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

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Google just launched video and voice chat today for both PC and Mac. My first reaction? That is so cool.

The only problem is the announcement went out before they had actually activated many accounts. Including mine. Luckily, I had the email address of the Google contact who sent out the announcement, and he spent some time troubleshooting with me. First order of business? Getting my email account activated as well as that of my initial Gmail voice and video chat guinea pig, Scott from Alaska HDTV (@alaskapodshow on Twitter).

After about an hour, Scott still could not see the video options in his Gmail chat box. While he and I continued to restart browsers and compare notes, I received a text chat message from my friend Kris, a multimedia producer and documentary filmmaker in Brooklyn (@krisbritt on Twitter). She had seen my Tweets about my attempts to test out the new Gmail voice and video chat.

I invited her to video chat and within moments and after just a few rings, the video chat window opened, and there was Kris. The picture was clear, the sound was clear.

Right away I thought “This is much better than Skype.”

Don’t get me wrong. I love Skype, but it can fizzle and pop now and then.  WWD blogger Samuel Dean also tested Gmail voice and video chat and points out that it falls short compared to Skype because it doesn’t connect calls to landlines and doesn’t offer voice mail. It does, however, allow you to record a video chat. Ah, the possibilities!

Right away, Kris echoed my feelings that Gmail voice and video chat is convenient and a great addition to the Google suite of tools – perfect, for example, to use while reviewing a Google Doc with someone else. Having video and voice chat within Gmail also means you’ll get more functionality with less open applications and windows.

Some quick things to know before you dash off to download the video chat add-on for your browser:

1. Your account must be activated by Google for video, and this could take a few more days.

2. Your chat friend must have Gmail voice and video chat add-on installed for it to work. Otherwise they will be directed to the download page for the add-on.

3. You can tell if a friend is video-chat enabled by a little video camera icon to the left of their name on the contacts Chat List in your Gmail account.

4. You can invite someone to video chat with the Video Options button at the bottom of the chat box.

5. You can pop out the video into it’s own window and move it around as well as open it to full screen.

One possible software conflict? The latest Flash player may interfere with the proper installation of the video add-on (this is just a guess from Scott who eventually switched computers and was able to video chat immediately).

Troubleshooting tips? Make sure your browser is closed before you install the add-on. Then you may have to restart your browser a few times until it takes. Just something anecdotal. Probably not in the manual.

Have long did it take to get Gmail voice and video chat to work for you? What do you think you’ll use it for?

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