CloudPhone Blog

According to Gartner Group statistics, as much as 80% of your company’s future revenue come from existing customers. That's a huge to reason to invest in ways to boost customer loyalty and retention. By building the reputation of your business as trustworthy and reliable, customers will be more likely to go with your company over a competitor. Projecting a big business image helps build buyer confidence and a simple to use virtual office phone system is a “must have” if you plan to reap the advantages of an improved professional business repuation. 

Customers want to go with a company that they trust, and with a virtual phone service, your business will provide greater reliability. With advanced call routing and customized menu options that make it easier for callers to reach you, your business will enjoy improved customer retention and loyalty. 

Enabling call routing forwards calls to any number simultaneously or in order so that customers can get a hold of you, every time. By being responsive, your customers will be able to get the help they need, and with ease. You and your team can even be working remotely and still take care of your customers without any hassle.  

A professional automated greeting gives your customers the feeling of security through professionalism. The automated greeting is the first impression your customers get of your company and needs to convey professionalism while efficiently directing them to the appropriate department or extension. Nothing is more frustrating then a call that goes unanswered.  Answering inbound callers promptly and effectively gives them a sense of trustworthiness and that their issues are being addressed.

With the myriad of benefits that improving customer engagement, employing a virtual office phone system is one of the best decisions you can make. The right business phone system comes equipped with a variety of features designed to suit the needs of any business, regardless of company size or industry. Cloud Phone lets you can manage all of your business communications through the convenience of your mobile device. To learn more about how Cloud Phone can increase customer loyalty, leave a comment here or on our social media channels –  Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or LinkedIn.

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.

Spring means different things to different people, but in America, one of the grandest spring traditions is Opening Day in Major League Baseball. The tradition dates as far back as 1876 and signifies new hope and promise for every team, regardless of last season's performance. 

Spring can be the start of something new for small businesses as well. If your company is still tethered to a wire-based, legacy phone system it might be worth considering starting this season with a small business phone service based in the cloud instead. 

Best-in-class cloud-based phone solutions can help you shed your old system without losing the functionality—like auto attendants or voicemail to email—that you need. Because cloud communications is maintained by the provider you don’t have to worry about a major installation or ongoing maintenance costs. Changes to greetings, extensions and other features can be made seamlessly over the Internet in no time, even if your tech knowledge is minimal. Settings can be accessed from the device you choose whether a smartphone, laptop or tablet.

Whether you are a baseball fan or don’t know home plate from a lunch plate, it’s easy to see why a small business virtual phone system can be a home run (sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves) for small and microbusinesses. So as the season heats up, consider giving cloud communications a tryout.

As longtime Dodgers’ managed Tommy Lasorda once said, “There are three types of baseball players: Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those who wonder what happens.”

That goes double for business.

Big news! We just announced a new award win for Cloud Phone - this one's a big deal as it's associated with Tab Times, a well-respected media outlet, and some big name judges participated in scoring the entries. Also, some big names among our fellow winners. 

Check out the official press release below...

Voxox Cloud Phone Named Winner in Best Android IT or Business Tool Category of 2014 Tabby Awards /Business Competition
Cloud Phone is one of 26 business tools selected among well-known companies including Adobe, Autodesk and PepsiCo
SAN DIEGO – November 3, 2014 – Voxox®, the most comprehensive cloud-based rich communication service for consumers and businesses, today announced that its virtual PBX service, Cloud Phone, has been named the winner in the Best Android – IT or Business Tool category of the 2014 Tabby Awards /Business competition, the only awards program to recognize the best tablet apps worldwide on the Android, iOS and Windows OS platforms. As an HTML5-based web application, Cloud Phone was also eligible to enter due to its robust usability on tablets. Other winners include notable brands such as Adobe, Autodesk and PepsiCo. 
”We are honored to see Cloud Phone take home a Tabby Award in this prestigious annual competition highlighting business and productivity applications,” said Bryan Hertz, co-founder and CEO of Voxox. “The Cloud Phone web app was designed to help small businesses with growing communications needs. This award is a great honor and testament to Cloud Phone’s usability and rich functionality.” 
Comprised of 20 international professionals, The Tabby Awards /Business panel of judges have expertise in app development, design and/or publishing, with the additional contribution of analysts, journalists, expert users, tablet industry professionals and business people.
“The winners demonstrate the focus that has been placed on developing functional, feature rich business and enterprise apps with user centric design,” said Jeff Klaumann, former Head of Samsung Apps US, Samsung Electronics. 
“I was inspired by the innovative apps submitted, especially the winners,” added Alex Bratton, author of Billion Dollar Apps and CEO & Chief Geek of Lextech Global Services. “They are indicative of the type of game-changing apps that will take over the enterprise by solving real business problems in a way that engages the user. Reviewing them was a great reminder of why we, mobile entrepreneurs, do what we do — to deliver solutions that have the potential to change lives.”
Cloud Phone empowers small business owners with a dedicated toll free or local business telephone number that can be forwarded to a user’s existing phone. Cloud Phone supports multiple employee extensions worldwide, and offers convenient telephony features, such as sophisticated call routing, transcribed voicemail-email delivery, web callback and more. The all web-based service is managed through a sleek user interface and can be set up in under a minute. Since its introduction to the market in February 2014, Cloud Phone has won multiple awards for its simple yet effective phone solution for one-to-10 person businesses. A 30-day free trial is available to all new subscribers.
The list of winners is published on the Tabby Awards /Business website at http://tabbyawards.com/business/2014-winners, where most apps can be downloaded.

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 www.voxox.com.

If you’ve been checking in with us here at Voxox recently you may already have read about how our new application, Cloud Phone, can help small business owners do more efficient mobile work. Now we’d like to provide some real-world examples of professionals that could use a cloud-based phone service and the advantages it delivers. Here are four examples of on-the-go business pros and how Cloud Phone can transform their businesses. 

Bob the handyman

Bob is a genuine Mr. Fix-It who does everything from cleaning gutters to fixing furnaces. He also spends a lot of time traveling from home to home, meaning he can’t always answer his phone when a client or prospect calls. No prob Bob, because with Cloud Phone you can configure a professional greeting and present a professional image to customers.

Carla the computer technician

Like Bob, Carla is in business for herself but often collaborates with companies to help them set up their systems. She works out of a home office, but with a virtual phone system no one will be able to tell. If she decides to make a new hire as the business grows she can add extensions quickly and easily, all from the Web.

Doug the real estate agent

Self-employed real estate agents often struggle to find the time to sit down let alone set up an office desk and make phone calls. Doug needs to be reachable anywhere, but giving out his mobile number makes him seem a little small time. Not to worry, because with Cloud Phone, Doug can turn his cell phone into a business-dedicated phone in less than a minute.

Kristen the developer

Kristen has been working for months on a concept revolutionary new app. Now all she needs to do is secure a little seed money for development and advertising and she’s on her way. With the volume of calls she needs to make during her company’s infancy, however, installing and maintaining an on-premises phone system is simply too expensive. With Cloud Phone, however, she’ll pay a low monthly rate and be on the cover of every tech magazine in America in no time at all.

Have your own story to tell? Let us know in the comment section.

We’ve written in the past about how virtual numbers can help you avoid a dangerous winter commute, but there are many other ways to leverage the benefits of a cloud based phone system in order to "weather the storm". Lately, we've been witnessing the power of Mother Nature at work, from the wet El Nino rain in the western states to the heavy snowfall in the east which has left many workers stranded. This has no doubt affected SMBs, forcing some businesses to close the doors early. In many cases though a cloud based phone system could have prevented any lost revenue by allowing them to keep the “doors” open virtually. Here’s how a cloud based phone system can help winter proof your business:

1. Call routing with a professional auto attendant. The Auto Attendant is the hub of automation for your cloud based phone system. It answers, routes, and manages your calls for you so your company always sounds professional. Easily add more numbers or extensions and control when and how your calls are routed and answered. This is particularly useful when your workforce is dispersed or when changes to the system need to be made remotely.
2. Call forwarding with features. You can connect your incoming business calls to you or your staff wherever you choose, on any device. You can also have calls routed to multiple employees simultaneously. No more worrying who made it into the office, you can make sure no call gets missed. Although even if it does, the cloud based phone system also comes with Professional Greetings to give an optimal experience for callers.
3. Outbound calling to make office calls from home. With some cloud based phone systems, you can place outbound calls directly from within the management console. For example, with Cloud Phone, you can simply enter the number you want to call and the number where you want to connect from. The system will dial the number, and once connected, it will also dial you. Why is this important? Well if you are snowed in at home you can still make calls to customers as if you are sitting at your desk miles away. (Hmmm, come to think of it maybe we shouldn’t wait for a snow storm to use this feature. Making office calls from the beach sounds even better!)
4. Virtual numbers can offer temporary or permanent coverage. As we covered in our recent post, virtual numbers are phone numbers that are routed to an existing calling device, such as your office phone and/or mobile phone. If a call is missed, callers will be forwarded to voicemail, which can be personalized with a professional business greeting. These can be particularly helpful for seasonal promotions, special events or perhaps an after-hours support number that you publish to your customers.
5. Disaster recovery: if a storm takes down your office, you won’t lose everything. Another perk of the cloud based phone system is when an outage occurs or natural disaster strikes, calls can be automatically rerouted to another office. Creating even more peace of mind and preventing financial loss, since the managed solution involves storage of activity, all of the call data can be backed up.

Taking advantage of a cloud based phone system can offer big upside for small businesses, especially during these winter months. These are just a few of the ways offerings such as Cloud Phone can help keep business communications flowing. We’d love to hear how a cloud based phone system has helped your business this winter. Share your stories in the comments here or on our social media pages - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+.

Owning your own cleaning services company is tough. Whether you have a housekeeping services business or a mobile car wash, you are in charge of buying your cleaning supplies, coordinating calendars with a constantly changing schedule, keeping your books simple and accurate, and then finding time to actually clean. But to grow your cleaning services business you also need to find new clients and retain the clients you already have.

Some ways to alleviate administrative busy work include using digital services like Calendy for appointments, Amazon for supplies and Freshbooks for your finances – but something we'd like to focus on today is how to get a local phone line for your cleaning services business without the need to buy and maintain a traditional business phone system.

Virtual PBX services like Voxox Cloud Phone offer inexpensive business phone plans with professional features, including local phone numbers for the region(s) your cleaning company serves. With these local virtual numbers, you won’t need any special hardware or even an office phone because they connect directly to your cell.

Getting a local number through a virtual PBX service will help grow your cleaning services business in a few ways:

1. Handle all calls professionally.

Because all calls to your local business number are routed to your cell, you can answer on the fly or send calls to voicemail with just the touch of a button – whether you’re in the car on your way to an appointment or scrubbing a tub! Having complete control over your business’ phone communications, along with the support of a laundry list of professional features– auto attendant, call forwarding, SMS, call recording, etc. – means that your clients will always have the best possible customer service.

2. Appeal to the locals.

Using the area codes associated with the locations you serve will help build rapport with the community. People are often interested in supporting local service providers, and one way to spot a local contact is via their area code. Put these numbers on your business card, referral fliers and in local bulletins!

3. Enter new markets.

If you are actively working on expanding your carpet cleaning business to new areas, you can get a local phone number in a variety of places and reap the benefits. By expanding your service area, you’ll open yourself to more potential clients and more opportunity to grow your business. With Voxox Cloud Phone, for example, you can sign up for up to 25 different local numbers that all conveniently ring to the same phone –so you can find one, or several local numbers and neighboring area codes that fit your needs.

4. Manage your account on the go.

As a small business owner, you don’t have a lot of time to spare. So why waste those precious minutes managing two separate calling devices? With virtual PBX services (like Voxox Cloud Phone!), all calls are routed to your existing cell phone or that of your employees, as needed. You have different local phone numbers for various reasons, from tracking to marketing, but all calls end up ringing a single device. If you don't pick up, the callers are sent to a professional business voicemail, separating your personal and business communications seamlessly and efficiently. Plus, you can manage all of your virtual PBX features from your online portal – add more lines, remove numbers that you don’t need, etc. It’s simple, it’s fast and it will give you more time to focus on the things that really matter, like growing your business!

So, what are you waiting for? Go get a local phone number from a virtual PBX service and see how it can help your business grow. Set up is simple, painless and fast – but if you need help we’re here for that too.

The entrepreneurial spirit is catching fire amongst U.S. business owners. According to the most recent Census, in 2012 the number of businesses without paid employees reached 22.7 million—an increase of 1.1 percent. 

All signs indicate this number will keep on growing over the next few years due to the high cost of worker benefits and the unstable economy. Many companies simply do not have the resources to provide for staff.  

One market that will certainly benefit from the growth of domestic non-employers is small business phone systems. That’s because the demand for strong customer service exists regardless of the number of employees within an organization. Calls need to be handled professionally and efficiently to convince customers that a business is at the top of its industry. And of course, missed calls mean missed business opportunities.

A cloud-based small business phone system provides all the features a small business needs to establish credibility and operate like a much larger one. This includes an auto attendant that greets callers with a list of options. The auto attendant can then route customers to virtual extensions.

Additionally, messages can be forwarded as a voicemail to email. These features are easy to access and update right over a Web browser. A business owner simply has to log in and they can have complete control over the system.

If you are one of the newly minted non-employer businesses out there or are looking to become one in the near future, check out options for small business phone systems that project a big business image and increase productivity at the same time. After all, just because you are in business for yourself doesn’t mean you can’t get a little technological help from time to time.

For a small business on the go, the mobility that a cloud-based phone system affords can be a life-saver. Say you own a mobile car wash and detailing business. You have two employees who travel around the county washing and detailing cars by appointment. You don't have a physical office since your team is always at different locations. Instead you use a cloud-based phone service that works with your smartphone to keep you connected with calls to your virtual office and your employees through a single business line withextensions.

Someone on the team may prefer to receive voicemail notifications by SMS because they don't check email often enough, while others may prefer email communications, so as not to have any disruptions during an ongoing job. Also, some employees may find listening to full voicemails to be inefficient, and may instead opt for enabling voicemail transcriptions, such that the fully transcribed voicemails are emailed or texted to their mobile phones in order to quickly assess the urgency of the phone message.

As a cloud-based phone service, Cloud Phone provides the ability for you and your team to customize phone settings and access your voicemail remotely in whichever way is most convenient. Once the user is added, his or her settings can be personalized or updated at any time. Here's how it works…

Step 1: Sign into Cloud Phone and choose People from the menu in the upper right hand corner.

Step 2: Once you’ve chosen a user, tap Update Personal Info.

Step 3: Choose how calls are routed. Add new lines or change the configuration of existing lines.

Step 4: Update your voicemail settings, including notifications and transcription, by choosing Yes or No when prompted.

In today’s business world, where an office is anywhere you can get phone service or an internet connection, having a reliable and feature-rich cloud-based phone service like Cloud Phone is key to establishing a professional presence – no matter where life takes you or how you prefer to  stay in touch.

Plus, Cloud Phone comes with a 30 day free trial, is fully managed via web, with no upfront costs and no equipment to buy, so sign up today and see how it can change your business communications for good.

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.