CloudPhone Blog

Scaling might be the one thing you dream about for your startup at night. You yearn for the day when you will have cubicles filled with determined employees pushing the envelope on your value proposition. You long for the day when your phone rings incessantly, driving your need for auto attendants and voicemail-to-email notification functionality. But scaling does not come without its challenges.

Photo Courtesy of Flikr User Sebastiaan ter Burg 

In addition to dealing with a surge of new employees, sudden growth also means you have to address the need for new technology. Because oftentimes the technology that worked for you on day one with just you on the payroll won’t suffice when you have 10 employees.

Companies looking to scale from a single-person business to 10 employees for “peanuts” need not look further than our Cloud Phone offering, a cost-effective and seamless way to grow your startup telephony system.  The Voxox small business phone system grows with you; it’s ready to go big whenever you are. Our customers can enjoy a variety of flexible pricing: Basic for up to two users at $14.95 a month; Plus for up to five users at $29.95 a month; or Pro for up to 10 users at $34.95 a month. The minutes and overages also scale as you add more users.

Here at Voxox we understand that your business could take off on a moment’s notice—and we hope it does! So the next time you have that dream about expansion (and the rows of cubicles and envelope pushing) take a look around and make sure Cloud Phone is your small business phone system of choice during REM sleep. And if you are still on the fence about our offering, then try us out for 30 days for free. We promise you, there are no scaling nightmares with this phone system.

You’re in your tent. It’s raining. The campfire has sputtered out. You’d almost rather be working…but, wait! You’re one of the forward-thinking small business owners who had the foresight to adopt cloud communications. And for you and your business, this means easy access to your messages, including the ability to route calls and communicate with anyone in your company on any device from anywhere.

With the right cloud communications application, you can be back in business with rain or shine. Cloud Phone, the new cloud communications application offered by Voxox, will keep you as sharp as a Swiss Army knife! Let's take a look at some of the functionalities:

• You will receive your own business phone number. No more giving your mobile number to clients and looking like a small-time operation. You can even get a vanity number so customers never forget how to reach you.
• The auto attendant feature will greet your callers with a professional message. This will be followed up by connection options via multiple extensions to your different departments—even if you are all the departments wrapped up in one small-business manager. And you won’t ever miss a client message thanks to Cloud Phone’s business-class voicemail-to-email feature.
• And, as if that’s not enough, your voicemails will be automatically transcribed before they’re delivered, so you can view your messages as well as listen to them.

So even if you plan on spending a lot of the summer in the great outdoors, don’t forget to pack a cloud communications application along with all of the other essentials. You never know when it might come in handy.

As traditional gender roles continue to dissolve, mothers and fathers find themselves sharing both earning and childcare responsibilities. Looking to dispel old stereotypes of fathers solely as breadwinners, in early June, the White House held a conference to examine the changing role of working fathers in America today.

One of the goals of the conference was to promote “extensive workplace flexibility options” that make it easier for fathers to work and help take care of young children. But while large enterprises can address this issue with organizational policies like paid parental leave, small business owners may find it a little tricky. When you own a small company or work as a sole proprietor, there might not be anyone to pick up the slack if you take off even a few days.

 A cloud communications solution, however, can help make parenthood a little easier for both mothers and fathers by helping them do business more effectively from a home office. On top of being affordable and easy to set up, a cloud-based phone system maintained over the Web provides all the business features you’d get with a traditional wire-based office system, including:

• Reach Me Anywhere functionality that routes incoming calls to any device you choose, even if they arrive while you are cooking dinner.
• Voicemail transcription that lets you read voicemail messages when you can’t listen because your baby is crying.
• Web-based settings that is easy-to-adjust and accessible from anywhere you have an Internet connection, including your kid’s after-school karate class.

So if you’re a small business owner looking for a better work-life balance and a little more time with your kids, cloud communications solutions can get the job done—just like you do at work and at home every day.

INTRODUCTION:

Your “how to” blog post should teach the reader how to do something by breaking it down into a series of steps.

Begin your blog post by explaining what problem you are going to solve through your explanation and be sure to include any relevant keywords. Add in a personal story to establish your credibility on this topic. And make sure to end your blog post with a summary of what your reader will gain by following your lead.

Need some inspiration? Check out these "How-To" examples from the HubSpot blog:

• How to Write a Blog Post: A Simple Formula to Follow
• How to Do Keyword Research: A Beginner's Guide
• How to Write an Effective Meta Description (Yes, They Still Matter)

BODY:

Now deliver what you promised in the first section. This is the longest part of the post, so make it easy to read. Use short paragraphs, bullet lists, and bold headings to set different sections apart. 

Some common section headers include:

Step 1: Getting Started

Step 2: Do Your Background Research on…

Step 3: First Steps for…

Step 4: Analyze and Repeat

Step 5: Wrapping Up

You can use bulleted lists, numbered list, or multiple headings. Include as many steps, numbers, or bullets that will allow you to discuss your topic thoroughly.

Here are some pointers to make the best possible body of your blog:

• Include visuals
• Include short explanatory phrases in your headers
• At the end, transition into your conclusion

CONCLUSION:

Now it’s time to say goodbye and wrap up your post. Remind your readers of your key takeaway, reiterate what your readers need to do to get the desired result, and ask a question about how they see the topic to encourage comments and conversation. Don't forget to add a Call-to-Action to turn your blog post into a marketing machine!

Congratulations! What a lovely how-to post you've created. 

Baseball fans: It’s almost time for the annual MLB All-Star Game! As you fill out your ballots and think about the stars you’d like to send to Minnesota for the Midsummer Classic, here’s an all-star solution you should consider for your business: cloud communications small business phone system.

Like a great closer coming in to save a big game, this revolutionary business communications technology can help businesses save time and money this summer—and the rest of the year as well.

All signs indicate that the small business phone system will be a home run for businesses for years to come. In fact, according to Gartner, cloud computing will become the bulk majority of new IT spend by 2016.

Here’s a look at the cloud communications scouting report:

Cost savings: Putting together a successful big league team requires investing in low-cost, high-performance solutions—like All-Star first baseman Paul Goldschmidt of the Arizona Diamondbacks. You don’t have to go bankrupt by investing in a massive legacy system that your business will be paying for years down the road.  You can get twice the amount of production with a cloud communications solution for a fraction of the price.

A full arsenal of options: Just like Yankees start pitcher Masahiro Tanaka can take down hitters with a knee-bending slider, a deceptive splitter or a blazing fastball, cloud communications can provide a business with a whole suite of communications options. This includes text, chat and call features that allow users to stay connected wherever they are.

Reliability: By the time the All-Star game rolls around, we’ll see a lot of players who will be home resting with injuries in August or September. But with a cloud communication system, you never have to worry about your business winding up on the disabled list. Cloud-based systems are maintained by third-party hosts, so a weather disaster will never sideline your operation.   

 For more information about how you can invest in an all-star cloud communications solution from Voxox, click here.

In case you thought we were overstating the benefits of VoIP communications and the rate at which it’s being adopted by businesses, we’d like to point you to a new report from Infonetics. Among the many impressive statistics in the report is the revelation that the VoIP and UC services market is still growing rapidly and will expand to $88 billion by 2018, a marked increase over $68 billion last year.

Photo Courtesy of Flickr User Jim Larrison

“Hosted unified communications are seeing strong interest up market as mid-market and larger enterprises evaluate and move more applications to the cloud, and this is positively impacting the market,” said Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics in a press release.  

A major reason VoIP phone service adoption is still growing is the increasing emphasis businesses are putting on mobile working. According to a recent report from Forrester, 29 percent of the global workforce are now “anytime, anywhere information workers.”     

Today, cloud-based VoIP phone service offers businesses major cost savings. Cloud Phone does just this and the best part is that Voxox manages the system, the burdens of installation and maintenance expenses are removed. Cloud Phone is especially beneficial for SMBs because it's designed specifically for smaller companies. Cloud Phone has a small monthly fee rather than tacking on a bunch of extra fees and hidden costs. Cloud Phone provides small businesses with important features like:

• An auto attendant that greets callers professionally
• Easy-to-configure extensions for all employees
• Voicemail messages sent directly to email for review

So what’s the bottom line? Businesses of all sizes across various verticals are adopting VoIP—the Infonetics research clearly proves what we’ve been saying all along.

Not that we think you didn’t trust us.

Between warm weather, baseball games and the-late setting sun, summer is a season for fun. But during the work week, sitting at your desk day after day looking at the beautiful weather outside can seem like torture.

You’ve thought about breaking up your work routine to make this summer more exciting but you don’t know how your small business would run without you in the office. And that is why you need a small business phone system.

 A cloud-based phone service designed for small businesses lets you effortlessly manage all your communications entirely from your mobile phone, making it easier, less costly, and more efficient to do to business on-the-go. This kind of phone system allows you a little flexibility to your summerby letting you meet with clients out of the office, attend a trade show or anything else that piques your interest. 

A small business phone system also offers the features and functionality of an enterprise service, such as:

• An auto attendant that greets callers professionally and presents them with menu options
• Reach Me Anywhere technology that connects incoming business calls to any location you choose, on any device
• Voicemail transcription that turns voice messages into text that can be read when listening is not an option
• Instant conference calling, so even when you’re out of the office, it will be like you never left
• A business-specific number that you can give to clients and customers instead of your personal number

So consider deploying a small business phone service and introduce a little variety to your summer—nobody wants to be stuck in the dog days for months on end. 

Above all else—including even financial resources—small business owners are short on time.  After all, when you are in charge of customer service, billing, sales, product development and everything else under the sun, the 24 hours in a day don’t seem like enough. 

A small business phone system can help you reclaim some of that precious time. Here’s how: 

1. If you’re concerned that you might miss a critical call if you step out of the office for a client meeting, cloud communications helps alleviate that fear. The technology lets you forward calls to any of your devices, meaning you’ll never miss anything important. In other words, you can do business without being chained to a desk all day with a simple small businss virtual phone number.
2. Instant conference calling allows you to set up meetings on the spot and collaborate with colleagues seamlessly.  This allows you to have meetings without being in the same room and increases your ability to multi-task.
3. Whenever the word “installation” is mentioned people tend to think of technicians spending hours in the office.  But with a cloud communications application, all you need is a mobile phone number to get up-and-running in just one minute.

Getting some time back in the day will take some pressure off and perhaps even give you a chance to eat your lunch sitting down every once in awhile. The popular saying holds that “time is money,” but for small business owners, a little extra time may also mean sanity.   

Not ready to fork over the $30-40K that comes with staffing a receptionist to greet your key stakeholders? We don’t blame you. As a startup, every cent counts and spending a pretty penny to support the salary of someone who answers and routes calls can seem like an unnecessary expenditure—especially when you have global expansion and enhanced product functionality on the horizon.

Photo Courtesy of Flikr User Evan Bench

But the fact is that the job of a receptionist, better known as the gatekeeper of your company, is exceedingly important. It’s why the Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates that receptionist employment will grow 13.5 percent between 2012 and 2022, resulting in 135,900 new jobs. Simply put, a receptionist is your first line of defense when it comes to your customers. This employee gives your prospective clients insight into your customer service and an indication as to the type of experience that comes from doing business with your organization.

If you can’t afford a receptionist but don’t want to forgo your level of professionalism, it’s time to cast your eyes toward a cloud communications application, specifically one that boasts an auto attendant. These virtual receptionists can transfer callers to extensions based on their menu selection, without speaking to a live operator or receptionist. This cloud communications auto attendant can enable your company to:          

• Set customized greetings for callers
• Route calls seamlessly to landline phones, VoIP devices, mobile phones and other auto attendants so they are not given the round-robin treatment when calling
• Transfer calls to voicemail boxes, submenus or live individuals

Are you ready to have your company sound like a big deal with each and every phone call, even if it’s just one man behind the curtain? Then start considering a cloud communications application like Cloud Phone, provided by Voxox. 

As more employees use their personal devices for work-related purposes—known now as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)—the benefits and potential pitfalls of this trend are being debated. But the reality is that many workers are simply adopting the policy without asking anybody and companies are finding out on the fly that BYOD is now a part of their workplace environment.

If you have decided to embrace BYOD for your business—or if some of your employees have made the choice for you—there are a few key points to keep in mind: 

Adopt device agnostic technology
The point of BYOD is to give workers the chance to work on whatever device they feel comfortable with, thus increasing productivity. The strategy doesn’t make a lot of sense if your employees can’t access the information they need from a wide variety of devices. Consider a cloud-based phone service, for instance, that allows employees to access information from a laptop, smartphone or tablet. 

Establish best practices
Oftentimes, security issues and information breaches are the result of employees who simply aren’t aware of the risks inherent in accessing private, company information on a company device. Make sure workers understand their responsibilities with regard to guarding any device they have used for work and the importance of strong password protection.

Start a dialogue
If your workers are in favor of brining their own device, have an open conversation about their expectations for privacy. At some point, you may need to adopt monitoring solutions to protect your information and the quickest way to start workplace trouble is to do it without talking to employees first.

BYOD can provide companies with major benefits, from employee satisfaction to reduced expenses for company devices. If you take the necessary steps toward a successful policy, your company can reap those rewards. Now you are on your way!