Tag Archives: Phones

5 Ways VOIP Services can Save Your Business Money

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Business man holding a dollar sign. Saving money with VOIP services concept.

VoIP Services can save your Business Money

Internet phones are changing the landscape of business communication. So much so that even the large telecom companies are developing their own VOIP plans just to keep up with the trends. It’s no surprise, VOIP brings voice communication back to the cutting edge of today’s technology. The whole idea of a business phone system is integrated with modern software standards and compatibility with other essential software elements like your CRM.

But VOIP isn’t just making office phones more convenient and high-tech, it is also making business phones significantly more affordable. VOIP is far more accessible to small businesses, offering price points within a small-business budget for big-business quality of service. Let’s dive into the top five ways that VOIP services can save money for your business directly.

1) Scalability

Scaling for a larger, smaller, or expanding staff has always been a major challenge with PBX business phones because it means a rearrangement of the physical wires themselves. After setup, a business could find themselves stuck paying for too many or too few channels. But not with VOIP.

VOIP allows you to reserve exactly as many employee and facility phone lines you need, scaling up when your needs increase and scaling down if your staff numbers contract. All with minimal cost and no additional hassle or expense to handle your scaling through the handy online portal.

2) Runs on Existing High-Speed Internet

Another great perk of VOIP is that it works on internet data, not a phone signal. If you have already invested in a fast, guaranteed internet connection, there’s no need to buy a phone plan on top of that. When you already have high-speed internet, that is all you need. Your computers and devices will connect and everything you need will be available at high-quality. Your internet will provide all the signal necessary to run your phones and any necessary web browsing and cloud file management inside the company.

3) No Physical Equipment Installation

The next money-saving opportunity is dodging the physical installation. Every time a business makes a change to a traditional PBX system, a technician needs to run a line, remove a line, update the box, and so on.  Physical equipment installations are not just distracting and time-consuming, they are also costly. With VOIP, you don’t need to pay for technician time or wait for the installation to be complete to get on with work. Instead, you can make the changes you need to in the platform and that’s that.

4) Don’t Buy Company Phones or SIM Cards

Even for your remote employees and employees in the field, you no longer have to consider buying company cellphones or SIM cards to keep your team connected on your managed phone network. In fact, employee’s own devices can work as their VOIP hub and answering point as a number that is separate and parallel to their personal phone number. VOIP does use a SIM card, but not in the way you’re used to. It uses the card just to get an internet connection on the phone.

5) No Service Downtime

Finally, we come to a very important point. Because VOIP is so flexible by nature and lines can be answered from any device, you also can completely dodge most issues that would cause communications downtime. If you know maintenance is scheduled for your office or the entire team, you can simply have everyone transition to working from their laptops and phones to take calls from the same numbers as far as clients are concerned. There is no need to suffer through worrying, customer-losing downtime when your lines transfer easily from one device to the next.

To discover how much savings you can achieve with VOIP, contact us today!

Improve Your Hotel Operations With VoIP

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Hotel guest and receptionist using VoIP

Improve your phone system for communicating with customers and prospects

If you are operating a hotel, you have already discovered that there are various costs that you have to be responsible for. With the demand of customers increasing on a daily basis, we expect that this trend will continue. Today, it can be very difficult to get away with operating a hotel that is not equipped with the right technology and capabilities that will improve a customer’s stay. You will need to learn how you can keep up with all the latest and greatest trends in the hospitality industry, as well as all of the expected benefits. If you are not able to keep up with the trends and expectations, you will find yourself on the outside looking in when it comes to expectations.

There are several things you will be able to do through the use of technology that will keep your guests happy, in addition to lowering the overall costs of your hotel operations. If you do not mind putting in a little extra work or pay more attention to all of the tasks that you will be responsible for, there should be no reason why you should fall behind when it comes to competition.

There are various things you can do to use technology to cut your costs while still impressing all of your guests, including the following:

VoIP(Voice over Internet Protocol)

One of the most important aspects of your hotel system is its phone system. If your guests ever have any problems communicating with their loved ones, clients, employees, or anyone else, they will be more likely to stay at another hotel the next time they are in the area. If that guest shares his or her experience with someone else or on a review website, your hotel’s reputation can be damaged. Voice over Internet Protocol(VoIP) is an incredible alternative that will provide a lower cost to your hotel, in addition to greater flexibility and an overall improvement in the service. Your employees and your guests will find great pleasure in the improvements in communication.

A communication system is a key part of all of the daily operations that will take place in your hotel, regardless of how big or small the hotel may be. This is why it is important to have the right VoIP phone system. When you make the right choice, you will be able to provide your guests and your employees with the comprehensive communication system you need for now and in the future.

What Can VoIP Bring To Your Hotel?

Many businesses may not realize why so many businesses are using VoIP to fulfill their communication needs. While businesses can appreciate the benefits and the ability to save money, using VoIP is also about clarity and control. Many people do not care how a system actually functions, many of them only care that it is simple to use and it works like it is supposed to. VoIP brings clarity and simplicity to all of its users while making the overall experience better.

Your users will not have to worry about using a complex system that will frustrate them every time they try to use it. Your VoIP’s hotel system can run in the cloud, users can bring their own devices, and they will be able to use functions they are familiar with. Technology also creates an improved and increased level of control for your hotel. You will no longer have to worry about training your users on the VoIP system because they will be familiar with the functions. VoIP will also come with a variety of options that will allow your employees to have more control when it comes to addressing questions guests may have and providing better service.

We are not surprised that hotels and other businesses are using VoIP systems to improve their business. Contact us today for more information on VoIP phone systems and how they can be an asset to your business.

6 Ways to Reduce Background Noise in Office VOIP Calls

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Smiling handsome customer support operator agent making VOIP calls on a nice headset with a good quality microphone with hands-free device working in call center

The quality and clarity of VoIP calls, along with the features available makes the service a viable solution compared to traditional phone lines.

The incredible sound quality provided by modern VOIP calls has been commented on many times. The internet is now capable of conveying sound at as high or higher quality than landline telephones with no loss in detail along the way. However, just as HD tv allows you to see the pores of actors, high-quality phone calls suddenly reveal just how noisy your office really is.

Surely, you’ve heard the hum of fans and the murmur of coworkers on a call when another caller opens their mic to speak. No doubt, that same kind of office background noise can be heard on many professional calls. The good news is that there are several ways to reduce the background noise in VOIP calls without making the office a ‘quiet zone’. Here’s how:

1) Hand Out Quality Headsets

First, get every employee who makes VOIP calls on a nice headset with a good quality microphone. The headsets will ensure two things. First, that employees aren’t using their speakers to hear calls, adding to the noise and potential for call-echo. Second, a good quality microphone will be better at picking up only the speaker’s voice without picking up every rustle of paper or keyboard clack in a shared office space.

2) Reduce Fan Noise

Fan noise is a serious problem in office, big or small. The sound of your HVAC or the box fans you use to keep cool in spite of the HVAC can have a hugely negative effect on your call audio quality. That hum and rattle can be heard on an open mic and can make an entire conference call less pleasant. Do everything you can to reduce the noise fans make in rooms where calls occur.

This might involve repairing or updating your HVAC fans, replacing or cleaning your floor fans, or replacing noisy fans with modern quieter versions of same. Loud printers fall under the same rule.

3) Make Use of Noise Reduction Panels

Noise reduction panels are attractive pieces of wall art or subtly integrated pieces of furniture designed for offices to soak up that ambient sound. noise reduction uses a combination of foam and fabric to ‘catch’ noises as they pass and muffle them so that they cannot be heard at a distance. They can be used to create privacy, quiet spots, and simply to reduce the amount of noise that travels from one section of the office to the other. The more you decorate or build with noise reduction panels, the quieter your office can potentially become.

4) Hold Calls in Quiet Offices

If calls are an occasional but not constant feature in your office, then providing quiet offices may be enough. Allow employees to book or borrow the spare quiet rooms available in your office so that they can hold their occasional calls and conferences in audio privacy. This way, the murmur of coworkers or the hum of big-room HVAC vents will not reduce the quality of their calls.

5) Provide ‘Cone of Silence’ Desk Hutches

If you have an open workspace full of employees who are constantly making calls (or don’t have spare quiet offices) then an interesting alternative is to build sound-privacy hutches out of noise reduction panels. These hutches can even fold away and then be brought out when it’s time to make a call. Essentially, these hutches act as portable ‘cones of silence’ so that when an employee pops their head into the hutch, suddenly office noise is reduced and they are audibly alone with the call.

6) Fluffy Plantlife

Finally, never discount the value of fluffy plants. Cubicle hedgerows, walls of flowering vines, and other office greenery are great ways to absorb sound. Plants not only make people happy and improve the air quality, the fluffy leaves also catch sound and prevent it from wandering too far across the room. In combination with noise reduction panels, you might be surprised how quiet an open workspace can become.

Improving the audio quality of VOIP calls is about much more than bandwidth. By mastering the ambient noise in your office, you can ensure that every employee can make crystal-clear calls with their new VOIP numbers without offending or deafening their contacts with background sounds. For more VOIP insights on how to optimize unified communications for your business, contact us today!

5 Employment Perks You Can Offer After Integrating VOIP Phones – Part 2 of 2

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Integrating VOIP Phones

Integrating VoIP Phones into your business makes communication seamless.

Welcome back to the second half of our two-part article on what VOIP can do for your employment benefits. By using the versatility and unified communications system of VOIP, it suddenly becomes possible to offer your employees a lot more freedom as well. Being in and out of the office matters less, and you can reliably use one phone number no matter where your team is working from.

Last time, we talked about work from home days and flexible sick days. Join us again as we pick up where we left off with remote positions, travel, and multi-location jobs.

Remote Positions

The primary cause of the current War for Talent is that skilled professionals realized they didn’t have to move for work or come into the office every day. Many modern jobs don’t actually require a physical presence in the office to deliver results, which is where the remote job trend is coming from. Before VOIP, your office may have been limited to hiring only in-office employees in order to give employees access to their work number and internal network access.

But with VOIP numbers for the entire company, you will become infinitely more competitive with the ability to offer modern professionals remote or partly-remote positions. Whether you’re looking for software programmers, accountants, digital artists, or content marketing specialists, VOIP allows you to hook them directly into the company communication system without requiring them to step into the physical office even once. And that is something young talented professionals value very highly in an employer.

More Travel Opportunities

Business trips, meeting clients, and training across multiple facilities has always been something of a logistical nightmare. Any time an employee has to travel, there is a certain amount of risk and chaos. An employee usually has to fall back on secondary mobile equipment or their own personal mobile devices in order to stay in touch and to get any work done on the road. But VOIP offers a variety of solutions that can significantly simplify employee travel.

VOIP makes it possible for your traveling staff members to stay in touch on the same number no matter what device they currently have charged and active. In fact –unlike smartphones with SIM cards– employees can even reconnect to their VOIP number on a borrowed device if their phone is lost or dropped in the pool. This means your team members are almost always in-touch, even if it’s on a borrowed device or hotel lobby computers.

Dual-Location and Circuit Positions

Finally, there are those unique positions where an employee actually has an office in more than one facility or location. Technicians and managers who serve two locations and fly between them alternatingly are surprisingly common in some industries. While other industries frequently have circuit managers who cycle between offices in several different facilities in order to provide regional oversight.

Both dual-location and circuit positions are also a pain in the neck for keeping track of phone numbers. These professionals usually wind up living on their personal cells because their office phone number changes every few weeks. But VOIP can give constantly moving professionals a single work number that will ring to their current desk no matter what office they happen to be sitting in. A circuit office, their temporary office, or even a guest cube in a shared working space. VOIP provides ultimate location flexibility for your mobile employees.

If your business has been considering making the switch to VOIP, it is important to think about all the technical details. But don’t forget that VOIP has benefits far beyond the upgrade process. Internet phones aren’t just more affordable, scalable, and software-friendly than traditional phone lines. VOIP also opens up a world of employee perks through mobile flexibility. With VOIP, employees can now be ‘at their desks’ and ready to work from anywhere with an internet connection. For more about the right VOIP upgrade for your business,  contact us today!