Using Skype With Your Home Business

Are you considering using Skype for your home business? When it comes to communication for business, Skype is a tool you just can’t do without. It has a variety of impressive and useful features that allow you to check in with your business partners, send files, make international calls, and hold video conferences with potential clients.

This tool is extremely popular among entrepreneurs and small business owners. In fact, on February 27, 2012, 34 million Skype users were reported to be online, using the service at the same time.

There aren’t many individuals who are able to get the most out of Skype, though. Many home business owners just don’t realize useful this service can be or how much time it can save them with their day-to-day work. If you are thinking of using Skype for your business, understanding its best features, using a quality handfree headset, and knowing a few simple tips and tricks can help you use Skype to its full potential.

How to Use Skype for Your Home Business

Using Skype with your home business can be very helpful, if you know what you are doing. Here are a few tips to get you started.

1. Screen Share:

One of the best features Skype has to offer is its screen sharing program. This allows you to show your employees, customers, and business partners exactly what is on your screen as you are speaking to them. This is an easy way to give presentations, assist remote employees with any issues they are having, or even show your client how much of his project you have completed.

2. Skype Extras:

If you have ever worked with online applications like WordPress, you know what a plug-in is. Skype has them too, but they are known as extras. These extras can be downloaded right to your computer, and there is an app for almost everything. With these extras, you can play games, obtain voicemail for your Skype, record Skype calls, and integrate Microsoft Outlook.

3. Call Forwarding:

So, you finally decided to step out for a short break and a visit to your local Starbucks. Wouldn’t you know that this would be the exact time a client you have been trying to reel in for months decides to call? If you aren’t by your computer, what happens? If you have set up call forwarding on your Skype, the phone call comes straight to your mobile phone, and you won’t have to worry about missing that all-important phone call.

4. Use Skype Hands Free: 

Because Skype is a online application, you can easily connect your handsfree headset to your computer and use with Skype. This means, you can chat with an employee or business partner while you look through your file cabinet or run into the next room for the document you left on the kitchen counter.

5. Skype as Customer Service:

You may be wary about placing your Skype username directly on your business website. After all, you don’t want some hacker to get a hold of it and ruin your new home-based company. With Skype, though, you don’t have to. You can allow customers to contact you with their questions by placing a Skype button on your site. Users simply have to click the button if they have a problem or question, and you don’t have to share your username with the world.

Skype is a tool that no home-based business or small business should be without. Share files, hold a video conference, use you handsfree headset for better communication, and improve your customer service with this essential and invaluable tool.