Food Freebies

1. Krispy Kreme is also providing free dozens of their famous Original Glazed® Doughnuts on Mondays through Nurses’ Week, which ends on May 12th.
2. How about some coffee with those donuts? Wawa is offering free coffee of any size for healthcare workers and first responders until this crisis is averted.
3. And they’re not the only ones! Through June 1st, head to a Sheetz near you and enjoy free coffee for frontline workers.
4. Starbucks is serving up free tall brewed (hot or iced) coffees to first responders and front-line healthcare workers through the end of May!
5. Free Snickers? Hangry, be gone! Nurses and other essential workers can get a Snickers bar, on the house. Just sign up for your e-gift card and redeem it at Walmart.
6. If you’re a hospital worker who lives near Nando’s, get yourself some free peri-peri chicken takeout. The chain is giving out 50 free meals daily at every Nando’s in North America through May 17th.
7. What’s Polar Pop? First responders and healthcare professionals can go to Circle K and find out. The chain is offering free coffee, tea and Polar Pop to frontline workers.

Shoes & Apparel Freebies

8. Crocs is giving out free shoes daily! If you’re a healthcare worker, check out their site and enter to snag a pair.
9. Comfy scrubs. Check. Frontline medical professionals can head to Barco Uniforms and submit a request for free scrubs for as long as the COVID-19 crisis lasts. They’re donating 10,000 per month!

Travel Industry Freebies

10. Driving around Southern California? Honda is giving away free gas for healthcare workers through May 12th! Find out more about where and when here.
11. Are you a medical volunteer and need to get to Georgia, Louisiana, or Michigan to offer your services to hospitals that need your help? Fly free on Delta Airlines.
12. If you have to travel, you might as well get free parking out of it. Thanks to The Parking Spot, essential healthcare workers will enjoy free airport parking at any of their facilities through May 12th.
13. And, Airbnb is offering free or subsidized housing for healthcare professionals, relief workers and first responders near where they are working.

Family & Mental Healthcare Resources

14. Who takes care of first responders’ families when they’re taking care of us? Care.com can help. You’ll be able to find, manage, and pay for caregivers for your children, seniors, and pets. Access their premium services free for 30 days.
15. Frontline professionals can’t get through this pandemic alone, and Talkspace is equal to the task. They are offering 1 free month of counseling via text, audio and video calls with a licensed therapist using their Unlimited Messaging Plus plan.
16. Maybe you know that it’s time to talk to someone, but you would rather remain anonymous. Through NurseGroups.org, you can “meet” with other nurses to talk about the challenges that you’re facing, and the best part is that it’s both free and confidential.

Techy Freebies

17. Newsflash. There’s a cell phone network specifically built for first responders. FirstNet, part of the AT&T network, is offering 3 months of free wireless service to COVID-19 first responders. Not only that but becoming a new FirstNet customer gets you a $200 activation credit on a Mobile-Responder plan!
18. The American Nurses Association’s free webinar is titled Be Confident Protecting Yourself and Providing the Best Care to Your Patients during this COVID-19 Pandemic.
19. A free course on COVID-19 Pulmonary, ARDS and Ventilator Resources is offered by the American Association of Critical Care Nurses.
20. Osmosis.org has a bunch of online resources. From What You Need to Know to Guided Meditation to Yoga, it’s worth checking out. And, if you sign their #Raisethline pledge, you’ll get 3 free weeks of Osmosis Prime.
21. Need some new nursing books? Amazon’s Kindle has you covered. Thousands of options, all free!

The post 21 First Responder Freebies During the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

Call Center / Receptionist Icons

This set of icons include call center operators, people talking on headsets, people talking on the phone, bilingual operators, virtual receptionists, and robots.

Cool Call Center Agent Icon	Receptionist With Stopwatch Icon	Fighting Call Center Agent Icon	Spanish Call Center Agent Icon
Call Center Agent Holding Watch Icon	Alien Customer Service Icon	Statue of Liberty Customer Service Icon	Jack In The Box Receptionist Icon
Operator in Cell Phone Icon	Receptionist Butler with Phone Icon	Receptionist In A Box Icon	Receptionist and Business Phone Icon
Bellhop Receptionist Icon	Receptionist As A Question Mark Icon (Yellow)	Receptionist Holding a Flag Icon	Robot Receptionist in Cell Phone Icon
Receptionist In Question Mark Icon

Cell Phone / Business Phone / Communication Icons

The icon set below includes cell phones, cell phone use as it relates to different industries (i.e, construction, medical, small business, emergency services, cleaning, automobile, and the food industry), answering machines, and business phones.

Answering Machine Icon	Business Phone with Question Mark Icon	Cell Phone with Tie Icon	Cell Phone Laundry Icon
Cell Phone With Magnet Icon	Cell Phone In Medical Bag Icon	Cell Phone And Purse Keys Icon	Cell Phone Puzzle Icon
Cell Phone Robot Hand Icon	Cell Phone Biker Glove Icon	Cell Phone Touch Check Mark Icon	Cell Phone With Globe Icon
Cell Phone On Hand Truck Icon	Cell Phone with Headset Icon	Locked Cell Phone Icon	Cell Phone with Robot Arm Icon
Contractor Cell Phone Icon	Emergency Cell Phone Icon	Global Cell Phone Icon	Medical Cell Phone Icon
Phone on BBQ Icon	Phone Receiver with Mouth and Ear Icon	Yellow Business Phone Icon

Download the Icon Set

Don’t want to download each icon individually? You can also download all of our icons here.

The post Free Call Center, Receptionist, & Phone Icons appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.

According to the Small Business Administration, you will have two types of costs: fixed and variable. Fixed expenses are those that recur at around the same amount, usually every month, e.g. rent and insurance. Variable expenses, like commissions, shipping and inventory, are related to the sale of a product or service and will differ each month depending on your sales. Then you’ll have one-time costs such as web design or signage. The SBA recommends creating a spreadsheet to help you calculate your startup costs, and be sure to note what is absolutely necessary, and what can be put on the back burner.

While you’re working on what you do need to spend money on, take a look at our list below of a few things you can get for free!

1. If you’re jumping on the small business bandwagon, you’ll need business cards.
   1. Vistaprint will give you 250 full-color business cards for free. Choose from 45 cool designs, and pay only for shipping!
   2. Don’t need a ton of business cards? Just purchase printable business card sheets from your local office supply store, and check out these free templates from Brother and Avery!

2. Need help creating a website? These vendors offer free services. Here’s the skinny:
   1. Weebly – Everything you need for a high quality site. Create unlimited pages and host your site for free. If you want Weebly branding removed, it’ll run you $4 per month. Still super cheap!
   2. Wix – 100s of fully customizable HTML5 templates in a ton of categories, like law, hotel, music, real estate, sports, and so many more! Featuring a drag and drop website builder. No coding skills needed. Connect your domain for $4.08 per month.
   3. Yola – With this service, using a Yola subdomain, you can build 3 pages for free with 1GB storage and 1GB bandwidth. Upgrade to their basic plan for just $4.17 per month and create unlimited pages under a custom domain.

3. Did someone say free phone service?
   1. Call Ring Talk – 1 number with up to 3 users for free, with unlimited calling across the United States. Make and receive calls, transfer, hold, mute, conference and voicemail with just your computer.
   2. Google Voice – 1 number, personalized greeting, voicemail transcription, and more. Free calling from the United States and Canada. Check out Google’s international rates here.
   3. Specialty Answering Service – Get 2 weeks or 200 minutes of a free answering service. The live receptionist service is available 24 hours a day. No credit card required to sign up. If you like it, continue as a paying customer.

4. Want to ask your customers how service is going? Send out a free survey!
   1. SurveyMonkey – Basic surveys include 10 questions and up to 100 responses for free.
   2. eSurv – Supported by donations, this vendor offers a broadened list of free features. Create unlimited questions, add pictures and images, enjoy an unlimited number of responses and more.
   3. KwikSurveys – Create free surveys, quizzes and video polls, with unlimited questions and responses.

5. Running a promotion and need to send out an email blast?
   1. MailChimp – If you have under 2,000 subscribers, you can send up to 12,000 emails per month for free. No trial, no contract, no credit card.
   2. AtomPark – Send up to 3,000 emails per month for free, for up to 200 recipients.

6. Everyone has a blog these days, and you want one, too. But you have no idea what to write about. These sites can help.
   1. HubSpot – Just pop a few nouns that you’d like to write about into HubSpot’s blog topic generator, and it’ll come back with a week’s worth of blog titles for you!
   2. Digg – This site features all of the most searched articles on the web right now. Check out the latest streams and maybe they’ll inspire a cool blog post!

7. When it comes time to balance the books, take advantage of free online accounting software from this vendor.
   1. Wave – This software is 100% free all the time. Use Wave’s accounting tools as much as you want, with as many customers, invoices, expenses and reports as you need. No limits or tiers.

8. Advertise your business online for free.
   1. You can use Google My Business to advertise your business in Google Search, which is the first place most people look for information. Visit this HubSpot page to download a free guide to advertising on Google, or take a peek at the info on their blog.
   2. Advertising on sites such as Superpages.com, Foursquare.com, YP.com and more is also free.
   3. And don’t neglect your social media accounts, Facebook, Twitter and Google+!

9. Are you running a non-profit business? If so, you’ll want to keep this site on your radar.
   1. Grassroots.org features a ton of free tools such as website help, fundraising and marketing tools, project tools and more!

10. Customer resource management is essential for every business.
    1. Insightly – So many great features with this vendor: it’s free for 3 users and up to 2,500 records (any stored item from contact to note), 200MB of storage, full product support for free, and more!
    2. Zoho CRM – Zoho also gives you free service for 3 users and up to 5,000 records. It has a mobile app, too.
    3. Freshdesk – One of the features of this vendor is that it integrates with Zoho CRM. It’s free for up to 3 agents per month, and you’ll get email and phone support, along with a knowledgebase.
    4. Zendesk – While not exactly free, it doesn’t get much cheaper than $1 per agent, per month. With the starter plan, you’ll get email ticketing, a knowledgebase, and more.

The post Top 10 essential free stuff for small businesses. appeared first on Specialty Answering Service.