VoxOx Can Help Screen and Manage Your Calls, Including Those From Pesky Sales Reps

In sales, the person keeping you (the salesperson) from the decision maker is often known as “the gatekeeper.” More often than not it’s a secretary or executive assistant.

I don’t have a secretary, but I do have VoxOx, and it works great in screening annoying calls from vendors and other folks.

One of VoxOx’s world-beating capabilities is a free personal assistant, which answers, screens and manages your calls better than any service on the market. It’s been compared favorably to Google Voice. I won’t go into all the specifics of the personal assistant, as I’ve written about it many times before. But as I’ve been getting more calls from vendors (salespeople), the service has become even more useful.

Case in point: the other day I received a call from a webcasting vendor I wasn’t particularly eager to talk with. Here’s a breakdown of how the VoxOx Personal Assistant helped me manage the call to a favorable outcome. It’s useful in seeing exactly how the service works.

• When the vendor called my free VoxOx number, my personal assistant, customized with a female voice, picked up the call and politely asked who’s calling. The vendor gave her name and company – let’s call her Alice from ABC Webcasting. Continue reading… Salespeople Bugging You? Use VoxOx to Screen Your Calls

Erik Bratt is the master of his domain and the head of communications for TelCentris, the creator of VoxOx. He loves Quentin Tarantino movies, dabbling with the electric bass, and fiddling with the text-to-speech functionality on the VoxOx Personal Assistant.

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A group of us from TelCentris, the company that created VoxOx, recently descended upon Barcelona to showcase our latest VoxOx functionality.

Beautiful Barcelona Welcomes the VoxOx Team

And now, “we’re baaack …” and what a trip it was! Already a hip and trendy place, Barcelona welcomed VoxOx (and our new Universal Translator) with open arms!

Despite several, well, blunders affecting folks we were in the company of (one person having her purse snatched, some folks getting food poisoning, and one person not even being able to leave their country on account of their passport being revoked), nothing could throw us off track!

What amazed me about this trip was that almost everyone I spoke with about VoxOx had already heard of it. I imagine that’s how up-and-coming rock stars feel, to be greeted with a smile when folks realize who you are. What’s even more amazing is the amount of press attention we got at the show.

Walking around the show and peering in at some of the hundreds upon hundreds of booths, from infrastructure equipment manufacturers to mobile “adult content” vendors, it was all too obvious that mobile is where everything is going! That’s why it gave me great joy to tell reporters who asked “So, what’s your mobile strategy?” that VoxOx is completely platform independent and primarily runs “in the cloud.” What that means is, the infrastructure that runs the majority of VoxOx services does not run on the desktop, or on a mobile phone, but rather in the Internet cloud and can be accessed from virtually anywhere.

Continue reading… CEO Reflections: VoxOx Wows the Crowd at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona

As CEO, Bryan Hertz operates on many frequencies. Some say Megahertz, others say Gigahertz and when they're really mad, they say Kilohertz. Although there's no known connection to Heinrich Hertz, Bryan likes to think VoxOx will prove to be as important to history as the discoveries of that famous scientist. When he's not geeking out on universal communications, he dabbles in multiple areas of alternative health and Eastern medicine.

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Text from Your Desktop -- and Save Big! VoxOx offers dramatically lower texting rates than the major carriers. You also get additional features, such as follow-me texting and more.

If you haven’t seen the movie Network I suggest you stop everything (well, after you’ve read this), find it, watch it, and then this might make more sense to you afterward. With the help of a certain crazy-eyed fictitious network anchor named Howard Beale, we’re going to explore how texting with your cell phone carrier is an expensive proposition, and how using VoxOx can save you big.  Below are actual quotes from the movie to help us along with this post.

Howard Beale: “This is not a psychotic breakdown; it’s a cleansing moment of clarity.”

Just like you, we’re sick of cringing as we open our cell phone bill having no idea, or worse, too much of an idea of how bad it will be. It’s the kinda thing that can drive you a little crazy. Cell phones have become an integral part of our life. Many of us (myself included) can’t leave the house without one.  But don’t we all have a breaking point? Where we are no longer willing to pay through the nose for what has become a basic right. That’s why we, the good people at VoxOx, created plans for you to save boatloads of money on your monthly cell phone bill. Save enough and you might even be able to buy a boat…or at least pay next month’s rent. Continue reading… Text Text Revolution

Ben, the VoxOx Intern, is a second-year MBA student at the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He has drunk beer on 4 continents, is fluent in 3 languages and has an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure NBA players. Ben also...wait, are you really still reading this? Because, you know, he's just an intern.

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Hey everyone, with the introduction of our border busting VoxOx Universal Translator this week, I thought I’d share some of the ways that I like to use this groundbreaking new technology.

1) Qu’avez-vous dit?

It’s a pretty typical new year’s resolution…”This year, I’m going to learn (whatever) language”. I say it all the time. I know for me, besides learning to juggle, perfecting my French has been up there for a while, which is being VERY generous to my current level of French. Do I do it? Of course not. But not everyone has to know that…and the VoxOx Universal Translator gives us a really nice shortcut. So I took advantage and faked out my Facebook friend Laura, from Paris mind you.

I found Laura in my VoxOx buddy list (under Facebook friends) and clicked the globe icon on the bottom right of the VoxOx chat window, selecting “English” for my language and “French” for hers. Then I started chatting with her in perfect French, convincing her that I suddenly was quite the francophone savant. Good times…I mean, quelle bon temps!

Quick Tip: Facebook translation works best when the person on the FB leg of the conversation has their default language set appropriately so that the symbols and characters come out right on their end.

2) Update my Twitter status via @reply…in Italian

Because..you know, why not. Kinda fun to write “vi soggiorno di classe, San Diego. Sono Ron Burgundy?”

Just find an unsuspecting Twitter contact in your VoxOx buddy list, click on the Twitter logo by their name, and select “reply to”. Then set your languages and blast! Now your Twitter status is in Italian and your friend knows that you’re… Ron… Burgundy? Continue reading… Ben’s Fave Five Ways to Use the VoxOx Universal Translator

Ben, the VoxOx Intern, is a second-year MBA student at the Thunderbird School of Global Management. He has drunk beer on 4 continents, is fluent in 3 languages and has an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure NBA players. Ben also...wait, are you really still reading this? Because, you know, he's just an intern.

follow Ben a.k.a “The Intern” twitter.com/voxox

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This week, in conjunction with Mobile World Congress in Spain, we launched a very cool, internationally relevant feature called the VoxOx Universal Translator!  VoxOx is now the first service of its kind to completely integrate “on the fly” foreign language translation for two-way SMS, cross-network IM, email, and select social media channels… all from a single interface.

Here’s a little tutorial from our CTO Kevin Hertz on how to use this new feature:

Not convinced? Check out some of the VoxOx Universal Translator news coverage:

“VoxOx Adds Native Translation to Differentiate From Skype, Google Voice” – eWeek

“First Real-Time Language Translation For SMS/Chat/Email/Twitter Makes You Fluent Across the Globe” – Gizmodo Continue reading… VoxOx Universal Translator Has Launched!

Natasha Grach is a PR maven by day and singer by night -- when not telling the world about VoxOx, she can be found on stage at some of San Diego’s favorite musical theater venues. She is also a travel junkie. Her favorite countries include Turkey, Israel, Spain, UK, Italy, Russia, Lithuania. She’ll be using VoxOx SMS CallBack on her next trip around the globe!

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You may have heard VoxOx referred to as the first and only “Universal Communicator” service that integrates all popular communications channels – voice, video, chat, SMS, email, fax and file sharing – into a single interface.

But how does that work, exactly?

Well, say you’re doing some online shopping for Valentine’s Day, and you see concert tickets on sale for Wednesday, Feb. 17. It’s on a weekday – and you need to reach your Valentine pronto to make sure that night is open for the “surprise.”

Plan of action:

1. Check your VoxOx Universal Address Book, which is your buddy list comprised of your friends on various IM and social networks. It will immediately show you if your Valentine is online and on which network. (For example, looks like my buddy Bryan is on Facebook right now… see the little green light in the corner of the Facebook logo below?)
2. Continue reading… VoxOx Universal Messaging Window to the Rescue!

Natasha Grach is a PR maven by day and singer by night -- when not telling the world about VoxOx, she can be found on stage at some of San Diego’s favorite musical theater venues. She is also a travel junkie. Her favorite countries include Turkey, Israel, Spain, UK, Italy, Russia, Lithuania. She’ll be using VoxOx SMS CallBack on her next trip around the globe!

follow natasha.grach twitter.com/natashagrach

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox

The team here at TelCentris is very devoted to VoxOx. People wear VoxOx t-shirts to work, use VoxOx graphics as their desktop wallpaper, and, of course, use the service as their daily communication tool.  But it looks like TelCentris Co-founder and Chief Information Officer Bob Hertz has us all beat with his new vanity license plate!

Cool license plate!

Bob’s “Voxmobile.” Enough said.

Natasha Grach is a PR maven by day and singer by night -- when not telling the world about VoxOx, she can be found on stage at some of San Diego’s favorite musical theater venues. She is also a travel junkie. Her favorite countries include Turkey, Israel, Spain, UK, Italy, Russia, Lithuania. She’ll be using VoxOx SMS CallBack on her next trip around the globe!

follow natasha.grach twitter.com/natashagrach

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox

One of the coolest new features we’ve added to VoxOx recently is not actually in the desktop client, but on the VoxOx web site.

What Do Users Think? UserVoice helps us see what features users want to see most.

It’s a web-based crowd-sourcing application called UserVoice, which enables users such as yourself to provide product feature suggestions, bug reports and other important feedback on our beta service. What sets this tool apart is the ability to vote on each product suggestion, whether your own or someone else’s. This allows you — and us — to see the “wisdom of the crowds,” i.e., what does the majority want to see added to VoxOx, what bugs are hot right now and need to be fixed? You’ll be able to see this the moment you visit the site. For example, right now you’ll see that using VoxOx with SIP devices is number one on the the list, with a total of 167 votes. This means essentially that many people would like to be able to incorporate VoxOx with a SIP-compatible handset at home (SIP stands for Session Initiated Protocol, but I won’t bore you with the details). Second on the list is folks who would like to see a Linux version of VoxOx.

Each person on UserVoice gets 10 votes — so use them wisely. You can get more by changing your vote, or getting credited when something is completed. Continue reading… Lend Us Your Voice — Help Make VoxOx the Best Service Possible

Erik Bratt is the master of his domain and the head of communications for TelCentris, the creator of VoxOx. He loves Quentin Tarantino movies, dabbling with the electric bass, and fiddling with the text-to-speech functionality on the VoxOx Personal Assistant.

follow erik.bratt twitter.com/erikbratt

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox

If you’ve been reading the VoxOx Blog lately, you’ve probably noticed a few posts about our adventures at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month. (That’s the event at which we launched the second version of the virtual Personal Assistant!) Just when we thought we’d retired the topic, we got word about something very cool…

VoxOx has been selected as the CES 2010 Editors’ Choice for “Best Software / Service” by Computer Shopper!

The Computer Shopper editorial team met individually with more than 60 companies at CES and selected the top contender in 10 categories. Other winning brands in the “Best of CES” Editors’ Choice include Blackberry (RIM), Lenovo and Intel. Computer Shopper is a resource for millions of online consumers for expert, labs-based reviews of technology products. It was originally published by CNET Networks Inc., and is currently published by SX2 Media Labs LLC. You can read our announcement here.

Also, check out this quote from Computer Shopper’s Senior Editor Sarah Anderson: Continue reading… VoxOx Named “Best Software / Service” at CES 2010 by Computer Shopper

Natasha Grach is a PR maven by day and singer by night -- when not telling the world about VoxOx, she can be found on stage at some of San Diego’s favorite musical theater venues. She is also a travel junkie. Her favorite countries include Turkey, Israel, Spain, UK, Italy, Russia, Lithuania. She’ll be using VoxOx SMS CallBack on her next trip around the globe!

follow natasha.grach twitter.com/natashagrach

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox

I’ve always known about the great functionality of our VoxOx Personal Assistant (think Google Voice, but more robust), but I didn’t realize how great until we launched the second version of our personal assistant (PA) at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Vegas earlier this month. Bottom line: this is a service that can truly help you streamline your communications and be more efficient.

After diving into the service pretty extensively over the past few weeks, I wanted to present my list of the top five ways the VoxOx PA can help you be more productive in your business and personal life.

1. Screen Your Calls — One of the best things about the PA is having someone answer and screen your calls — not unlike a real secretary. When someone calls my VoxOx number, my personal assistant will answer the call and politely ask the person to identify themselves. She (yes, she is a she, although you can choose a male personal assistant) will then let me know who is calling. I can then either answer the call or send it to voicemail (I can also listen in on the voicemail and pick it up, but I’ll save that for another post). Not only does this make me feel important (!), it forces people with blocked numbers to identify themselves. Knowing who is calling each time makes me more productive. Really cool.

Continue reading… 5 Ways the VoxOx Personal Assistant Can Make You More Productive

Erik Bratt is the master of his domain and the head of communications for TelCentris, the creator of VoxOx. He loves Quentin Tarantino movies, dabbling with the electric bass, and fiddling with the text-to-speech functionality on the VoxOx Personal Assistant.

follow erik.bratt twitter.com/erikbratt

follow VoxOx twitter.com/voxox