VoIP for small businesses, virtual phones for remote employees

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In the past, remote employees were those who were sent out on assignment.

Very few employees worked as remote employees, and those who did were confined to certain industry types; i.e. geologists, consultants and traveling salesmen. The advent of faster, reliable VoIP for small businesses has changed that and virtual phones for remote employees have changed the game. 

Whether it is the shared culture, constant connectivity,

or increasing demand for talented employees,
RingByName is not here to discuss how popularity
for this movement grew

but rather the advantages and uses that VoIP for small businesses can provide, especially in terms of virtual phones for remote employees.

Advantages

  1. If more employees are requesting to work remotely, the only viable option is VoIP. Advanced call routing and Star Transfer allows the employee to seamlessly integrate their remote location with the main office.
  2. The unique built-in CRM feature allows the remote employee to post notes and share these notes with their headquartered base supervisor.
  3. Call management system allows supervisor to monitor the remote employee’s call activity.
  4. Click2Transfer features allows for calls to be transferred from the business phones to the remote employee and vice versa.
  5. Remote employees can remain committed and integrated in business operations through the use of a VoIP system.
  6. Adding and removing virtual phones for employees is simple, allowing the business to grow dynamically.

RingByName focuses on VoIP for small business with the intent to create affordable, efficient, and game changing software as a service. Employees are asking for more freedom and remote work, and businesses are offering the work to attract the very best clientele. Consider virtual phones for remote employees and stay one step ahead of the competition.

Advanced Call Routing – There Are No Substitutes

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C all routing is an essential tool for sales and customer oriented businesses; advanced call routing is for sales and customer oriented businesses that know that every edge they have over the competition goes a long way. RingByName provides advanced call routing that is as basic or as advanced as the business owner needs it to be.

You can choose to always transfer calls from big clients

straight to the owner’s cell phone, send phone calls from

international phone numbers through menu systems…

How

Advanced call routing gives small business owners full control of their phone systems. Business owners set instructions for incoming phones calls as they see fit. You can choose to always transfer calls from big clients straight to the owner’s cell phone, send phone calls from international phone numbers through menu systems, have all calls from local numbers go directly through the menu, and more. Set time rules as well, so that certain rules apply during certain times of day.

Why

  • Instantly improve your credibility with advanced call routing. When clients call your business phones, they will be greeted with menu options, departments and individual extensions, instantly adding to the company’s credibility.
  • Shift focus to more important tasks and away from needless phone calls. Don’t be distracted by unimportant phone calls during peak hours or before deadlines. Create rules using advanced call routing.
  • Streamline the process for clients. Send clients to their account managers or to the technical departments of their choice by using the call routing features for their number.
  • Use professional greetings and hold music to your advantage, and to further your brand.

For more information, contact a RingByName company representative today.

How Modern Entrepreneurs Stay Mobile

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Entrepreneurs and small business owners are not switching to voice over internet protocol (VoIP) simply to save money. Virtual phone systems are extremely efficient and convenient. The modern entrepreneur is more mobile than ever; a consequence and benefit of high speed, mobile technology. RingByName speaks to business leaders when it comes to modern day business mobility and day-to-day functions.

  • Seamless Mobile Integration – A good VoIP offers mobile entrepreneurs the option to seamlessly convert their mobile phones into office phones, with assigned phone numbers, extensions and instant transfer abilities (Check out RingByName’s Star Transfer). If the virtual phone systems feel like office phones, your business is already ahead of the game.
  • Reliability and Quality – It should go without say that the key to a successful VoIP is reliability and quality, but not all virtual phone systems are created equal.
  • Flexibility – Much like the modern, mobile entrepreneurs they serve, VoIP providers should offer dynamic, flexible virtual phone systems and affordable VoIP plans.
  • Presence – Virtual phone systems allow entrepreneurs to target local and international markets. Local telephone numbers with unlimited international calling allows for the best of both worlds.
  • Multitasking – Reliable voicemail, call transfer, and phone access on the road is crucial to business mobility. 

RingByName’s services were born out of necessity; entrepreneurs need reliable, mobile virtual phone systems. RingByName works with entrepreneurs and small business owners every day. If you are ready to go mobile, call us today.

Small Businesses Save Money

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For most small businesses, the main priority is finding new clients. Cash flow is important, and many small businesses stay afloat by managing their cash flow carefully. RingByName’s virtual business phone systems are allowing small business owners to save money and increase efficiency simultaneously.

RingByName delves into some of the ways in which virtual business phone systems are saving small businesses so much money:

  • Virtual business phone systems connect into existing phone lines, saving small business owners the cost of installing new phone lines.
  • RingByName’s unlimited international calling and cheaper local and national calling rates make it one of the best and cheapest VoIP providers for small businesses.
  • Enhanced features built into RingByName’s VoIP systems increase efficiency while the price remains the same; i.e. Star Transfer, Call Presence, and Click2Call Extension.
  • VoIP by RingByName, has security and mobility features built in, eliminating the need for additional software.
  • RingByName’s 24/7 customer support minimizes downtime when issues arise; saving money by preventing loss.

At first, switching your business’ phone system to a modern, virtual business phone system may seem scary, but your business will see great return on the decision. Voice over internet protocol systems are a tried, tested, and proven alternative to the outdated phone system.

RingByName has saved money for over 250,000 customers. Add your company’s name to the list of satisfied small businesses and contact RingByName today.

VTECH ErisStation VCS754 Conference Room IP Telephone

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Conference room phones have often been a pain point for companies that hold group meetings via telephone. Depending on the size of the room and the number of participants, a list of audio problems can plague a conference call– and be problematic for a business’ reputation.
Customers calling into the conference can often not hear speakers seated away from the conference room phone located at the center of the room. The result is a mix of inaudible participants and roaring speakers that sound like they are shouting at the client.
More complex conference room phones employ external microphones and speakers on opposite ends of the conference room table. While a good idea in theory, these often produce feedback, echoes,  and line noise when the volume in the room is set too high If multiple parties are speaking at once, the audio becomes garbled and unintelligible.
The result is a group of frustrated conference participants, both in the conference room and at the client location– not to mention a tarnished reputation.
VTECH’s ErisStation VCS754 Conference room is the answer to quality conferencing. Looking more like a futuristic star ship than a telephone, this sleek phone solves all of the common conference room issue.
Whether located in the corner of a small office or in a larger conference room, the audio on this phone is clear and crisp.
The included POE adapter ensures only a single cable is visible on the conference room table, keeping  your conference room nice and tidy and without the need for additional power cables or extensions.
By far the VCS754’s best feature however, are the four detachable wireless microphones nested in the units base. Each microphone can be placed at opposite sides of the room, up to 100 feet away from the base (though I can’t imagine why), thanks to the DECT 6.0 wireless technology providing premium sound quality and full room coverage for up to 12 hours.
With a price point substantially lower than many other competing brands with similar features, there is no reason why this conference room shouldn’t already be on your conference room table.

Integrated CRM Is Not A Phone Service Luxury, It’s Essential

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Business communications have become extremely complex.

In addition to phone and fax, we now have text messaging, voicemails, live chat, and social media communications of all sorts — Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, LinkedIn, Google, and more.  And increasingly, important business communications are occurring on all of them.  It’s a whole lot to keep up with.

At the same time, customer expectations

are rising quickly in this “Customer Experience
Renaissance” we are in the midst of.  Two-hour
delivery of almost anything

— maybe soon with flying drones.  Free shipping, free returns, fast, generous compensation for bad experiences, elaborate loyalty programs, and vertical integration to tighten logistics and improve customer experiences.  It’s fiercely competitive.

Business tools can be segmented in endless ways but one way is fixed and changing.  The stapler hasn’t changed much in maybe fifty years.  The webmail changes a little all the time.  We don’t expect nor want the stapler to change because it’s already almost fully-optimized for driving metal strips through paper.  And that’s all we need and want it to do — maybe ever.  But webmail needs to change and improve with time because our needs change (we want to see Facebook posts that mention our company in a single communication stream alongside our emails, for example) and technology and best practices for business communications change.  Unlike the stapler we need and want our webmail to change — as long as it’s steadily getting better and the changes aren’t disruptive.

Well somewhere back a few decades ago, business phone service became something that a lot of business people came to view as a stapler.  They just wanted a phone service for their business that allowed them to make and receive phone calls and do a few other simple things reliably and cheaply.  And every few years they wanted their new phone service to do these same simple things more reliably and more cheaply than the service it was replacing. 

Well, you can say one thing about private businesses: they don’t spend lots of time and money making something more than it needs to be to sell.  So for decades, business phone service largely lacked significant innovation — and pretty much everyone was okay with that.  But not anymore . . . not with the explosion of communications that business people now need to manage and the sky-high customer expectations.  Businesses today need help and many are looking to their business phone system as part of the solution — or even the heart of it.

In the decades when business phone service was stuck in its “stapler era”, a new industry was born to help businesses to manage their customer relationships more successfully and efficiently.  Aptly named Customer Relationship Management (CRM), this industry that didn’t exist twenty years ago will sell about $30 billion in services to businesses in 2016.  CRM helps business win and keep more customers.  When used properly, CRM can transform a weak or mediocre company into a superstar.  For many businesses, their phone service is their primary communication tool — both internally and externally — so linking CRM to business phone service is something that numerous service providers have done.  The most common approach is for the CRM and the phone service to “plug-in” to one another using a software plug-in that connects the two applications.  This can be effective but the experience often suffers as the user is using two applications at once sort of on top of one another.

The solution for this is not to build separately and then try to connect two entirely different business applications designed to do two very different sets of things but rather to build one application from the ground up that is designed to do what businesses really must succeed at — winning and keeping customers — and do it seamlessly and intuitively.  The most successful example of this is RingByName.

RingByName is way more than a business phone service and that begins with it having fully-integrated CRM into the application.  It’s not plugged in or grafted on — it’s in the DNA of the application, in the bones.  So much so that you can’t tell where the phone system leaves off and the CRM picks up.  On inbound calls RingByName instantly looks the caller up, runs their name through a proper name pronunciation engine, and greets the caller by name, “Hello, Susan.  Thanks for calling Apex Services again.”  Next RingByName looks up the last call from this person and makes a helpful offer to the caller, “Last time you called you spoke with Mike in Service, would you like to speak with him again?”  This level of integration and ease of use between the phone system and customer, prospect, and contact databases can only be achieved through a ground-up architecture and application development.  No sync, plug-in, or widget can deliver what businesses today really need like RingByName does.

RingByName with built-in CRM helps your business in numerous ways including:

  • Allowing you to deliver a better prospect and customer experience with the option to welcome and route callers by name
  • Providing all your employees with visibility into shared activities: see missed calls, voicemails, and other events to improve teamwork.  Visibility can be restricted as desired too.
  • Giving all your employees needed tools like a mobile app for iOS and Android, voicemail to email, eFax, and conference calling
  • Delivering basic CRM company-wide: upload and share contacts, create and assign tasks to individuals or groups, enjoy group calendaring and notes, easily share voicemails and call recordings
  • Supplying instant individual and neighborhood profiles on prospects and customers.  Profiles include a wealth of information including personal, financial, home and family, and consumer-behavior details.
  • A business application like RingByName can be described but it cannot be fully-appreciated without experiencing it. 
  • Does it really do all this stuff? 
  • Is it actually as easy to use as Facebook? 
  • Is it true that it probably costs less than what our business is spending today on phone service? 

All these questions and more can be answered through a 15-minute consultation with a RingByName business consultant.  Click here or call 855-345-RING to take a look.  Business communications aren’t going to magically get less complex and prospects and customers are not going to wake up tomorrow with lower expectations, so you’re literally hurting your business and making it harder for you and your employees to succeed every day you wait.  Apologies for being kind of harsh there at the end, but I could sense you needed a little push.  We all do sometimes…  So here it is—call 855-345-RING right now!  You have a phone there, just pick it up.  There you go . . .  😉

RingByName Brings Cloud Communications Options to Malaysia

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RingByName, a company that may not be familiar to many users out there, just made a big new move in the Malaysian telecom market, as it recently inked a new agreement with Telekom Malaysia (News – Alert). The agreement calls for RingByName to offer its services in the VADS Marketplace, a complete cloud services marketplace that will offer up an array of services for users in the region.

The marketplace already contains some of the biggest names in cloud services, including Office365 and Skype (News – Alert), but with RingByName also in place, users will get access to that much more capability in the field. With these services on hand, users will be able to step up infrastructure currently in place by adding cloud services that offer new options for users. Since RingByName is perhaps best known for its communications platform—which at last report already has several hundred thousand users to its credit—RingByName should be a welcome addition to the lineup.

telekom-malaysa

Kooi Lim, who serves as RingByName’s CEO, commented, “We are pleased to partner with Telekom Malaysia on this important initiative. Our services have been in demand from small businesses throughout the world. We believe they will be equally valuable for Malaysian and other regional businesses that want to use sophisticated technology to communicate better and reach revenue goals.”

The marketplace looks like it will have a fine slate of cloud services, if not necessarily anything particularly new in certain places. Having a one-stop shopping destination for these services, however, should prove welcome for users in the region who may not have had access to such services before. That doesn’t make these any less useful, and with all of these in one place, Telekom Malaysia has likely poised itself to be a big wheel in the virtual office and cloud services market. Granted, the Malaysian cloud services market may not be a particularly big pie on its own, but having a large piece of a small pie is just about as good as a small slice of a large pie.

“We are pleased to partner with Telekom

Malaysia on this important initiative.
Our services have been in demand from
small businesses throughout the world”.    ~ Kooi Lim CEO

It’s likely that Telekom Malaysia will come out of this as a very large fish in a comparatively small pond, and that should be good news for the company so clearly eager to advance virtual office concepts in a region that may not have had too much access to these previously. With services like RingByName’s on its side, it should be even more attractive in the field.

Smart Receptionist

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Let the Smart Receptionist give you a hand!

The one thing I always admire, is when people remember a story you told them. It could have been something important to you but most likely that story did not affect the other person whatsoever. But they still remembered, and the next time they saw you, they asked about it. And you felt special, didn’t you? Admit it you did.
It is those special touches that add value to your business’ customer experience. Something as simple as one of your customers telling you that he will be out of town for a couple of weeks due to a family trip to the Bahamas. After they come back, ask him how it went! They’ll know you not only appreciate them for doing business with you but you also appreciate their trust and loyalty.
That sounds easy for a business with 5 customers. What are you going to do when you are all rich and famous and you have thousands of employees to remember? You get a smart handy dandy phone system that will give you a hand with this!

With RingByName advanced call routing, callers are automatically recognized by the smart receptionist and greeted by name. The smart receptionist intelligently remembers whom they spoke with last and offers to connect them again. Advanced call routing greatly improves customers’ calling experience and keeps them calling back.
Let’s say your customer, Becky, has a history of calling to ask quick questions and she always asks to speak with Paul. With RingByName, Becky’s call history will be logged in the system, so the next time she calls, she will be greeted warmly by name and offered to connect with Paul. This neatly avoids a receptionist or having to dial in a certain extension.
Your team members will love this feature because it allows them to easily build better relationships with individual customers. Plus, it shows customers that your team members are real people with individual phone numbers and real roles at your company.

Telekom Malaysia

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RingByName Provides Marketplace Solution for Telekom Malaysia

Innovative cloud-based communications services offered to business customers in Malaysia and the region

Miami (August 19, 2016)—RingByName, a Miami company offering cloud communications services in 70 countries, has entered into an agreement with Telekom Malaysia to participate in the company’s VADS Marketplace.  Joining such brands as Microsoft Office365, Skype, and EMC’s Mozy, RingByName will help Telekom Malaysia business clients better acquire, retain, and communicate with their customers. This is part of a larger trend that reflects the globalization of cloud-based services to enhance existing infrastructure. RingByName is at the forefront of delivering this kind of innovation.

“We are pleased to partner with Telekom Malaysia on this important initiative”, said Kooi Lim, CEO of RingByName. “Our services have been in demand from small businesses throughout the world.  We believe they will be equally valuable for Malaysian and other regional businesses that want to use sophisticated technology to communicate better and reach revenue goals.”

RingByName has built and perfected a highly-scalable communications platform using proprietary and open-source software. The company has hundreds of thousands of customers using its services globally.

RingByName will participate in the Telekom Malaysia Business Solutions Marketplace Expo launch event in Kuala Lumpur on August 10. This is a gathering of companies driving growth via state of the art cloud services.

About RingByName

 RingByName is a cloud-based communications platform for small businesses. It helps companies build and retain relationships with their customers while running more smoothly. RingByName offers innovative features including a free web and mobile app so that companies can stay in touch anytime, anywhere. RingByName is headquartered in Miami, Florida and boasts hundreds of thousands of customers in 70 countries worldwide. For more information visit http://www.ringbyname.com

 About Telekom Malaysia

 Telekom Malaysia is Malaysia’s leading converged telecommunications company. Founded in 1946, TM is transforming the way people connect, communicate, and collaborate. The company offers a range of product offerings including fixed line and mobile telephony; television and network services and high-speed broadband. Telekom Malaysia has more than 28,000 employees and a market capitalization in excess of US $6 Billion. It trades on the KLSE under the symbol TM. For more information visit https://marketplace.vads.com

RingByName Contact: Matt Bramson, matt.bramson@inphonex.com

VoIP Service Comparisons Ring Central vs Jive vs RingByName

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RingCentral vs. Jive vs. RingByName: Which Is The Best Choice For Your Business?

T here was a time when buying business phone service was easy.  There were only a few service providers to choose from and all were huge, established companies.  No matter which provider you chose, the service was the same: it did and didn’t do the same things, worked the same way, and probably was delivered by hardware and software from the same suppliers – companies like Lucent, Nortel, Avaya, and Cisco.  So it came down almost entirely to two things: price and support.  Support is almost impossible to evaluate as a potential customer, as every company will tell you their service is great and can provide a couple references to reinforce the claim.

Price was therefore often the primary focal point.  What many businesses would do is take their latest phone bill, make a few photocopies, and give them to a number of phone companies to come back with a proposal showing a savings.  Whichever company proposed to replace the business’ current phone service at the lowest price, would usually be chosen.

Chart

Well, unfortunately perhaps, it can’t be done that way anymore.  Today there are hundreds of service providers businesses can choose from; their services are very different from one another; and – on top of all that – it’s unlikely that you will save a tremendous amount off your bill by switching, so focusing on price doesn’t make nearly as much sense as maybe it once did.

So how does a business choose which phone service is the best choice for them?  Well it isn’t as simple as glancing at a few proposals and choosing the lowest-priced, but it also isn’t rocket science, as the saying goes.  What it really comes down to is this simple question: which of the options to replace our current phone system will help our business win and keep more customers?  Winning and keeping customers are the primary responsibilities of any successful company – so this is really a question that should be asked about nearly every dollar a business spends.

“what you should be looking for is a phone service

that is a competitive weapon, a phone service that

does a better job at helping to win and keep customers

than the alternatives you’re considering”.

Obviously every business phone service helps a business win and keep customers.  After all, many new customers call a business to begin a relationship and many existing customers call to reorder or for support – but what you should be looking for is a phone service that is a competitive weapon, a phone service that does a better job at helping to win and keep customers than the alternatives you’re considering.  Think about it this way, why settle for and pay the same for a phone service that just does an average job at helping your business, when you can get one that does an outstanding job?  Here’s another thought: how much is a single customer worth to your business?  Depending on your business, the answer could range from a few dollars to thousands.  That means that winning just one additional customer per month or preventing just one customer from leaving per month could be worth a great deal – in many cases worth more than your entire monthly phone bill

So let’s break it down . . . can one business phone service actually help win and keep more customers than another business phone service?  And, if so, how?  To get into that we need to think about how customers get acquired and retained and how phone service plays an important role:

  • First Contact: for many prospects, their first contact with a business is by phone.  They may be calling to learn the business’ hours, whether they have a product in stock, or to get directions.  An outstanding business phone system would identify this caller as a first contact, would route that caller to the appropriate person in the business – identifying the caller as a first contact, and would offer fast access to the answers to frequently asked questions like hours or directions.  Neither RingCentral nor Jive are capable of this sort of functionality – only RingByName with its built-in customer relationship management (CRM) can look up an inbound call, identify it as a first contact, route that call to the right person, and pop-up information on computer screen, tablet, or smartphone that notifies the call recipient that this is a first contact plus provides additional information on the caller that can help make that first contact a great first impression.  Great first impressions are a crucial ingredient to new customer acquisition.
  • Pre-Sale Dialog: for many businesses it takes several contacts with a prospect before a sale can be made – and many of these contacts are by phone.  One thing that prospects are evaluating during this pre-sale phase is whether the company has the desired qualities in a trusted provider of goods and services.  In other words, “Am I going to be happy if I decide to become a customer of this business?”  We’ve all heard jokes about the difference in treatment between being a prospect and a customer – no one wants to be the butt of those jokes.  An outstanding business phone system would offer the option to welcome repeat callers by name, “Hi, Susan, thanks for calling ABC Plumbing again.”  Route repeat callers by name to the person they last spoke with, “Last time you called you spoke with David, would you like to speak with him again?”  And put in front of the call recipient the entire contact history for the caller including any notes or tasks – regardless of who in the business the caller has spoken with previously.  Both RingCentral and Jive are good phone services, but neither can do anything like deliver the remarkable customer experience of RingByName.  Only RingByName welcomes callers by name, routes to the last person spoken with by name, and stores and displays in real-time complete notes and tasks associated with the caller.
  • Post-Sale Support: in survey after survey consumers express their clear preference for phone support over other means in almost every situation.  So customers are going to call your business after they buy from you and the experience they have will largely determine whether they’ll be loyal.  An outstanding business phone system would offer callers the option to request a callback rather than leave a voicemail and would instantly send both the caller and the call recipient emails confirming the receipt of the callback request.  Recent surveys have shown that consumers today have a low degree of confidence that voicemails they leave will be heard much less generate a response.  Customers with low confidence in a returned call are likely to call repeatedly – generally getting more agitated with each attempt.  Missed and unreturned calls are another big source of current customer discontent.  An outstanding business phone system would visually notify not only the intended call recipient that they’ve missed a call but also visually notify everyone else in his department – and do so on their PCs, tablets, and smartphones – making it less likely that a valued customer will fall through the cracks due to the oversight of an individual employee.  Given that nearly 3 in 4 customers leave due to “perceived indifference” on the part of the business (see Figure X), anything a business can do to combat that perception is likely to have significant bottom-line impact.  Only RingByName with its built-in CRM and full-featured user interfaces on all devices delivers these key customer retention capabilities.  Using RingCentral and Jive could mean also needing to buy other business applications and services, adding complexity and cost, to help ensure a satisfactory customer experience.

chart3

Figure 3: Reasons Customers Leave (Source: “Lessons from the Field” by Howard Feiertag and John Hogan

In conclusion, choosing he best phone service for your business is about focusing on which one best helps with your two primary missions: winning and keeping customers.  Winning and keeping customers are perhaps the most challenging things for a business to accomplish so smart businesses value an edge.  What’s great is that winning and keeping customers is so central to success that even small improvements make a huge difference: winning or keeping just one or two additional customers per month can be the difference between a business that struggles and one that thrives.  Ignoring the opportunity that improving your business phone service offers can be a costly mistake.  RingByName, far more than phone services like RingCentral and Jive, delivers the edge that helps your business win.  Learn more now at www.ringbyname.com.