Communicating when away from the office

Services offered by owners that are relevant to the business of rentals.
Zur Alten Weinkelter
Posts: 201
Joined: Sat Aug 06, 2011 12:22 pm
Location: Moselle Valley (Mosel) Deutschland

Communicating when away from the office

Post by Zur Alten Weinkelter »

I need to re organise my mobile (away from the main office and PC) communications.
As we all know most enquires and bookings are communicated through the Internet or online and having a system while you are away from the office is crucial
I currently relay on my iphone to access my e mails etc but the phone I have is the 1st version that came out and I still have my original UK number … basically I have not been bothered to change it since moving to Germany as people don’t usually call me direct only text and I have not published the number on rental sites so at the moment I only use it access e mails etc.
So I think the time has come to upgrade this antique and have something a little bit more recent
I am not usually away from the office that often as we live at our rental premises but if I have to go out for the day to a main town to the bank, accountant etc or we decide to have a day out or even when the rentals are quite visit family in England it will just give me the freedom and to utilise my time without being tied down to the business 24/7 as my accommodation is self catering and now with the restrictions on luggage (ryanair) I do not have the space to carry my trusty laptop so my dilemma is to upgrade my iphone with a contract to cover enough to log on to the internet and receive & send E Mails “my mobile office” or look at say an ipad which will fit in handbag or hand luggage with a basic phone ( not a smart phone ) just for calls and looking at holding all or most of my data on a cloud “ any suggestions and advise about cloud storage would be appreciated “ I am not really good at all this techno stuff but I think to able to run my business efficiently I really need suggestions for when I am not sitting at my main desk and PC

Any help or experiences would be appreciated
Medoc Bob
Posts: 168
Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2010 1:29 pm
Location: Hourtin
Contact:

Couple of Ideas

Post by Medoc Bob »

Hi there

When I lived all the time I had a French sim card in my phone. Living in England for 2 years. I had the Nokia 72, Nokia E7 and finally iPhone 4. For email the iPhone is just the best for me.

When I knew I was moving back to France for 6 months I looked at the best options.
With my o2 contract for £10 a month I could receive a thousand minutes from outside France at no charge. With another bolt on I could use 15mb of data for a max of £1.50 a day. My business receives hundreds of emails a day and with the right settings 15mb was enough.
So if you have a contract in the UK and are looking to attract UK customers a UK number to call is attractive.
As you said you won't be mobile every day remember the £1.50 is only the days you use it, so for a few days a month quite a small cost.

I found data costs in France to be so high, the bolt on option from the UK actually worked out cheaper!

If you choose the iPad option you will pay usually an extra £100 for the 3g option on the iPad. Most smart phones offer; either inbuilt or an app that enable you to use your phone as a personal hotspot.
As you can pick up a smart phone that does this for about £100 ish it seems a waste to spend the £100 on the iPad when you would need a phone anyway.

If you feel a phone would be to small to run your mobile office and a laptop to big, there are other options.

The Samsung Note, which is a much bigger screen than a normal phone, but smaller than most tablets and fits easily in a small handbag or big pocket.

Whichever option you choose, the real cost is in Data charges. Some mobile providers charge as much as £7 a mb of data, which compared to the o2 bolt on is £1.50 vrs £105.00 So do be very careful about the option you choose regarding data option.

There maybe another way, which I am looking into personally, but have little knowledge of, so anyone who is reading this has please post.

The Kindle 3g. The Kindle with 3g retails at approx £150 but can be picked up on ebay for about £90 second hand.
the 3g is supposed to work in many countries and there is no contract or fee as it is designed for you to download books ( that you pay for ) wherever you are for free.
The Kindle does offer an email service ( not tested so no real idea of the practicality )
It does also offer a web browser so it could be the one for you ( and me ) as no contract or data charges )

Hope this helps and has not confused with more options.

Bob
Back in UK, our house in France is now back as a Holiday Home
Happylady
Posts: 490
Joined: Sun Aug 28, 2011 3:44 pm
Location: Filey

Post by Happylady »

My hubby's just bought me s laptop which will be great for times when we're away. just upgraded my mobile which can be used as a router so if there's no free wifi can always use that
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