Customers of business centers

Self-employed individuals operating as limited liability companies, or small businesses with only a few employees and little to no scope for having a receptionist or other customer service administrators, will often use this service - especially when starting up the business and wanting to create a presence as well as assure that all customer contact is captured. However some large insurance businesses, with a high count of mobile employees, will have a sophisticated virtual office service that takes and routes calls and messages to employees - and may answer some initial inquiries on behalf of the business. In this latter sense, the virtual office complements working from home (aka "telecommuting") and other forms of remote working where having an office permanently available is not essential to operating a business.

Customer characteristics

Typically, you will be the typical users of virtual office services:

• if you are seeking a cost-effective alternative to renting a conventional office;
• if you are seeking the benefits of a traditional live-answer receptionist, at low cost;
• if you are looking to host meetings in a professional environment; in foreign countries
  
• if you are willing to testing a new product or service idea;
• if you going to starting a company;
• if you plan to downsizing from a conventional office;
• if you are expanding from a home office;
• if you plan to migrating from a post office box;
• if you are seeking to establish a business presence in the new country or city;
• if you are seeking a business address within an expensive location, for corporate image purposes;
• if you are seeking a business address as its registered business address to comply to government regulation;
• if you are seeking supportive business services such as copiers, printing, faxing;
• if you are seeking a proxy for collection or "fielding" of mail and parcels
• if you are seeking a business address and anonymity at the same time.

Alternate usage of virtual offices

Virtual office is also a common term for an environment that enables a network of co-workers to run a business efficiently by using nothing other than online communication technologies.

In the TIC sector, a virtual office is a category of groupware gathering organization, communication and collaboration data centralized on a server. The user accesses data from any devices (PC, laptop, PDA, smartphone, etc..) equipped with a Web and a connection to Internet.

Features

• Universal access - The user can access data in the same way at work, at home, on the road, in a meeting room at the hotel, etc..
• Security - The data are no longer stored on the hard disk of a computer, which can be stolen, lost, be the target of a computer virus, etc.. In case of problems, the data are preserved.
• Opening - While traditional software focus on an organization, the virtual office allows the inter-organization collaboration.
• Location model - Instead of paying a license, the user pays a monthly or annual fee. Some publishers offer a free basic version.