As a business owner, it’s important to raise your company’s morale to be more productive. But you can’t just keep throwing office parties every day of the year. Thanks to advancements in VoIP technologies, you can offer a better way to keep your employee’s spirits high by allowing them to work from home. Here are a few reasons why work-at-home strategies paired with VoIP systems is a good idea.

It’s good for business

Many businesses have misconceptions about their employees who choose to work from home. They assume that their employees will be less productive if they are not within the office environment, but this could not be farther from the truth. VoIP services can empower your small business and work-at-home employees in a number of ways:

VoIP technologies allow you to keep your employees on track with an array of management tools like barge, monitor, and whisper, which allow you to coach and micromanage your employees.
The cost of business resources, furniture, space and sick days are reduced when there is an effective way for your employees to work at any location.
VoIP services promote continued collaboration between employees even if some of them are not in the office, allowing workflow to be more efficient.
As a business owner, VoIP gives your company more opportunity for growth such as by allowing you to communicate and hire people from different countries with minimal cost.

Perks for employees

Work-from-home policies with VoIP systems are also good for your employees. As more of their workload is digitized, working from home or anywhere else has never been easier. In fact, studies have shown that employees who took days to work from home were actually more productive. Part of this is because it gives them a break from the stressful office environment and, with a VoIP service readily available to them, they feel as if they haven’t missed a day’s worth of work. With the right VoIP systems installed, employees can easily collaborate with co-workers.

Using VoIP at home also saves your employees from long and costly commutes. They can simply pick up their VoIP device and join a conference meeting without physically being in the boardroom. What’s more, employees who want to recall important events during conferences or seminars can use the VoIP call recording feature. This way, employees can make sure they are correctly approaching their work in their own time.

VoIP requirements for remote workers

If you’re convinced that working from home is a good solution for your company, it is essential that your chosen VoIP service provider offers the following features:

• Voicemail – records missed calls and sends you an email of the audio file
• Call forwarding – allows your employees to redirect calls between VoIP devices and their smartphones
• Whisper, monitor, and barge – lets you monitor calls for quality control purposes and even coach employees without disrupting the call
• Third-party integrations – streamline processes and enable employees to give instant feedback when collaborating on platforms like Office 365

Many companies are now benefiting from a mobile and remote work environment. Although work-at-home strategies may seem like a risky venture, making the most out of your VoIP technologies will keep your employees happy and productive. If you want to learn more about the VoIP services that we offer, give us a call.

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You hear a lot about big data nowadays, but not in connection with small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). To compete with the big guys, SMBs need Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to get better access to customer data. Read on for the best ways to leverage your VoIP data to serve clients.

Time/Date data

The information that nearly any VoIP system should be able to access easily are the time, date, and duration of calls. Since most businesses usually have tight budgets, they can learn a lot from analyzing this data to help decide how many employees are needed to answer the phones and at what particular times. 

For instance, most calls happen on Mondays, but the lines are usually dead by Tuesday afternoon. Knowing this can improve the way your staff works. Find the right time and day that calls are expected and days where no one has to work the phones. 

If you’re making outbound calls, pay close attention to the time that customers are most receptive. No one likes to get a call during dinner time, so don’t waste other people’s time. VoIP can help you refine your call schedule to ensure that you reach the person at the end of the line. 

Location data

Location data is easy to track and a simple way to perfect your call strategy. Understanding how purchasing habits differ in various locations can improve your marketing, customer service, and client retention skills. 

Ask your VoIP service provider about call-routing options, so you can direct the call to the right person depending on the customer’s needs. With the right amount of preparation, you can help anyone regardless of that person’s location as if your company were right around the corner. 

Customer intelligence

Combining VoIP services with your customer relationship management (CRM) software can reveal new data points. How many times have you called a support line regarding an issue and have had to explain your history with the company all over again? 

Even if you spoke to the same representative every time, the chances of the latter remembering you and your story are slim to none. With proper CRM integration, your VoIP system can route callers to the same service representative every time they call and provide your staff with a detailed support history. 

Customer habits/personalities

Analyze call habits and predict how to contact and assist clients even before they need help. Match clients with your service and sales representatives based on their personalities. Take note of your employees’ age, gender and average call time to route customers to the best possible representative. 

Product/Service trends

Whenever possible, tie data to specific products and services with every call and look for patterns that result in a successful connection. If you notice that most customers who bought your product come back to buy accessories within three months, don’t waste money marketing accessories during the original sale and trust what your data tells you. Follow up in a month and ask if they’re interested in that ancillary product. 

VoIP services track all your data, all the time. SMBs can easily view and analyze up-to-date data in no time. This can revolutionize how you design your customer interaction strategies. 

Do you feel like you could get a better ROI from your VoIP services by examining your call data? The solution may be as simple as organizing your usage statistics better, or as intricate as installing specialized analytics software. Regardless of how you want to go about it, we can help you, so contact us today!

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Call recording has been a feature in VoIP applications for a while now, but it is underutilized, especially by organizations that do not prioritize interaction with customers. This feature can strengthen the reputation of your company and boost customer satisfaction, when used properly.

#1. Improve customer service

One of the most important reasons why businesses should always record their calls, no matter its significance, is to ensure high-quality customer service. By reviewing calls, managers can understand how their agents have been dealing with customers, find out whether or not they’ve followed company protocol, and pinpoint any aspects that can be improved on.

Without call recording, managers would have to listen to each call in real time, which is a time-consuming process. By recording each call, not only will your managers save time, but your employees will also be motivated to perform at their best every time they’re on the phone because they know their calls can always be reviewed.

#2. Upgrade employee performance

According to Edgar Dale’s Cone of Learning, people only remember 10% of what they’ve read, 50% of what they’ve seen and heard, and 90% of what they’ve done. By providing your agents with actual recordings of good and bad calling examples during training sessions, and have them simulate calls afterwards, they’ll be able to learn better and provide high-quality customer service faster.

#3. Retrieve missed details and prevent litigation

With hundreds of phone calls daily, it’s understandable if your employees don’t catch every single detail. And for companies that require their agents to manually input information during calls, there’s always a possibility that they’ll forget or miss certain information. Needless to say, this could lead to disgruntled customers. If not properly handled, this can harm your reputation, reduce work opportunities, and if things escalate, proceed to litigation.

VoIP’s call recording feature lets you replay saved audio files to make sure you haven’t missed any details, ensuring that all customer demands are met. And if you ever get into a dispute with your clients regarding who said what, you can always retrieve the exact audio file and have both sides listen to it, saving you thousands of dollars in legal fees.

#4. Understand customer preferences

Have you ever received an inquiry about a product or service that’s not included in your offerings? While your agents usually jot these requests down and pass them on to the relevant personnel, if numerous calls are being made that day, they may end up forgetting some. Tiny issues like this can lead to potential huge losses.

With call recording, you can review all your calls at the end of the day. You’ll have a better picture of what certain customers are looking for so you can address them better.

VoIP allows businesses to make on-demand calls affordably, and its call recording feature helps companies improve their customer service and prevent litigation. If you think business VoIP is right for you, or if you have any questions, give us a call today.

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Many small- and mid-sized businesses (SMBs) turn to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) as their telephony solution. This allows them to make calls either through the traditional desk phones (hardphones) or software-based phones (softphones). Find out the pros and cons of both phone options to help you pick out which is most suitable for your business.

What’s a hardphone?
A hardphone is a desk phone that is connected to your business’s IP network, just like a normal phone. There’s no learning curve associated with VoIP hardphones, and they allow your staff to call anyone worldwide at a more affordable price. The more advanced hardphones have built-in video displays and touch screens to accommodate video calls, eliminating the need for separate equipment for video conferencing.

What’s a softphone?
A softphone is any electronic device that uses a software program that allows users to turn their PCs, laptops, and tablets into high-tech phones to make and receive local and international calls. Softphones let you dial a number on your computer or mobile device and speak through its embedded speakers and microphone, or through a headset with a microphone, so you can make and take calls wherever you are.

Which type is ideal for you?
There are some things to consider when you’re choosing between hardphones and softphones:

Are your employees always moving around?
Do they require 24/7 connectivity?
Does your company rely on having top-notch customer service?
What’s your IT budget?

Your answers to these questions will determine the type of equipment you need.

Why choose hardphones?
Nothing beats the voice clarity and noise cancellation features of hardphones since they are solely dedicated to calling unlike softphones, which share power with other programs on your PC. This also means that you can make and take calls without being disrupted by poor PC performance or a virus.

Though the initial setup costs are greater due to the purchase of actual phones, the monthly phone bills for hardphones are much cheaper. Not only that, softphones may be more costly in the long run, as they require separate headphones and microphones that may need to be replaced or maintained frequently.

Why choose softphones?
If your company requires a mobile workforce, adopting a softphone solution may be better. Softphones feature call routing, which allows calls to be diverted to one or several specified internet-enabled devices, ensuring your clients have 24/7 access to your employees. This is most effective especially in a contact center environment. Other features like transcribed voicemail messages also enable you to receive messages promptly, no matter whether you’re in a meeting or on the road.

Our experts are available 24/7/365 to advise you on any questions you may have pertaining to VoIP, and especially about whether hardphones or softphones are best for you. If you’re interested in upgrading your telephony infrastructure, give us a call today.

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