| |
| Home Office Environment & Technology |
- The home telephone line may become the business telephone number and you will need to consider whether you are happy for your private number to become public property. How you will handle calls at all times of the day and night, and if you have children or a partner how would they answer the telephone to potential clients?
- Unless you can afford to install a second telephone line, you will need to find a way around this 'challenge' that is also acceptable to your family. Maybe you could ask the children not to answer the telephone during office hours, or if they are really old enough, to teach them telephone answering skills. Inviting the caller to call back in an hour or so when you are back from your meeting, or the suppliers, would be better than wasting the caller's time by taking down a wrong message. If you are to be away from the telephone for any period of time, an answerphone with a business style message would be the best option.
- Another useful gadget, especially for the other members of your home, would be to have a telephone which displays the caller's number (and possibly their name) before you pick up the receiver. Then whenever great uncle Alfred telephones you will not have to confuse him with your best business voice! More Info on Technology Ideas - Distinctive ringing and caller ID
- Free Fax Services for the homeworker.
- If your work is to be computer and Internet based, a second telephone line may be the only option. This second line can also be used for a combined fax-line but faxes can only be received when you are not on-line to the Internet.
 - Especially for teleworkers, but also for other homeworkers, BT's www.workingfromhome.co.uk provides a wide range of information including what technology you might consider, and the different telecommunication facilities available but bear in mind that the information given relates to BT services!
- Check out the helpful Home Business Alliance at www.homebusiness.org.uk for other points to consider.
- IT Support for the Homeworker is a new Forum on Homeworking.com where your IT questions from email to HTML to disk space are answered. No question is too small and if it is too difficult then we can put you in the right direction. You will also find lots of links to some essential IT resources on the web.
|
