For Sarah Duke of Duke Nutrition Experts, having a professional meeting space was a must. However, for the one-woman show, an office of her own wasn’t in the budget at first. What’s a small business owner to do? 

Enter Intelligent Office Tucson and Intelligent Office Oro Valley. 

“I started off using their office that you rent by the hour,” she said. “If you’re just coming in and meeting with one or two clients, you can reserve (a meeting room) for one or two hours. That’s how I started until I had enough clientele to warrant switching over to a designated space.” 

Seven years later, Duke has offices in both locations.

For many professionals, there isn’t the time nor the resources to hire an office staff. Many tradespeople work on the road but still need someone to answer the phone and a voicemail just will not suffice. Anyone who has a business that keeps public appointments can find help at Intelligent Office. Not only do they have office space that can be rented by the hour, day, week, or month, but they have personnel trained to answer a ringing phone in the manner in which a client asks for it. Duke uses this service as well.

In addition, staff will provide snacks, coffee, water, or meals if ordered. They can decorate the office or meeting room if that’s needed. Whatever professional services are required by their clients, the staff provides it.

“With Intelligent Office you’re able to get as much or as little as you need to set up your turnkey business headquarters,” owner Ryan Harris said. “We can be your professional and prestigious mailing address, meeting space on demand when you need it, whether that’s by the hour, day, month.”

Harris added that the offices are not like fishbowls, but rather more personal. Then, there are the phone services.

“We also offer live, local phone answering,” he said. “We, in the office right there, can answer your business as a member of your business. If you don’t have a business number we can give you one. If you do, we can integrate that with us. We can answer as your company and we can answer questions, give general information, set appointments, enter customers into your (database) and then screen and announce callers to other people on your team based on name, topic, or keyword.”

For a company like Duke’s, this is real added value since she now employs more than 20 staff and contractors. She also likes that the office gives the right impression.

“It’s a very professional office, like if you were going into the reception of a doctor’s office or a reception of a CPA or something like that,” Duke said. “They do a really great job of doing it professionally for any client that’s going to be coming in and our clients have commented positively on how nice the office is.”

Both the Tucson and Oro Valley locations are celebrating birthdays this year. Intelligent Office Tucson has been in business for 20 years and the Oro Valley branch has been open for 15 years. 

Harris counts among his clients attorneys and CPAs, and tradespeople such as electricians and plumbers. 

“If they’re out in the field, we’re the ones answering the phones and setting up appointments for them,” he said.

It turns out the phone system is “robust,” meaning the person answering the phone has a lot of training.

“When a call comes in, we’re instantly going to see the profile which we’re going to be trained on as well,” Harris said. “For instance, we’re going to see the company information, how they would like us to answer the calls. From there we can submit a lead (or track the call). They can set appointments for clients, and answer questions.”

Some clients prefer a very specific way of answering the phone so a custom script can be set up as well, “and we’re fast about it,” Harris said.

Services start at a “couple of hundred dollars a month and then clients go up from there based on what they need,” he said. “It ends up being between a quarter to half of the cost of hiring a full-time person, and they do that without having to worry about vacation coverage, sick days, insurance costs, payroll taxes. All of that is all taken care of.”

The original franchise was owned by Harris’ father. About ten years ago, Harris and his sisters bought in and now they have six locations. Two are in Arizona, of course, but the others are in Boulder City and Denver, Colorado.

For any businessperson needing space or phone services, Intelligent Office could be the place to start. 

“If anyone is struggling with a place to meet clients, looking to expand over to another market to meet clients or need help answering their phones and not missing calls, we would love an opportunity to talk to them,” Harris said.

They are only a phone call away.