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.

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.

The holidays are a stressful and busy time for a lot of people. And for those of us that live life as a small business owner or freelancer we especially feel pulled in several directions as we manage communications from all directions in our personal and business lives. But the good news is that voice technology can be our friend to help us manage the stress and the communication channels in our dual lives. Here are 5 ways voice technology can help you this holiday season:

1. Manage smarter (and safer) with virtual numbers - ever consider assigning and tracking a different number for personal versus work calls, but have them ring one location? Now you can with virtual numbers. But even more you can use one a number for events you might be planning or hosting. Or better yet, they could help avoid a dangerous commute.
2. Simplify your day with voicemail transcription – there are many benefits of being able to read your messages with voicemail transcription when you’re in a hurry and multitasking – and if you’re an iPhone® user, you don’t have to wait for the voicemail transcription feature to be available on your phone, if you're using a virtual PBX service (like Cloud Phone!).
3. Don’t miss a beat with call recording - when we are distracted and multi-tasking we might miss something important, don’t lose important info on your calls – record them so you can play them back later if needed.
4. Work from anywhere with call forwarding – if you are working in various locations either for personal or business reasons, you can use a virtual number for your business, which enables you to easily set up call forwarding. This way you can be reached where you are at the touch of a button, and your contacts don’t have to know that you are working from your family’s mountain house this week and the office next week, they just dial the same number.
5. Share the workload with call routing – with powerful features of a cloud phone solution such as call routing and "reach me anywhere," you can assign calls to co-workers or employees when you are busy, i.e. when you’re taking your kid to the mall (to see Santa!) on your lunch break but you don’t want to miss that important call from a client. Simply send calls to your co-worker for that hour all with the touch of a button.

There are many ways that technology can lower your stress rather than add to it with time-saving features like voicemail transcription. Just take a few minutes to get set up now before the holiday season is in full swing and you’re wondering how to manage it all. It’s easier than you might think!

Having only one cell phone is great. You only have one bill and you don’t look like MacGyver trying to tackle the world of mobile technology. But as a small business owner, using the same phone for personal and business calls can get a little hazy –especially when you’re receiving both types of calls to the same number.

Imagine a new client calls your cell and gets sent to a personal voicemail that mentions nothing about your business. Chances are, they’ll start to doubt your professionalism and reliability.

However, there are services (such as Cloud Phone!) that enable you to establish a dedicated business phone line that routes to your cellphone. This has great advantages for customizing your "voice presence" for your business. Here are some key customization benefits to consider as part of having a dedicated business phone line:

 1. Corporate phone number: the first impression

The first thing your customers see when they want to make contact with you through the voice channel is your business phone number. When getting a dedicated business line, you can opt to have a toll free number or a local number or even multiple numbers for different customer segments. Each type of number has different uses, for example: toll free numbers could be great if you have a national customer-base or an e-commerce website, local numbers can help small shops or those new to the area establish a local presence.  

2. Business greeting: the right message for your customers

Make sure you take full advantage of customizing your voicemail greeting when you have a dedicated business line. When you record a customized voicemail greeting for your business contacts, you can reinforce the image of your brand. Your greeting sets the tone for your business and it's a great way to also convey your key messages. 

3. Voicemail settings: extra attention for your VIP clients

Since customer calls are very important and can be time-sensitive, you may want to customize your settings for your business voicemails. When you have a dedicated business line, this should be easy to do. For example, Cloud Phone allows users to set up voicemail transcription, send notifications via SMS and email, and more.

4. Extensions: smooth transitions for your business contacts

If you have multiple employees, departments, or just want to make your business appear more professional, some services offer business extensions, which will help you guide your business callers to the appropriate channel without the hassle of tracking them down or taking messages that can eventually get lost in the shuffle. As your business grows, you can assign employees their very own extension to route calls from your main business number. Each employee can customize their own settings and manage them with their own login.

You’ve worked hard to establish your business so it’s important to make the right impression when your customers, prospects, business partners, and employees call. Having the right voice presence is an easy step in building trust for your company and an effective way to communicate your business style. Plus, once your voice communications are in order, you can stop worrying about missing a call or answering the wrong cell phone and can focus on more important things like running your business! 

For more tips on how to advance your small business voice presence, check out our CMO's recent contributed article that published on MarketingProfs.com.

How does voice fit into your small business communications? Share your stories, challenges and ideas with us – Facebook, Twitter, Google+.

Recently, Fitocracy was featured in Entrepreneur magazine about adopting a cloud technology to improve customer service. The objective of the New-York based online fitness platform is to make exercise and improving health, more fun. Users who log their workout activity are awarded points and by completing quests, they could also earn badges. The problem was, with over 1.5 million users and estimated 100 personal trainers, the business was struggling with engaging customers over the phone. How could a small 8-person firm provide better customer service, while appearing as a giant in the fitness industry?

Finding a solution for better customer support.
Brian Wang, CEO of Fitocracy, was faced with the challenge of finding a way to drive growth and participation through user engagement. He wanted to encourage users to meet their fitness goals, but with his limited staff, it was difficult to support the large number of customers calling the office. Brian wanted an affordable, simple communication solution to help create a big business image, and provide reliable service that would improve customer relations. 

Reliable and steadfast support for clients
With Cloud Phone, a cloud-based phone system, calls are routed directly to the employees’ cell phones making it easier for clients to reach a Fitocracy rep. Brian was able to set the system up in a matter of minutes. There was no need for additional hardware or equipment and now he could manage his business communication easily online. By improving customer relations with a cloud-based phone system, Fitocracy was not only able to save money but also drive sales and revenue. 

What are your thoughts? Could a cloud-based phone service help your business? Share in the comments below!

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.

With over 627,000 businesses opening in the United States each year, entrepreneurs and self-starters are faced with the pressure to stand out to potential customers. It’s crucial to the survival of young startups to take advantage of any tools or services that could give them the leg up over their competitors. A virtual phone system like Cloud Phone can streamline communications and improve efficiency, all while saving time, space, and money.

Business impression plays a fundamental role when running a startup, and a missed call could exhibit unprofessionalism and send a message of unreliability to potential customers. With a virtual phone system, you can avoid unnecessary downtime and be up and running in a flash. There’s no complicated set-up that requires a technician and no need to purchase and maintain any hardware. You could focus your attention growing your business and driving revenue, without having to worry about calls not being forwarded or answered.

Another hurdle several startup businesses face is working with costly and limited office space. Having a workforce large enough to serve your customer base has traditionally meant renting or buying an office that can accommodate your employees and office equipment. With the cost of renting out a workplace location and paying for traditional phone services, a small business budget could take a substantial blow. However, with a virtual phone system, you don’t need to worry about office space or being locked onto a desk phone. You could run your business from anywhere and communicate with your team and customers while out on the field. By taking advantage of the growing telecommuting trend and eliminating the need to be tied down to a desk, your startup stays connected, sounds professional, and saves money.

Contact us to learn more about our small business virtual phone system and discover how to get the most out of your communication. Leave a comment below or connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Google+.

Last week the Voxox team was in Miami for the ITEXPO. The business technology show hosted thousands of attendees and hundreds of exhibitors in all areas of the IP communications industry. It was a huge event with our CMO, Tristan Barnum, participating in a panel discussion on BYOA in the mobile workplace, and the introduction of our latest product, Cloud Phone Pro. The announcement of our new business VoIP solution gained all kinds of news coverage from TMCnet, TruTower, Talkin' Cloud, and SMB Nation. To top it all off, Cloud Phone Pro went on to win Best On-site Product Launch!

The award win demonstrates Voxox's commitment to innovation and providing effective solutions for business communication. Cloud Phone Pro is an extension of our business VoIP solution suite designed to help small businesses and organizations improve their communications with a fully hosted solution. Cloud Phone Pro includes worldwide DID, call recording, call queuing, and more handy features. 

See the official press release below announcing our big win!

Cloud Phone Pro Named Best of Show Winner at ITEXPO Miami 2015 for Best Product Launch

Voxox’s Cloud Phone Pro takes home one of top honors at premier industry event

SAN DIEGO – February 4, 2015 – Voxox®, the most comprehensive cloud-based rich communication service for consumers and businesses, today announced that the company’s newly released hosted VoIP service, Cloud Phone Pro, has won a Best of Show award at ITEXPO Miami for Best Product Launch. TMCnet editors recognized top products and solutions for their innovation and creativity in categories ranging from service provider and cloud solutions to enterprise and open source platforms.

“The win is a testament to Voxox’s commitment to continually expanding our business offerings with new products and services that hit the ground running,” said Bryan Hertz, CEO of Voxox. “ITEXPO has an excellent reputation with the business community so the positive response we received is even more meaningful. We’re truly honored to have Cloud Phone Pro’s first recognition come from the ITEXPO team.”

Cloud Phone Pro is ideal for small, medium and large businesses seeking to shed the cost and limitations of on-premise telephony services and take advantage of hosted features, such as worldwide DIDs, call recording, call queuing, conference bridges and more. Building on the success of Cloud Phone, Voxox’s award-winning virtual PBX service that small businesses can use to complement their current phone service and equipment, Cloud Phone Pro is designed for organizations that want a fully hosted solution that can replace their existing phone service but allow them to continue to use phones they have purchased from vendors.

“The products and solutions nominated for the ITEXPO Best in Show Awards continue to be cutting-edge, and it’s truly exciting to see what new technological developments our exhibitors have for us each year,” said Rich Tehrani, TMC CEO and conference chairman. “We are pleased to honor Voxox for their efforts and creativity in developing advanced, powerful solutions for the business technology marketplace.”

The complete list of 2015 ITEXPO Miami Best of Show Award winners can be found here.

For more information on Cloud Phone Pro, please visit www.cloudphone.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.

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.