A friend of mine who is new to teleworking was complaining that her overseas prospects wanted to speak with her on the phone. Since she didn’t want to have to pay for international calls, she turned down these lucrative offers. “I don’t want my fees to be consumed by phone bills,” she said.

“You don’t need to use the phone, you can always use voice chat or VoIP,” I suggested.

“What’s that?”

It seems that not everyone who sets out to do web work knows how to establish their communication methods. There are many tools that allow us to sidestep more traditional — and usually more expensive — means of communicating with our clients, such as client visits and phone calls. For those who are just starting out, here are your options:

Email

Sometimes I still see online contractors with casual email addresses like “sexychick2009@example.com.” While you can use any email address to communicate with friends and family, stick to something more formal for professional use. If you don’t want to go through the trouble of checking multiple inboxes and notifying personal contacts about your new email address, you can easily use multiple email accounts instead, and access all of them via one master inbox.

To avoid having your email addresses plastered all over the Internet (and attracting spam), set up a contact form on your web site. In my experience, potential clients often prefer a contact form they can fill out on your site, since they don’t have to open their email client to send you a message.

Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) is real-time text chatting over the web. IM is useful for real-time client support and quick exchanges that are too short for email.

Some people have trouble expressing themselves via instant messaging, so don’t make this your only option for client support. Also, if you have clients that aren’t tech savvy, they rarely want to communicate this way. Still, many corporate remote workers I know stay in touch throughout the day via instant messaging. Here are some IM applications you can use:

• GTalk
• Windows Live Messenger
• AIM
• Skype

If you need an IM app that allows you to handle multiple accounts using the same interface, you might want to look at Lifehacker’s roundup of the five best instant messengers.

Phone, VoIP and Voice Chat

Although it might seem simpler to have one phone line for both business and personal contacts, it’s wise to keep them separate. You don’t want to provide 24/7 phone support for colleagues and clients, and you don’t want your workday to be interrupted by a call from your mom, either.

But what if you’re working with people who are overseas, as in the case mentioned earlier? That’s where VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) comes in. Instead of using regular phone lines, VoIP transmits audio through the internet. We’ve covered VoIP here at WWD before, including how you can use it to cut business costs.

There are many available options for VoIP and voice chat apps, including Skype, Truphone, Vonage, Gmail Voice and Video Chat, Calliflower, Phonefusion One and FreeConference.

Fax

While I’ve never felt the need to purchase my own fax machine, there are still some situations that call for faxing. For those of us who primarily deal with local clients, a regular fax machine might be enough even if it’s a second-hand unit. But if you’re mostly working with people overseas, sending faxes back and forth can be costly. Online faxing solutions such as efax and MyFax can be much cheaper in the long run.

Postal Mail

If you’re wary about giving your home address out to clients and business contacts, you can use a PO box or take advantage of online mailbox services such as Earth Class Mail or its European equivalent, Swiss Post Box. There’s also Private Box for those who want mailboxes in New Zealand.

Establishing multiple ways for clients to communicate with you isn’t that hard. When you’re starting out, it’s usually enough to have two different ways for clients to reach you (say, email and phone). Should you need more, the apps and services above give you plenty of options to choose from.

How do potential clients usually contact you? Which method do they use the least?

Image by tecknare from sxc.hu

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era

How can we reconcile its usefulness as a communication tool with the fact that it can be downright annoying?

Using one interface

Having MSN messenger, Yahoo!Messenger, and GTalk open all at the same time can be a bit confusing, or even a complete eyesore (as you can see from the image below).  If you don’t like having too many windows open, you’ll benefit from having just one interface for all your IM accounts.  Programs such as Trillian, Pidgin, and Miranda accomplish this simply.  The one-interface approach can also make archiving conversations much easier.

Tweak your IM client’s settings

Being available via instant messaging is like having the phone ring constantly – just like Melanie said – but only if you don’t change your IM client’s settings.  Find the settings or options menu of your chosen IM program and be ruthless about how you’re notified of incoming messages.  This, of course, will depend on your own preferences.  Personally, I prefer to have no audio notifications, no blinking, and incoming messages don’t launch on top of other windows.  If I want to check for IM messages, I just glance at the Windows taskbar when I welcome such distractions.  But that approach is just for me.  Find what works for you.

One other thing I do is customize my visibility.  Many IM programs will allow you to be “invisible” to different contacts or contact groups when you come online.   You can also be invisible to clients who rarely IM you anyway, and leave yourself visible for a few clients whose projects are more urgent.  Taking advantage of your visibility settings can also come in handy if you use the same IM accounts for both personal and business contacts.

Know your sacred working hours

There are some online tasks you can do that allow for a bit of distraction, such as writing a short email to your mom, commenting on other blogs, or reading your feeds.  There are also tasks that require nothing less than your full attention, especially when you’re doing The Work.  You know, the thing you are mostly paid to do.  It’s often the descriptive text under your name on your business card.

When you’re doing The Work, the rule is simple: don’t be available for IM.  Block out your working hours and let your clients know about it.  It’s likely that they’ll appreciate that you’re taking their projects seriously enough to block out sacred time for them.

Having maximum IM hours

It’s also very important to let clients know that they have a maximum number IM consultation hours with you.  Since I have few clients who need me for back and forth IM, I put a maximum of 4 hours a week for clients with heavy projects (complete web design and web content) and 2 hours a week for clients with lighter projects.

The funny thing is, when I implemented these maximum hours, the clients who used to take up several hours of my day chatting with me changed their behavior.  They didn’t even reach their weekly limit.  In fact, they seemed to have a preference for email when they realized how non-urgent most of their requests were in the first place.  I guess putting a limit in place allowed them to also prioritize their time as much as I did mine.  I was very satisfied with how things changed because of this system that I added a clause for the maximum IM hours in my new contracts, so that clients are aware of it in the beginning.

Getting someone else to do the talking

If you happen to be a web working rockstar and you really can’t handle all the IM requests, you can hire someone else to do it.  Of course, this option is complex and requires a lot of time, money, and effort to implement.  Plus, your clients might not welcome the idea of talking to someone else, especially if they’re so used to communicating with you.  Consider this method only when you’re more of a big business owner rather than a freelancer.

Instant messaging doesn’t have to be a pain, you just need to know how to use it well within your working style.  After all, we should adjust our web working tools to fit into our own work processes, and not the other way around.

Do you have any IM tips and tricks?  What do you do to prevent it from interfering with your workflow?

Photo Credit: Image by Celine Roque

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• The Near-Term Evolution of Social Commerce
• Content Farms: The Players, The Benefits, The Risks