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Tuesday, August 30th, 2011Don’t Lose Another Customer by Telling Them to Call Another Number
Thursday, March 31st, 2011A branch manager of a national equipment rental company once said, “My company doesn’t get it. When one of the other branches doesn’t have a backhoe and they tell the customer to call my store, they don’t. One day’s rental of that machine can pay for a month of phone service.” According to Rosanne D’Ausilio, president of Human Technologies at Global, “Even though the economy appears to be stalled, having an excellent customer experience is a high priority for consumers.” Brendan B. Read further adds that requiring customers to call another number “no longer cuts it in today’s marketplace.”
Customers may call the next number they are given, but far too frequently they will get distracted on another task, forget the number, call the next number in the directory or call a competitor with a retail location that is closer to their location. Each time a caller is asked to dial another number, the company loses a significant percentage of those calls. Along with the call, they lose revenue of the sale and the future potential of the customer. They lose the marketing dollars invested in enticing the customer to call. They may also lose staff time spent locating the branch that could meet the customer’s needs.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) enabled business telephone systems and Hosted PBX services allow businesses to connect phones and telephone systems together over broadband Internet connections. Hosted PBX services can be installed for minimal or no capital investment. They will also work with any major Internet Service Provider (ISP) including Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, Sprint and Centurylink. Even in a “stalled economy,” multiple location business can afford to integrate all their telephones with the low capital investment of Hosted PBX services and the wide availability of broadband Internet.
A fully integrated telephone system will allow calls to be transferred from one branch to another. When a branch can not meet the caller’s needs, the call is sent to another branch that can. The customer is not inconvenienced by having to write down and call another number, the revenue is realized, the customer may yield future potential revenue and customer service is enhanced.
Manage Your Voicemail with Unified Communications from the Cloud
Friday, March 25th, 2011Once spurned as too impersonal, voicemail systems have become a standard business tool. Its benefits include more complete messages, accurate information including telephone numbers, faster call processing for the receptionist, no message slips to get lost and message retrieval anytime from anywhere. In fact “old school” message taking can reflect poorly on a business giving it an antiquated or cheap image. Many callers dislike having to give a message to a person.
Standard voicemail systems do have several flaws. They typically save messages in the order they were received. This is fine for hearing new messages but it can make it difficult to save and retrieve information from voicemails at a later date. Some may have to waste 5 to 10 minutes combing through dozens of messages to get to the one that has the phone number to call.
It is impractical to save messages for long periods of time on standard voicemail systems. They can take valuable space on a hard disk and create too many messages to sift through to find the right message. Some voicemail messages contain valuable information that the user wants to keep. Sometimes keeping it in the caller’s voice can be used as proof in certain situations.
Unified communications is an available feature of many of the newer phone systems and a standard feature of most Hosted PBX services. Among other features, unified communications converts voicemails into a sound file and e-mails it to the user.
As a sound file in an e-mail, the user may store it forever, easily access it, forward to other e-mail addresses and skip to any part of the message they wish to listen. Receiving voicemail messages in an e-mail inbox also eliminates another message sources to check. Sound files will play on most smart phones, as well.
Hosted PBX is a cloud service. Using VoIP technology, the user may only have to purchase VoIP telephones and plug them into broadband Internet access. Since it is a cloud service, the user does not need to purchase unified communications equipment (as they would with purchasing a phone system) to enjoy its benefits.
Corporate 911 Calling Requires an Enterprise Solution
Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone systems have made it relatively easy and affordable to tie multiple business offices together into one seamless phone system. The significant advantages range from reduced telecommunications costs to huge savings in overhead.
Sharing Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) circuits is one typical area of saving money. By combining all the telephone lines from several offices into one shared pool of circuits (typically a PRI), companies may save hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars each month. However, these benefits may come with work force safety and corporate liability exposure.
For 911 services to function properly, each office must minimally have its own unique telephone number that is transmitted to the PSTN when 911 is dialed. That unique number must be associated with the address of the office dialing 911 and the Local Exchange Carrier (LEC) must be able to route the call to the appropriate 911 center. All these pieces are more than likely NOT in place. Frequently, it is an issue of the LEC not being able to match unique addresses to multiple DID numbers on the same circuit and connect the calls to the appropriate 911 center for each address.
Unsuccessful 911 calls may cause many problems for an employer. First responders may go to the wrong address which could jeopardize life and property damage. Health issues, amplified by slow response, may place the employer in legal peril. Employees may feel unsafe or expendable, damaging employee goodwill.
Fortunately, SIP trunks from Hosted PBX and other Hosted VoIP providers solve this problem. SIP trunks can be the primary connection to the PSTN for a telephone system. They can also serve as back-up trunks or remote office 911-only service.
Ideally, the telephone system should have an alternate outbound Caller Identification for each extension should it dial 911. The CID number matches to the physical address for that extension. Hosted PBX and Hosted VoIP providers will route the call to the appropriate 911 center for the address. First responders can act efficiently and quickly when the call reaches the 911 center with the correct address which may minimize damage to life and property while reducing corporate liability.
Make Live Conversations Easy with Hosted PBX
Monday, March 21st, 2011Technology makes it easier to stay in contact and interrupt co-workers for brief periods of time. Text messaging is great for short messages with quick answers. E-mail is more useful for more complex issues and when supporting files are necessary. Sometimes more is needed than short responses or lengthy delays in sending and receiving e-mails. Immediate answers are required that may benefit from collaborative input. In other words, a live conversation becomes indispensable to conduct business.
E-mails and text messages have become overused partly due to the difficulty in catching co-workers on the phone or in their office. It can be more problematic when the co-worker is not located in the same office building as is the case for companies with multiple offices and telecommuters.
Locating someone for a live conversation can be a time-consuming and frustrating task. The task may kill productivity, delay responses to customers and negatively impact sales.
Camp-on is a Hosted PBX feature which solves this problem. The user may camp-on to a busy or idle extension. If the extension was busy, the user will be alerted as soon as it goes idle and a call will be automatically placed. If the extension was idle because the person was not at their desk, the user will be alerted as soon as the extension is used again.
As a Hosted PBX feature, camp-on works in a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) environment. VoIP telephones operate the same whether other individual telephone system extensions are in the next cubicle or in a remote office location. Camp-on facilitates a live, timely conversation. Timely conversations will increase efficiency, give rise to collaborative input and improve response times to customers.
Hosted PBX Services Keep Travelers in Touch with Their Business Calls
Friday, March 18th, 2011Companies with multiple offices may experience several communication problems if they have employees (travelers) who work from more than one office. Receptionists and call handlers may have difficulty finding how to properly pass calls to them. The travelers may miss important calls which could harm sales or give a poor customer service image.
The travelers may become overly dependant on their mobile phones for communication. With mobile phones, calls cannot be transferred to other parties leaving the traveler stuck with follow-up tasks that should be handled by others. In addition, personal mobile phone numbers may be called by customers. Now customers and business associates are calling a phone number that the company has no control over and will leave when the employee leaves.
Hosted PBX services offer several solutions to this problem including hoteling and mobile PBX.
In a Hosted PBX environment, multiple offices are connected seamlessly together as one phone system. Hoteling allows the traveler to walk into any connected office and turn any phone into their extension by simply entering a code. They will receive all calls transferred to their extension, button assignments will be theirs, DID numbers assigned to their extension will ring directly to that phone and voicemail indicators will work as needed.
Mobile PBX integrates a user’s mobile phone with their desk phone. Calls ringing to their desk phone will also ring to their mobile. Once the user answers a call on their mobile, they can process calls as normal including transferring them to other extensions on the system. Mobile PBX keeps an employee in touch with their desk phone calls wherever they can receive mobile calls.
Hoteling and/or Mobile PBX keeps a traveler in touch with his business phone calls. Better contact with customers may improve sales and customer service. These features may prevent travelers from giving out personal mobile numbers for business use. Now the company can retain control of the telephone numbers that customers and business associates call.
As a final note, Hosted PBX services that provide the features above are also based upon VoIP technology. Many services allow their phones to be unplugged and moved to wherever broadband Internet access is available. Simply moving a Hosted PBX telephone to another location may also work as a solution for travelers.
Hosted PBX Can Process Calls without a Receptionist
Thursday, March 17th, 2011When a business loses an employee in tough economic times, it may try to re-arrange word duties and employ technology to avoid hiring a replacement. Receptionist positions are frequently targeted for elimination because they do not create revenue and are usually considered overhead. Proper call handling can be very important, however. Poor call handling may have disastrous consequences.
Hosted PBX Services offer many potential solutions that can be used independently or together to facilitate proper call handling. Available solutions include automated attendant, redirecting calls to a receptionist at another location, direct inward dial numbers, uniform call distribution and work-from-home receptionist. Many of these solutions can also be delivered by a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) based telephone system. For cost effectiveness, this article will focus on these features delivered by Hosted PBX.
Automated attendants can answer calls, play a pre-recorded message and allow callers to self-direct themselves. They can dial a digit representing a department, dial a specific extension number or dial from a directory. Automated attendants can be used as the primary for call answering or can be a back-up when an extension is busy or a call rings a certain amount of time.
Because of their unique architecture, Hosted PBX Services can easily combine multiple office locations into one seamless telephone system. Calls can be answered in any office for any person regardless of their location. Hosted PBX customers can reduce receptionists to as few as one covering all locations.
Direct Inward Dial (DID) numbers are 10 digit telephone numbers which ring to a specific extension or department. Publishing DID numbers give callers a means to call directly to the person or department of choice while bypassing a receptionist all together. Receptionists can do other duties, answer more calls or provide better care to the calls they receive with a reduced call load.
Uniform Call Distribution (UCD) evenly distributes calls among a group of extensions. A company can task several people to answer incoming calls and distribute them in a manner that will minimize the burden on any one individual.
The VoIP based telephones of a Hosted PBX Service can be placed anywhere that has good broadband Internet connection. Phones can be place in the homes of part-time and work-from-home employees. They can answer calls and distribute them as appropriate. Their pay may reflect their part-time and work-from-home status as appropriate.
The solutions listed above can work independently or in conjunction with one another. Together, they allow a company to effectively reduce its overhead cost from the receptionist position without sacrificing call handing, customer service or professionalism.
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