CloudPhone Blog

Telecommuting is increasingly becoming the norm for many businesses both small and large. According to the United States Census Bureau, an estimated 3.7 million employees work from home at least half the time. But with people out of the office, telecommuting definitely presents a unique set of communication challenges.

While email, texts and cell phone calls might work for some, other businesses want to show a more professional image, and also want professional calling features and custom options traditional landlines and mobile plans just don't offer. This is why smart businesses are turning to virtual numbers.

Virtual numbers are beneficial for companies with remote employees in a few ways. They offer mobility, customization and the ability to choose a toll-free number, for businesses with a national presence or a high call volume, or a number in area code where the company does business, which for some businesses is key to establishing a local presence where there might not be one physically. Virtual numbers are also the perfect solution for telecommuting employees who need professional telephone access without the hassle of extra equipment. Typically, virtual numbers forward incoming calls to mobile, landline or VoIP phone numbers that are associated with specific calling devices – meaning employees can take both personal and business calls to different numbers on one phone. Depending on your employee’s specific phone communication needs, they can also opt to have one or many virtual numbers route to a single phone or multiple phones.

Features will vary depending on your provider, but voicemail transcription, intelligent call routing, customized greetings, inbound fax capability and online management settings are just a few that you might want to look for from your virtual numbers provider. With all this available anywhere, even from your employee's couch, it’s no wonder telecommuting is on the rise.

Here are a few highlights regarding what the world of telecommuting looks like these days according to GlobalWorkplaceAnalytics.com:

• Since 2005, regular work-at-home, among the non-self-employed population, has grown by 103% and 6.5% in 2014, representing the largest year-over-year increase since before the recession.
• From 2013 to 2014, the employee population as a whole grew by 1.8%, while employees who telecommute population grew 6.5%.
• Half of the US workforce holds a job that is compatible with at least partial telework and approximately one quarter of the workforce teleworks sometimes.
• 80% to 90% of the US workforce says they would like to telework at least 2-3 days a week.

It’s clear that telecommuting is here to stay, so if you’re ready to make the switch, check out these step-by-step instructions and pricing for virtual phone numbers through Cloud Phone. Or if your remote employees have experienced improved communications since switching to virtual numbers, share your success stories with us – comment here or on our social media channels –  Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn.

You’ve got yourself set up with a virtual phone number and have been exploring all the professional features that come with it. Voicemail transcription, auto attendant, business SMS and an easy to use online management portal, but you’re a little stumped on what to do with the call routing feature. What is call routing and why do you need it?

Call routing is a sophisticated call handling system for your business phone. It allows you to create rules to easily manage incoming calls. You can decide which calls to answer, which to send to voicemail, which calls you want to ring to multiple phone lines and which you want to send directly to colleagues. You can also update the routing rules at anytime through your online management portal.

Here are four ways that your business can benefit from call routing:

1. No More Missed Calls

As a small business owner, you're always on-the-go. From client meetings, to stopping in at your home office, to taking a quick weekend getaway—who knows where you will be when an important call comes in. Call routing allows you to create answering rules to forward incoming calls to any and all of your numbers, like mobile, home and office (or even hotel) so no matter where you are, or aren’t, you’ll always have the ability to answer important business calls. You can also choose to route calls sequentially or simultaneously. Simultaneous ring sends calls to all activated lines at once, while sequential ring contacts your activated numbers in a specific order—ringing until you answer.

2. Prioritize Calls

While we know all customers are valuable, that doesn’t mean you always need to interrupt your business meeting to answer the phone. Call routing allows you to create parameters so that you or your team can pick up calls when it's convenient for you. If you choose to send callers to voicemail, these callers will be well taken care of if you’ve set up your auto attendant. Learn more about that here.

3. Time Zones

Keeping up with international callers, or even those on a different coast, can be exhausting. Call routing can help forward callers to appropriately-located associates to save yourself from having to take a call in the middle of the night. You can also set up your auto attendant to explain extension options for different regions - e.g., for support in the U.S., dial 1, for support in the U.K., dial 2.

4. Balance

We all need a break sometimes. Even if that break is just a solid night’s sleep or an uninterrupted family dinner. With call routing, you can decide when you want to take calls and when you want them to be forwarded to a colleague or voicemail. No matter what route you choose, callers will always be handled professionally—and you’ll get to enjoy a brief break from work.

Can you think of any other ways to use call routing to better manage your inbound business phone calls? We can help you get started. Sign up for a virtual number here, or if you already have one, log into your online management portal and take control of your business calls.

Over the past several years, business experts have increasingly touted the idea that trust has evolved from a feeling to a crucial element in business. Depending on the level of service they provide to consumers, businesses either stockpile customer trust in bundles or begin to lose it until almost nothing remains.

The numbers support this assertion. For example, according to a Zendesk survey, 39 percent of customers continue to avoid vendors for two years after a bad customer service experience. Furthermore, 48 percent said they had recommended that others not buy products or services after having a bad customer experience. What these numbers illustrate is that a reduction in consumer faith in a company is directly correlated with revenue loss. 

One of the ways businesses can simultaneously increase trust and provide a better customer experience is by getting a company-specific, local small business phone number from a small business phone service. First, if you are a small business owner at a trade show passing out business cards, you don’t want to have to give your personal cell phone number out to potential customers. Your trustworthiness may be in question from the beginning, decreasing the chances of generating new business with that prospect.

Additionally, if you have employees spreading the word about your product in targeted locations throughout the country, each of them can also adopt a local number that gives your company a local feel. 

What some small or microbusiness owners may not know, however, is that these small business numbers are available with little hassle and almost no setup time. With best-in-class technology, all you have to do is enter your mobile phone number into a little box on the web and you are ready to go.

When it comes to trust, you’re either putting it in the bank or spending frivolously in a way almost certain to come back to bite you—saving seems like the better option.  

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. 

Oftentimes, the size of a company is inversely proportionate to the amount of downtime the owner gets. The fewer employees the business has, the more responsibilities fall to the person in charge. 

If you own a small or microbusiness, we understand you shoulder a lot of the burden for getting things done. Still, in order to stay productive during the hours you do work, you need some time away for yourself. So here are five things you can start doing right now to achieve better work-life balance:

Find time to get away...completely

We understand that sometimes a 15-hour day with no lunch break is simply unavoidable. But it becomes a problem when those days become the norm. Finding time to shut off all your devices, turn your brain off and just relax will get you recharged when it’s time to get back to work.

Work from home

Even if you’ll be busy conducting business, it’s nice to spend time in comfortable surroundings and with people you might not see as much as you’d like. Working from home gives you more face time with loved ones, which is invaluable. Today’s technology makes telecommuting easier than ever as well. You can use a small business virtual phone, for instance, and none of your customers will have the slightest idea that you’re talking to them from your living room.

Let others carry the load

As a business owner, you may have the urge to make sure you work closely on every project. But if you hired employees, you have to trust your own judgment and believe they can handle the responsibilities you throw at them. Not only will working yourself to the bone burn you out physically, the quality of your work will suffer as well. Simply put, nobody can be two—or 20—places at once.

Figure out when you work best

For whatever reason, some people do their best work at 6 a.m. while others are more productive at 10 p.m. It doesn’t really matter as long as you know when you work best and schedule accordingly. Don’t schedule a crucial client call during a time you usually feel a little low energy.

Take care of your health

In the short term, skipping meals or cutting down on sleep might seem like a way to increase productivity, but it’s likely to come back to hurt you down the line. Cutting out lunch, for instance, may just leave you with less energy during the afternoon hours. Not sleeping enough can hurt your productivity on a given day, but it also weakens your immune system. When your defenses are down, you’re more likely to get sick and miss significant chunks of time.

Some of these practices may be difficult to put into place, especially if you have contradictory habits deeply ingrained already. But these suggestions will put you in a better frame of mind and help you achieve better focus. In turn, your business will grow and thrive—and that’s the reason you work so hard in the first place.

Often times, the size of a company is inversely proportionate to the amount of downtime the owner gets. The fewer employees the business has, the more responsibilities fall to the person in charge.

If you own a small or microbusiness, we understand you shoulder a lot of the burden for getting things done. Still, in order to stay productive during the hours you do work, you need some time away for yourself. So here are five things you can start doing right now to achieve better work-life balance:

Find time to get away...completely

We understand that sometimes a 15-hour day with no lunch break is simply unavoidable. But it becomes a problem when those days become the norm. Finding time to shut off all your devices, turn your brain off and just relax will get you recharged when it’s time to get back to work.

Work from home

Even if you’ll be busy conducting business, it’s nice to spend time in comfortable surroundings and with people you might not see as much as you’d like. Working from home gives you more face time with loved ones, which is invaluable. Today’s technology makes telecommuting easier than ever as well. You can use a cloud-based small business virtual phone, for instance, and none of your customers will have the slightest idea that you’re talking to them from your living room.

Let others carry the load

As a business owner, you may have the urge to make sure you work closely on every project. But if you hired employees, you have to trust your own judgment and believe they can handle the responsibilities you throw at them. Not only will working yourself to the bone burn you out physically, the quality of your work will suffer as well. Simply put, nobody can be two—or 20—places at once.

Figure out when you work best

For whatever reason, some people do their best work at 6 a.m. while others are more productive at 10 p.m. It doesn’t really matter as long as you know when you work best and schedule accordingly. Don’t schedule a crucial client call during a time you usually feel a little low energy.

Take care of your health

In the short term, skipping meals or cutting down on sleep might seem like a way to increase productivity, but it’s likely to come back to hurt you down the line. Cutting out lunch, for instance, may just leave you with less energy during the afternoon hours. Not sleeping enough can hurt your productivity on a given day, but it also weakens your immune system. When your defenses are down, you’re more likely to get sick and miss significant chunks of time.

Some of these practices may be difficult to put into place, especially if you have contradictory habits deeply ingrained already. But these suggestions will put you in a better frame of mind and help you achieve better focus. In turn, your business will grow and thrive—and that’s the reason you work so hard in the first place.

Effective communication with clients is key to long-term business success. Small business owners are always thinking about new ways to reach and stay in touch with their customers – from social media to text to email to video chat. But even with all these new communication channels, savvy entrepreneurs know that their phone etiquette is critical to initiating and maintaining strong customer relationships.

So what exactly do your customers expect from your business with regards to phone communications and how can you provide it?  Here are three expectations that customers have and how to address them...

1. Customers Expect Businesses to Answer Promptly

• 3 out of 4 people think that calling is the most effective way to get a quick response – NewVoice
• 85 percent of people whose calls aren’t answered will not call back – message-direct.co.uk

Solution: Rather than relying on traditional business phones that require special equipment, professional setup, and a wall jack, switch to a virtual PBX service. Virtual PBX services (like Cloud Phone) enable you to get a dedicated business phone number online and route it to your mobile device. With some services, you can do this in just a few minutes. Virtual PBX features allow you to be responsive to your clients anytime, anywhere – giving them the service they crave.

1. Create a Professional Phone Presence

• 25 percent of customers feel they’re kept on hold too often – NewVoice
• More than half of callers get irritated if they don’t speak to the right contact immediately – NewVoice

Solution: Consider virtual numbers. Say you have several Etsy shops -- you can easily sign up for multiple virtual numbers and assign them to the different shops or product lines. Virtual numbers can be routed to the most relevant colleagues for each designated area of your business, even if they just have a mobile phone as their sole calling device. Virtual numbers are also very useful for geographically disbursed businesses. The seamless call routing, regardless of location, makes your business look ultra professional.

1. Provide Excellent Customer Service

• 66 percent of customers will switch companies because of poor customer service – Accenture
• 40 percent of customers will look to purchase from a competitor because of their reputation for great customer service – Zendesk

Solution: While we don’t know the answers to all of your customers’ questions, we do know that in many fields and types of business, providing a clear and simple way to reach you via phone is essential to having a strong reputation for customer service. Some questions are too complex to look up online, so customers prefer to call. Some customers like to sound out their questions and/or confirm they are getting the right information by calling. For the simpler inquiries, features like custom voicemail messages can be very useful as they allow you to share important information upfront, which, at times, takes care of the question right

1. Solve Problems Fast

• 62 percent of customers have to repeatedly contact a company to resolve an issue – Harvard Business Review
• 86 percent of people are happy to pay up to 25 percent more if they get the right customer experience – RightNow

Solution: Use features like "reach me" call forwarding, which dials multiple numbers on your list to reach you, as well as voicemail transcription with email and SMS notifications so that you are on top of the calls and voicemail messages you are receiving from customers. Take advantage of modern telephony conveniences to be instantly made aware of any major issues that your customers are experiencing and calling you about. With all these ways to stay in touch, there’s no reason to let a call go unanswered.

Phone etiquette is vital to the overall health of your small business. It does not take a lot of effort (nor money!) to provide effective, fast customer service, and the benefits will surprise you. Do you have any tips on effective voice strategies? Comment here or visit our social pages!

As a small business owner and budding entrepreneur, you may live in a world of trepidation and skepticism. After all, securing VC funding, identifying angel investors and fine tuning your value proposition are no small feats. Throw in the fact that you need to determine which route to take technologically and your journey becomes even more challenging.

But one decision you make without worry is going all-in one the cloud, because the truth is that we are just scratching the surface when it comes to cloud communications. Just consider the following statistics aggregated by Silicon Angle: 

• By 2015, end-user spending on cloud services could be more than $180 billion
• By the end of this year, US businesses will spend more than $13 billion on cloud computing and managed hosting services
• 80 percent or cloud adopters reported improvements within six months of moving to the cloud

The benefits afforded by cloud communications run deep, which is why the cloud is no longer a possibility for the future but very much a movement of the present. One of the first moves fledgling companies are making in migrating to the cloud is adopting cloud-based phone systems. After all, businesses live and die by their ability to remain connected with their key stakeholders.

Entrusting your phone system with a cloud provider does not have to be a daunting task. In fact, teaming with the right provider opens up a door to infinite possibilities and advantages such as:

• Cost savings—instead of paying for the hardware, upgrades and maintenance associated with supporting your own business phone system you can rely on your provider to handle the CAPEX spend
• Increased functionality—such as a local telephone number, professional greeting and toll free number are all possible thanks to cloud communications
• A Leveled Playing Field—cloud communications lowers the barrier to entry for small businesses, allowing them to enjoy the same differentiators as large enterprises at the fraction of a cost.

Are you ready to make the jump into cloud communications but unsure of where to begin? Then click here so we can help you get started!

The Voxox team is having a great time at Mobile World Congress. Today we've made our second show news announcement: we're enabling our operator and OEM partners to white label or co-brand our award-winning Cloud Phone service. Check out the official press release below:

Voxox Announces Availability of Cloud Phone for Operators and OEMs

Operators and OEMs can white label or co-brand award-winning Internet telephony service from Voxox designed for small business professionals

BARCELONA (MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS) and SAN DIEGO – March 4, 2015 – Voxox®, the most comprehensive cloud-based rich communication service for consumers and businesses, today announced the availability of Cloud Phone for operators and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) looking to white label or co-brand services in order to address demand from small business users. Cloud Phone is an award-winning virtual PBX service that provides professionals with a dedicated toll free or local business telephone number that supports multiple extensions per account, sophisticated call routing, and transcribed voicemail-to-email delivery, all managed within a sleek, simple Web-based user interface. Cloud Phone is ideal for businesses that may not have a physical location and it is compatible with the Voxox mobile app suite.

“Since its introduction last year, Cloud Phone has been addressing a need in the small business community for a powerful yet easy-to-use business phone solution that centers on the smartphone; now, we are enabling our operator and OEM partners to take advantage of this market opportunity and realize a significant new revenue stream," said Bryan Hertz, CEO of Voxox. "White labeling a solution like Cloud Phone will not only allow operators to deliver added value to their existing customers, but it will also help them earn new customers who are seeking advanced business features from their service provider."

According to a Voxox user survey, the results of which were announced earlier this week at Mobile World Congress, Voxox has found that nearly half of its consumer survey respondents are using consumer app features for business purposes. This supports the notion that there is strong demand for more advanced business functionality that operators and their service delivery partners can offer to boost revenues. Cloud Phone provides users with a business-grade phone solution with all the relevant features of an expensive new phone system. Despite its advanced business features, Cloud Phone can be set up in just a couple of minutes, and requires no specialized equipment or skills to manage. As an HTML5 application, Cloud Phone offers a seamless user experience for toggling between mobile and desktop environments and can scale quickly with an easy transition to an advanced VoIP system that supports hundreds of phones if business growth demands.

To learn more about Cloud Phone and its availability through the Voxox For Operators Program, please visit the Voxox booth in Hall 1, 1H31 at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. For more information on Voxox, please visit www.voxox.com.

About Voxox

Voxox is an innovator in unified cloud communication solutions for consumers and businesses. For consumers and its operator partners, Voxox delivers cutting-edge mobile and desktop applications that integrate voice, video, messaging, fax, media sharing and more. For businesses, Voxox provides an extensive suite of carrier-grade business phone solutions, including hosted IP-PBX, SIP Trunking, a wide array of wholesale services, such as high volume SMS, and the company's new virtual PBX service, Cloud Phone. The foundation of the company's offerings is its award-winning unified communications platform in the cloud, which enables the company and its customers to build powerful, scalable applications and services. Founded in 2006, Voxox is headquartered in San Diego. For more information, please visit http://www.voxox.com.

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!