Being self-employed, I HATE to feel that I have to be at my desk for a prescribed number of hours, or to perform certain tasks. So, when I recently went travelling around Europe in my campervan, I had to find solutions to give me the freedom I wanted to enjoy my trip, but also to remain in control of my businesses, and not take my eye off the ball. I still use ALL of these in the everyday running of my business when I’m not in the office…which seems to be getting quite frequent!

1) Firstly, I had to find a way to be able to access my pc for the sole purpose of running the payroll on a Friday…any business is only as good as it’s staff. so there was no way this could go wrong!

I discovered LogMeIn – free remote access to my computer, just as if I was sitting right in front of it. I just needed internet connection, which isn’t difficult to find around Europe. There is a desktop version as well as an iPhone app, but the app isn’t free…definitely worth the 17 though.

2) Being a bit of a control freak, I check my Google Analytics account a few times every day, as I like to know exactly how the site visitors found us.

I discovered Analytics Lite – another free app that I still use all the time as it’s quicker than checking on my desktop!

3) Both of my business websites are created using WordPress, and I needed to make sure that if there was a problem with either site while I was away, I could access it and fix it as soon as possible.

WordPress have a free app. As it happens, I didn’t need it, but it gave me fantastic peace of mind.

4) I was discussing mobile websites with a SEO guy and he laughed when I said that yes I have a mobile website, and it seems to run just fine on my iPhone. I was referring to my original website, which is obviously not what he meant!

I discovered DudaMobile – another free app that will convert your existing website into a mobile website which even gives you an app type favicon on your iPhone or Android home screen

5) I like to cast my beady eye over any legal docs before they leave our office, and I also love to analyse statistics to the nth degree, but I didn’t want to have to use LogMeIn for everything,.

I discovered Google Docs – free ‘MS Office’ type programs that can be accessed as long as you have internet connection, and shared with different users at the same time. This meant my manager could ‘show’ me stats by looking at the same spreadsheet, at the same time, while talking me through it over he phone. We’ve moved our entire document and spreadsheet library over to this!

6) As I wouldn’t be able to take out of hours calls on the hop, I needed to find a way for my prospective clients to communicate with me and get answers to their queries. Email would be too slow. I needed a system that would allow me flexibility, while still offering excellent customer service.

I discovered Comm100 – a FREE ‘Chat Now’ button that I embedded into the header banner of my website. I downloaded the free app to my ihpone, and every time someone wanted to connect out of hours, I had a loud notification from my iPhone. I knew I had a few minutes to react so I’d find a hotel and away to go!

7) There were times when I wanted to check up on the office and make sure it hadn’t burnt down or been burgled…or even the staff doing acrobatics over the desks!

I installed Skype on my iPhone and randomly called my manager for quick chats a few times….I was quite disappointed everyone was so well behaved in the background!

So, I had a great stress-free trip, and I never work Fridays…well not in the office anyway!

Call Catchers have gained so much knowledge over the years, it would be a shame to keep it all to ourselves….so we’ll share what we can, when we can.

Call Catchers telephone answering service, virtual switchboard & order processing….you can’t spend all day answering calls…but we can!

Call Catchers Telephone Answering Service

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Marcelle_Llewelyn

I was faced with a huge dilemma during the strike because it straddled the end of one month and the beginning of the next, so not only could I get my ‘month end’ statements out, I also couldn’t raise my invoices and post them on the 1st of the month.

The answer to this problem was quite simple…to start emailing invoices and statements at ZERO COST! We use Sage Accounts, so after updating our systems with billing email addresses, the rest was simple. We simply output to email instead of printing everything off, saving us around £5,000 per annum.

A few weeks ago I received a flyer through the post from my opticians, informing me of a ’2 for 1′ special offer, printed in colour onto plain paper, posted in a branded envelope by 1st class mail.

I was due a check-up, so when I went in to see them, I found that they not only have email addresses for about 90% of their clients, they also have the mobile telephone numbers for a large majority as well.

They invited me to have a quick look at their systems, where I found they only use a few of the modules of their very expensive CRM. 10 minutes later, I’d showed them how to export the email addresses into a file, and created a template for them in readiness for their next marketing campaign.

I also recommended a text messaging service to send text (SMS) appointment reminders directly from their existing database. OK, this carries a cost of 6.5p per text, but this far outweighs the cost of sending a postal reminder at 80p!

We worked out a potential cost saving of about £8,000 per year, so I suggested I get free eye tests and contact lenses for life…if you don’t ask, you don’t get!

As a telephone answering service, the majority of our messages are sent out by SMS to our clients, directly and immediately to their mobile phones.

In my humble opinion, Royal Mail shot themselves in the foot with the strike, and those of us who found alternatives methods definitely came out on top

Last week I was chatting to a SEO guy about numerous things, and we were swapping tips left, right and centre. He went on to ask me if my website was ‘mobile friendly’. I promptly explained that my site looks beautiful and functions perfectly every time I view it on my iPhone. Unexpectedly, he laughed out loud! He then kindly introduced me to the easiest, most fantastic website ever… www.dudamobile.com where it converts your existing website into a choice of templates that give you a fully loaded mobile website!

So last Friday, after about 3 hours playing about with different templates and tidying up the pages, we now have a fantastic mobile website advertising our call answering service, which you can also add a shortcut to, to your iPhone as an app…so we finally have an app too! The charge for their Premium service is $9 per month for a fully loaded site, but they also offer a free version, as long as you don’t mind slightly reduced functionality and banner ads.

Today I decided to convert my other business website too, so now I have 2 mobile websites! This time I went with the free version as I don’t need it to be all singing and all dancing at the moment. I’ll monitor the number of visitors through Android Browser and Safari over the coming weeks and see if it’s worth changing my mind.

Now the unashamed plug to both of my mobile sites:

Call Catchers telephone answering service mobile site

Easy As 123 Accounts & bookkeeping spreadsheet mobile site

I’m not linked to www.dudamobile.com in any way whatsoever by the way….I just think they have a fantastic offering that everyone in business should be aware of! (Apart from my competitors of course!)

I checked on the views several times a day, and found very little activity much to my disappointment.

However, we check our rankings for about 20 different keyword search terms every morning and to my absolute delight and astonishment, within 2 working days, our website had jumped from position 8 on Google for our most targeted search term, all the way up to number 3!

After a week or so of asking all of my friends and family (along with people I randomly bumped into) to check out the original video, I was getting feedback that even though it was funny and provided a little light relief, it could have been a little more professional. So, I removed the video and went back to the drawing board……

…and the site fell back to it’s original position 8 on Google! I reworked the video and uploaded it back to YouTube and guess what??? Back up to 3 it went!

It appears that it doesn’t really matter what quality your video is, just get one up, tag it and let Google show you the love

Marcelle Llewelyn

Call Catchers…we’ve got the answer!

www.call-catchers.co.uk

Call Catchers pride ourselves on our attention to detail, and often go ‘the extra mile’ in the best interest of our loyal customers. And how do we know what our customers want? Because we ask them…it’s as simple as that!

The solution is as simple as diverting your landline to your mobile, or onto a telephone answering service.

Have you ever sat down and calculated the cost of every lead you generate? Whether you have paid a commission, or met a prospect at a business exhibition, or advertised in the Yellow Pages, every lead has a cost associated to it. The sad thing is that many small businesses are missing the first contact from these potential leads, because they just can’t get to the phone on time, or because the phone is in their home or their office and they need to be elsewhere to do what they do best!

Many of us are too busy in our small businesses trying to be the marketing manager and the accountant and the team leader, all at once, to worry about being the receptionist too!

A simple and cost-effective solution is to simply divert your land line calls to your mobile phone, making sure that every single call is answered. Your potential clients will be guaranteed to get hold of you at the first attempt, which will add professionalism and trust to your list of attributes, and your existing clients / customers will appreciate being able to contact you as and when they need to. This certainly helps to build rapport and long-lasting business relationships.

Many visitors to our website are looking for clear instructions on how to divert / undivert their BT or Virgin lines to their mobile phones, so here’s an easy guide:

Firstly, you will need to call BT / Virgin on 150 from your land line, and ask them to activate the Call Divert function. This usually takes a maximum of 24 hours to activate. Then you will need to type one of the following simple codes on your handset:

To divert ALL calls:

*21*the-number-you’re-diverting-to#

To end the divert: #21#

To divert calls that aren’t answered in 15 seconds:

*61*the-number-you’re-diverting-to#

To end the divert: #61#

To divert when your line is engaged:

*67*the-number-you’re-diverting-to#

To end the divert: #67#

To divert when engaged or not answered in 15 seconds:

*66*the-number-you’re-diverting-to#

To end the divert: #66#

This facility isn’t exclusive to diverting just to mobile phones, you can divert to almost any phone, including your mobile, another landline, or onto a telephone answering service. Most telecoms providers also offer a divert facility, but some may take longer than 24 hours to activate.

You need to be aware that you will be charged the cost of forwarding your land line calls by BT / Virgin / etc., but the benefit should far outweigh the cost. However, if you’re finding that you’re on the phone for a substantial amount of time on diverted calls, it might be more cost-effective for you to tell your callers that you’ll call them right back, and then call them from your mobile using your inclusive minutes package.

Don’t miss any more leads that you’ve worked hard for and spent a fortune on….you’ve earned them!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6424515

Our professional Call Catchers telephone answering service virtual receptionists answer your calls in your own company name, and we portray that we are sat right in your office when taking your calls.

Having thoroughly researched your company, we are able to answer questions about your products or services, inform customers of expected delivery dates and times, book clients onto your courses, tell callers when you are likely to call them back after checking your diary, give out information on your available properties, etc., etc. We will tell them what ever you want us to!

Details of each call are then forwarded to you immediately by SMS text message and email, or we can patch calls through to you if this would suit your needs better.

As you can see, Call Catchers pride ourselves on offering the best telephone answering service in the UK, where the only thing we can not do is make you a cup of tea!

As providers of the most comprehensive call handling solution in the UK, we take the time to investigate and learn about your company, read your website and learn about the day to day running of the business, as well as the people involved in it. This allows us to deal with your callers’ questions in far more depth, while giving the impression we are actually part of your team, which is how we like to think of ourselves…an extension of your business.

We currently offer telephone answering services to businesses all over the UK and work with a variety of sectors, including:

• Medical practices
• Rental and estate agencies
• Will writers
• Recruitment agents
• Luxury branded jewellers
• Training companies
• Commercial cleaning agencies
• Networking groups
• Design and print houses
• International food retailers
• Chiropractors and alternative therapists
• Web designers
• Plumbing and heating engineers

There’s few trades we have not worked with!

Our full time telephone answering services monthly plans attract a FREE TRIAL and our most popular package starts from just £2.50 per day, or £50 per month. We also offer a Pay As You Go service, at just £1.50 per call, with no further charges, no set-up fees, and subject to a minimum charge of just £10 per month.

We can have your account set up and could be answering your calls within just a few hours! So whether you have been in business for years, or have recently started up as a sole trader or LTD Co, Call Catchers can provide you with a telephone answering service to fit the image you want to portray.

We currently answer calls for businesses all across the UK, including London, Leeds, Swansea, Manchester, Bristol, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Isle of Man, so wherever you are based, Call Catchers telephone answering service will be able to answer your calls in the most professional manner.

Call us NOW on 0800 1357 368 to arrange your FREE trial of our telephone answering service!

]]> http://www.call-catchers.co.uk/telephone-answering-service/feed 0 http://www.call-catchers.co.uk/pay-as-you-go-telephone-answering-service http://www.call-catchers.co.uk/pay-as-you-go-telephone-answering-service#comments Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:15:56 +0000 admin http://call-catchers.co.uk/?p=55 Pay as you go telephone answering where you only pay for what you use!

Our Pay As You Go (PAYG) answering service is simply just that…..with NO monthly admin charges, FREE set-up, email and text message included, so there will be no extra or hidden charges…..JUST SIMPLY PAY FOR WHAT YOU USE, subject to a minimum bill of £10 per month just to cover our costs!

So if you’re not entirely sure of how many telephone calls you’re likely to receive just yet and don’t want to commit to a monthly plan, why not just pay for what you use on our Pay As You Go service?

• FREE set-up
• Email Included
• Text Message Included
• NO Minimum Call Volumes
• Just £1.50 per call
• No tie-in period

This service is ideal for new, start-up companies, businesses that experience seasonal fluctuations, and those with a small niche client base and therefore expect to receive fewer telephone calls on a monthly basis.

You can give us a ring on 0800 1357 368 right away, and we can be answering your calls on a per call basis and helping you grow your business in a matter of minutes on our pay as you go telephone answering service.

We manage diaries in the following sectors:

• Oven Cleaning – we check availability and book appointments
• Beauty Training – we book beauticians onto further courses
• Restaurant – we check availability and book tables
• Domestic Cleaning – we check availability and book appointments
• Consultancy – we check availability and patch calls through
• Estate Agency Viewings – we check availability and patch calls through

Call us NOW on 0800 1357 368 to arrange your FREE trial!

The Order Processing Department provide you with the facility of our Call Catchers taking orders for your business on your behalf. We can process your orders online through your website, on a bespoke order form, or we can simply email you details of your customers’ requirements.

Payment Processing

The Payment Processing Department will take payments for your orders through your own Paypal, NetBanx, Worldpay, Nochex, etc., account seamlessly. We will ask you to contact your payment processing merchant to enable an account for our Call Catchers to use, that only accepts deposits.

Call us NOW on 0800 1357 368 to arrange your FREE trial!