A few days ago, this year’s winners of the Internet Telephony Excellence award were announced in a ceremony in Norfolk, Connecticut. This is the latest is a series of awards that Virtual PBX has won for providing the industry’s defining platform, and for continuing to innovate and improve. Most recently, this one has been assigned for our push forward in integrating VoIP services alongside traditional phone and cell services. By providing equal service to all types of carriers and integrating with every kind of communications system, Virtual PBX is bringing the past and the future together.
So, if you’ve been reading the blog, you know that having phones is good, and having high-tech phones systems that work for you is great. Less work + better communication = good business. But that’s just a bunch of raw information. So let’s back off from that for now, and take a look at how to get some good communication going. Whether you’re just starting up or already have a business number and a few phone lines, you’re best off taking a fresh look at how a business phone service gets set up.
Any professional-level phone system has three parts: hardware, lines, and services. A traditional approach was to bundle the services into high-end hardware that connects to standard copper wire, and that gave us four-line phones with call waiting and conferencing, but it runs into limits fast and is rather spendy on a large scale. Alternatively, you could use a big PBX hardware system, which can provide some of the services like phone menus, voicemail, and call transfers, but that’s even more expensive. Cell phones try to bundle the services in another way, with both hardware features and now downloadable apps, but they don’t have any kind of business phone services.
Fortunately, with Virtual PBX, you get to use any kind of hardware and connection you want, since we process the calls for you. Land lines, cell phones, VoIP (internet phones), anything you can take calls on is something we can connect to with our system. Instead of spending carts of cash on the old hardware approach, you get all the best features with whatever hardware and line solution best suits you at the lowest cost. This often results in massive savings for existing businesses, and eliminates the hundreds to thousands in upfront costs for a new business phone service. We usually see savings of 20-70% for businesses that go virtual.
So, to summarize: get some phones from wherever you feel like. Cell phones, land lines, internet phones, whatever you prefer. Then you get Virtual PBX. And when calls come in, they get handled according to the program and script you’ve given us. From there, callers can get connected to any phone you want to use. And you reap all the benefits mentioned in our earlier posts.
Part 2 of today’s double-header, the versatility of a hosted PBX
A not-so obvious benefit of a hosted PBX solution such as Virtual PBX is the versatility of the system and the ability to modify, configure, and use the system for almost any business or purpose. The reliability of the system allows it to act as remote backup phone system that provides instant, automatic failover. With the ability to point multiple phone numbers to different locations along with comprehensive reporting and logging services a business can implement remote call tracking solutions for marketing, advertising or other needs. And if you’re attempting to offer “virtual” customer service to your clients, there’s no more valuable a feature that you can have in a phone system than automatic call distribution – an intelligent call routing mechanism that sends callers to virtual departments and their representatives. One particular market where customer service is critical is franchising.
Our COO Greg Brashier (@gbrashier on Twitter) recently penned an article in Franchise Update magazine detailing how a hosted PBX provides a cost-effective solution for franchising organizations that are keyed in on customer service.
Who’s on Hold?: Hosted PBX Offers A Cost-Effective Fix For Customer Service
With the downturn in the economy, good old-fashioned customer service can be a major differentiator for businesses trying to keep their existing customers and attract new ones.
Businesses that interact with and sell to customers over the telephone must be particularly vigilant that their phone technologies don’t inadvertently alienate their customers. Positive perceptions can quickly erode if customers encounter too much on-hold time, unclear directions on how to reach appropriate service personnel, or (the most dreaded of outcomes) a busy signal.
Many companies are finding that hosted private branch exchange (PBX) phone service technology can be a cost-effective tool that also helps them improve their phone presence and customer responsiveness.
A hosted PBX service provides customers with advanced phone answering and call-routing features–without the expense of purchasing their own PBX hardware or the added costs of installation, ongoing maintenance, and support. It’s ideal for small and mid-sized firms, companies with a distributed workforce, and those that want toll-free number services.
Vicorp Restaurants, which owns Village Inn and Bakers Square restaurants, is widely known for its award-winning freshly baked pies. However, its archaic phone system had started to become a liability during the company’s busiest time of the year, Thanksgiving through Christmas. A large number of customers seeking to order pies received busy signals or were put on hold for long periods before reaching a live person who could help them. Vicorp decided it was time to establish a more efficient way to handle the holiday rush and provide great service for its pie-loving customers…
We’ve got a double-header lined up for you today. We’re going to start with our special Summer 2009 Promo.
For a very limited time, we’re offering a month of service for FREE. Open up a new account with us, use the service for three months and third month is on us! You’ll be able to save between $10 and $95 on the service and you’l get a great hosted pbx solution in the process. How great? Versatility Great! Our next entry has more, so, stay tuned!
We interrupt our normally scheduled postings for a word from our CEO, Paul Hammond.
So, I’m finally going to be taking my first vacation in four years. I’m heading out to Italy for a while, and am researching the ways to stay in touch with work and family without paying an arm and leg to my US iphone cell phone carrier that shall remain nameless.
After a conversation with a very nice rep with said carrier, I was still in shock to know that I will have to pay $2.00 a minute to send and receive calls whilst in Italy. It’s a good thing I don’t plan on talking that much, but the high costs got me thinking about how I can stay in touch and still have my legs to walk around Florence and my arms to hold the camera.
I’d been hearing about how we at VirtualPBX.com have almost got our international phone service up and running. The idea is that we can provision a local number in a foreign country and have it ring directly in the VirtualPBX system. So I went to ask about how that was going and after three minutes on the computer, the team allocated me a local number in Florence, Italy. It rings directly into the VirtualPBX, and I can now have access to all our employees, voicemail, and dial tone to make outbound calls.
I’m also going to need a phone to use when I get there so that I can call my new number at local rates so I’m bringing my old RAZR and when I get into Italy, I’ll just drop into a local phone store and switch out the Cingular SIM chip for a local SIM chip. Quick, easy, buy a big pack of minutes for local calls there, save a whole bunch of money.
With my new local Italian SIM chip in my phone I will simply call the Florence number at the cost of a local phone call, reach my messages and business services as needed, and use the outbound dialing feature to connect me to anyone I want to talk to at home – mostly my kids, but I can keep track of anyone I want to without having to pay international rates.
That’s way cheaper than the $2.00 a minute that the major phone companies would be charging me. And if I meet anyone in Florence that wants to call me, I just give them my VirtualPBX Florence phone number, they will reach the main auto attendant, they can dial my extension and the VirtualPBX will call out to my cell phone – the new Italian one of course!
If anyone else wants to test the Italian VirtualPBX number, it is 39-055-398-0579, and it’ll take you straight to our main system. I’m really excited about seeing how the total price compares when I get back from my trip. I’ll keep track of the number of minutes of phone time I use and let you all know how it goes. If you’d like your own international number in one of over 40 countries, send an email to beta-testers@virtualpbx.com and ask to be part of our international beta program. Meanwhile, ciao, and Italy here we come.
Paul Hammond
In this second part of our multi-part series on the importance of your phone system, we take a look back at history and see how it’s evolved to become an important cog in your business machine.
To fully appreciate how and why a hosted, virtual, or IP PBX provides benefits to your business we need to take a little trip back in time to the days of the switchboard. You’ve probably seen old pictures, movies or cartoons depicting a group of operators hurriedly connecting calls by manually swapping wires from one place to the next as calls arrive. Back then, switchboard rooms might be filled, floor-to-ceiling, with the equipment required to patch every call while “runners” were hired to climb the ladders that were attached to those switchboards, simply to connect calls. The equipment was incredibly monolithic; the process was very labor-intensive; and there was no chance a small business owner could conceive of having their own switchboard. It’s hard to even believe that we actually managed to communicate that way.
As time passed, advances in basic telephony, switching enhancements, improvements in signaling, the advent of the PBX (private branch exchange), and the eventual intersection of computing technologies contributed to the rapid disappearance of manual switchboards during the latter half of the 20th century. Phone systems became smaller and more automated, required less space to install, less people to make them run, and provided much more functionality at the touch of a button. One or two operators could do the job of what had taken dozens just decades before. By the late 20th century, a well-heeled entrepreneur could conceivably purchase and install a PBX with the aid of a consultant and such a PBX system could, quite literally, fit inside of a closet.
For the small business owner, unfortunately, the overhead cost of a phone system living in a telecommunications “closet” still presented a huge cost concern. Adding together the price of the PBX hardware, switching systems, phone lines, configuration and ongoing maintenance costs, as well as the dedicated phone hardware made such a purchase cost-prohibitive. The risks involved with maintaining the hardware on-site also might cause a business owner some nightmares. What happens if there’s a power failure or a major catastrophe? What if the business needed to move? What if local construction “accidentally” cuts the incoming lines? Enter the Internet Age.
With computing and mass storage centralized to data centers and even larger dedicated “closets” where power, environmental conditions, and even backup could by maintained by third parties, the ability to take the traditional PBX “out of the closet”, so to speak, became a plainly obvious endeavor. If websites and other business-critical applications could be “hosted” outside the walls of corporate headquarters, so could a phone system. And if a phone system can be hosted, then everyone (including the burgeoning ranks of micro and home-based businesses) could leverage the cost advantages and power of a…wait for it…hosted pbx. Virtual PBX was the first to deliver such as system in 1998 and we coined the term ‘virtual pbx‘ to more adequately describe the technology. You’ll also find such systems under the moniker of ‘hosted phone system’, ‘hosted IP pbx’ (we’ll be exploring that one in the future), and most recently,’ VoIP pbx’. These days many of the terms are used interchangeably to describe a phone system that incorporate the following functionality:
- Have an auto-attendant that acts as a virtual operator or virtual receptionist – Every caller is greeted with a message and options that are unique to the business.
- Employees have an extension and every extension has voicemail – Just like an enterprise PBX.
- Forward calls to any phone number – Standard PBXs lock employees down to the phone at their desk. With a hosted pbx, the employee defines what phone is used and multiple numbers can be stored.
- Have the ability to handle multiple phone numbers – Toll-free numbers for a national presence; local numbers for your local presence.
- Send any phone number to almost any part of the hosted pbx.
- Be able to take the entire Caller ID or portions of the Caller ID and automatically route calls as they arrive.
- Be able to route calls based on caller input.
- Follow-me calling – A hosted PBX can call each phone number that an employee stores allowing them to take calls wherever they are; this function is also readily enabled or disabled.
- Provide information about each call including the ability to screen – Also known in the industry as call whisper.
- Be able to transfer calls – An obvious and critical function.
- Decipher between normal calls and fax calls and be able to handle those messages accordingly.
- Convert messages to attachments that can be forwarded in email.
- Include a call queueing system – An intelligent and automated delivery method that allows small businesses to create virtual “departments” that are able to handle a caller’s needs more specifically.
- Built-in conferencing.
- Include a web-based interface – A hosted pbx can be readily configured and maintained through a web browser
- Include some form of reporting and logging – Allows even the smallest businesses to learn about their phone traffic and how to maximize how the phones get used
- Include redundancies in the back-end hardware – Technology is useless if it fails. This goes double for your phone system. Building in a high-level of fault tolerance and backup system allows hosted pbx to perform mission-critical tasks.
For small business owners, especially ones that utilize the phone as a critical link in their operations, the advantages of a hosted pbx are hard to ignore:
- Low cost to implement, low cost to maintain.
- No hardware-lock in – if you have a phone (land line, cell phone, VoIP line, Sat Phone, etc.) you can make use of a hosted phone system.
- No pbx hardware to buy, no software to learn and upgrade because you’ll have…
- Off-site hosting and maintenance – This is especially valuable if you run your business in areas that are routinely impacted by weather or conditions that can affect your phone system.
- Provide an enterprise-level presence even if the company is run by a single proprietor.
- For the diversified entrepreneur, a hosted pbx allows multiple businesses to be run under one phone system.
- Be able to provide actual departments to callers. Businesses look even larger and the customers are handled more appropriately.
- Instantly discern between your business calls, personal calls, and calls from your VIPs.
With all the capabilites available from hosted pbx technology and the value-add that is inherent to the technology, the most important aspect of the hosted phone system is that it becomes a transperent and intergral part of your day-to-day operations. In fact, your phone system becomes a key enabler of your business; a vital cornerstone that, along with a set of tools, allows you to do business anywhere. By simply adding a customer relationship management solution; dedicated billing software; and any combination of freely available communications and office productivity tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Docs, and a multi-IM client such as Trillian or Digsby, you’re ready to work wherever you, your laptop, and your phone are most comfortable.
And what will the future hold for such a key member of your business? That’s what we intend to look at in our final installment. We hope you’ll be back for that one.
Your phone system. It’s something that you probably don’t think about very much. In fact it’s probably something that you take for granted. A lot. As an entrepreneur, small business owner, or a corporate fugitive just starting out, you’re (almost always) more preoccupied with issues that you’ve deemed more important. You’re accustomed to using your cell phone as your primary business line; and while you’ve put in a dedicated phone line or two in your home office it’s not exactly one of those things that you put that much thought into. Moreover, if you’ve always worked for someone else that phone (and all the related hardware behind it) has been an item that has “always been there”.
Until it’s not.
After a while, having just a cell phone is no longer the most convenient aspect of your business because being at the instant beck and call of all of your customers isn’t especially conducive to your sanity. That second phone line you put in is now intermittently picked up by your kids, which doesn’t send the greatest image of professionalism. And the idea of rushing to a phone every time it rings simply causes too many interruptions. If you’ve experienced any or all of the above, perhaps even in one day, you might arrive at the conclusion that you really do need to be responsible for your own phone system. Unfortunately, the task of implementing the right solution is just plain daunting and, at best, supremely frustrating.
And why is that? Because telephony is filled with a plethora of acronyms and terminology that can be confounding – even the choice of what kind of phone to purchase is migraine-inducing. POTS, SIP or VoIP? Single-line, multi-line, wireless, or soft phone? Hosted PBX, virtual pbx, or IP PBX? Integrated conferencing or a conferencing service? DID? Queues? Hunt groups? Huh? “… I need a virtual receptionist? Really? I don’t even have a budget for one of those!?!…” “Wait…I thought an asterisk was a punctuation mark?…”
So what if you could allay all of those issues? What if that “industrial strength” phone system that’s a part of almost every major enterprise could be a part of every small business? What if the phone system that you decided to implement for your little empire could actually be a useful part of your business? Oh…and what if it was also relatively inexpensive to implement? That’s not a half-bad idea is it?
Well, it can. It’s called a hosted pbx. And it’s what our next blog entry will hope to set straight, once and for all.
We hope you’ll join us for that little talk. Continue Reading »
“Hello.”
As the universal phone greeting it’s the perfect way to welcome you to our new blog. Considering that we provide virtual phone systems, it’s somewhat appropriate. The word itself is not just succinct and welcoming, but comfortable. It’’s what we hope you feel as you explore our main web site. And it’s what we want to make sure you feel as you read the entries here. Obviously, we want to make sure that you get plenty of useful tips and tricks about our products, but, we hope that you also return on a regular basis to read about interesting trends in telephony (and technology in general); to get useful ideas on small business; to hear the latest perspectives from the desks of our executive team; and, to actively engage in conversations about…well, whatever it is that will help serve your business more appropriately.
So, hello. Welcome. Thanks for coming. We can’t wait to hear what you have to say about what we have to say.
