Hi there,

Yes I have and it depends on what your expecting to use the office for. We are a virtual company (i.e. everyone works from home) but keep a small rented office for customer meetings etc as it's much more professional.

Regus are very expensive as are many of the larger organisations. Whilst there costs are expensive if your looking for quality offices they can work out cheaper (and considerably more flexible) than taking on a lease, paying business rates, insurance, utility bills, building a network/phone system etc.

There are smaller (some times privately owned business parks) offices to rent that may be cheaper, however I would also suggest that you search for enterprise zones, contact your local business link, council etc......as some of these facilities can be excellent value (albeit not quite as lush as Regus etc..).

Hope this helps.

Mark Hutch

Thanks Mark.

To be honest I am primarily looking at the major players due to their good locations locally (i.e. within 10 minutes of a Starbucks!) and the fact that I can access their network of other centres (especially in Central London for meetings, etc).

One of the key things for me at the moment is only paying rent for what I need - so whilst we grow from 1 to 5 to 15 people we keep paying per person, rather than having a half empty space. It also helps that we can change and/or walk away from the agreement relatively quickly if either the business grows at a different rate to that predicted.

Cheers,
Richard.

When i looked for a small office i had exactly the same response. Although the office space was within the budget by the time you added internet access, telephone lines etc it was getting expensive. The biggest problem i had, and you should probabally look out for is the office company wanted to charge "BT standard rates" for any outgoing calls we made. as you know noone has payed BT standard rates for many years now and they are very dear. This might not be a problem for you but for us it was as we wanted the office to operate a small call centre!

by the way, £35 for broadband?!? thats dear enough anyway, but per desk that is silly. If you do purchase office space it might be worth getting a network setup which can be done fairly cheaply so that only one of your computers is connected to the broadband but the others can access the internet through the one that is connected.

Give me a shout if you need this setting up and i can let you know what is involved.

Thanks Charlie - yeah, I thought £35 for the "office" was rather step, given all the deals that are now in place for broadband, but per desk just made me gasp!

I will also make sure I ask about the phone charges - I know hotels used to make a reasonable amount of money out of the phones, but hadn't considered it for this, so I'll make sure I ask each candidate centre about that.

Cheers,
Richard.

I used Regus for a time. I had an office with two desks, which cost me around £900 per month for the rent and £35 per desk for broadband and £25 per desk for a telephone. I then moved to a larger office with four desks, and was charged around £1,700 per month. I sety up a wireless network so only needed one broadband package (Regus don't like their clients doing this). Take care about parking, as Regus charge around £35 per month in provincial offices. Having your nameplate in their reception costs around £70.

Regus are expensive, but th elevel of service is very high, as is the flexibility gained if you wish to move to larger (or smaller) offices.
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Sean Power
www.quadrigamotivation.co.uk
http://startup-it-security.blogspot.com/

"What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it."

Thanks Sean - very useful info.

At the moment, they seem to offer the flexibilty that I need and are within budget (but that is going only on the charges that I know of so far!!) so seem like the right choice, certainly for the first 12 to 24 months.

I guess the critical question is - "were they worth the high price and would you use them again?"

Cheers,
Richard.

It worked at the time for me. One thing I would say is investigate the costs for everything - they are very good at surprising you with additional charges. Adding my company's nameplate to reception was one they got me with (another £70!). The flexibility in terms of office space if great, adn the fact that they answer the phones, deal with mail, receive faxes etc. all adds to the value. Another great benefit is that you can hotdesk in any of their locations - most have a coffee area with wireless access that you can use.

Push for as much discount as you can on meeting room space if you want to use it - we were getting around 20% towards the end (although we ran training courses so did use a fair number).

Get to know the centre manager - they can help or hinder you depending upon your relationship.

In summary, it was worth the high price and I would use them again.
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Sean Power
www.quadrigamotivation.co.uk
http://startup-it-security.blogspot.com/

"What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it."

I had negative experience with regus offices.
One thing i could tell they are very sneaky, once you signed contract there is no way to downgrade to a smaller office space in case your company experience some financial difficulties. Due the current economic situation we had to lay off some of our employees in order to cut the costs and we asked Regus executives to downgrade our office and move to a smaller office in their building as we temporary don't have money to pay for all space. There was no way to do that nor any understanding and willing to help from their side.

We are renting several offices worldwide and we had never any problem with any other company with the same situations, but it seems Regus cares only about their interest and once you signed the agreement you are in troubles. Mostly startup companies who are renting offices with Regus, and things are not going smooth all the time with the start-ups that's why I would consider to look for other office space providers, there are several other good similar service companies. We planned to open several office in different countries with Regus, but after that situation will never use Regus and recommend it to anyone!

That's a terrible story George. I'd also agree with the general sentiment about how much you were actually going to use the office and what it is being used for. For example, there are lots of places where you can get free wifi and meet in really comfortable surroundings. (My latest find is the British Library - wonderful facilities!).

How virtual are you actually going to be? Or could you have an arrangement with a local hotel for when you need a meeting room?
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Caroline Wylie

www.virtuallysorted.com

www.SocietyOfVirtualAssistants.co.uk

Now a days most of the business people are interested in using the virtual office and its services for their business. By the way have you heard about http://www.palmbeachvirtualoffice.com. I used them to get a virtual office and services for my business. They providing good services and helpful for my business growth...

I had a terrible expereince at Regus. Staff seemed either overworked or unable to help when asked...their email servers bouncing my ordinary outgoing email as spam....being moved offices when the space I had rented was needed to build new office space for bigger companies....unreasonable increases in rent. Really wasnt the slick operation I'd expected, wouldnt use them again there are definitely better, cheaper options.

Hi

I bought some Regus a few Months ago hoping to use their services but never got round to using them for i have not started trading. If anyone is looking to save money and wants to purchase them, please email me and i will let you have mine for a knock down price. I have a meeting Room for up to 6 people and Office for a day / half a day

sharaveegeneralsupplies@hotmail.co.uk


Sharavee

Hi,

I have been using Regus for about a month now. Although they charge the amount per desk for internet and phone all you need to do is buy a router or hub (about 20 pound) and you can share the internet connection between several computers. ie my entire office. They dont like it but there is nothing they can do about it. Also they have wireless in that price so you can also use that connection on all your computers. As for the phone pricing, I have one inbound line and use VOIP phones on all the other desks so it keeps my call pricing well down on what Regus would charge for outbound calls.

Richard

www.waterfrontoptimisation.com