this is a generation that is used to using digital technology and understand how it can help them to work with more flexibility. The new upcoming workforce will be used to collaborating with work colleagues through a digital environment, so the idea of using virtual office services will be considered as being quite normal in a modern workplace, especially with start-up businesses running a lean operation.As both the fully-serviced office and virtual office solutions set to keep on booming over the coming years, most new business owners are becoming far more selective in their planning for their office set up. Many established businesses looking to expand their operations are now waking up to the additional benefits that these solutions can provide.The businesses of the future will have to present a flexible, multifaceted face to their company set up to allow them to escape the old rigidity and confinement that a traditional permanent office environment provides. To enable their business to grow and prosper while keeping their operational overheads to an absolute minimum, it will be absolutely essential that they look at working with a good virtual office service or a fully-equipped physical office provider – or both!For more information about our virtual office services, do not hesitate to contact our friendly London-based team. We are here to help your business succeed! Call us: 0207 566 3939email: office@capital-office.co.uk