CloudPhone Blog

Whether you are a freelance writer, graphic designer or interior decorator, your creativity and imagination is what keeps your services in demand with customers. The quality of your work speaks for itself and you take great pride in making a client’s vision come to fruition.

When it comes to adopting the right business communications system, however, you may be having a difficult time making a decision. Fortunately, small business virtual phone systems exist just for successful entrepreneurs like you.    

A virtual—or cloud-based—phone system gives you much of the functionality you’d get with a legacy enterprise system at a much lower cost. You can set up professional greetings, designate extensions and have your voicemail sent to email so you won’t miss an important message. Furthermore, because your system is in the cloud your settings are easily accessible and you avoid installation and maintenance costs. Last but not least, all you need to get started is a mobile number!

Another advantage of adopting a cloud-based phone system is that if you decide to expand your freelance business into a full-fledged company, you’ll be sending a signal to millennials in the workforce that you are committed to running a modern business. When considering the emphasis younger workers place on a potential employer’s technology these days, attracting the best and brightest can be a challenge—one a virtual phone system helps you meet.

Being your own boss has many advantages, but one of the potential drawbacks is dealing with aspects of business outside of your comfort zone. Fortunately, today’s best-in-class technological solutions offer freelancers more tools than ever before. Yes, that is opportunity knocking at your door. Will you answer?

To most everyone’s delight—particularly after a nightmarish winter--summer has finally arrived, meaning a lot of folks will be getting ready for that long-awaited summer vacation. The salty Italian air, waves crashing on the beach, tan skin, hot sun’s rays—you have been dreaming about it for weeks!

The only thing strong enough to break you out of this dreamlike haze and bring you back to reality is the remembrance that you are the owner of a small business, and while you do trust your colleagues, you also know that as the head honcho it is always possible that something only you can handle could come up.

This is a problem scenario, but one with a solution—a cloud-based phone service. A small business phone service offers an array of capabilities that will benefit you and your business no matter where you may be traveling this season.

Let’s take a look at some of the fantastic features that a cloud-based phone service offers:

• Auto Attendant: Customers are greeted in a big business manner, guided to the correct department. So you can rest assured that even if you are touring the Vatican or at a winery in Florence your customers are being well served.
• Reach Me Anywhere: Connects your incoming business calls to anywhere, on any device. You won’t have to worry about missing important business calls overseas because your cloud service will connect them all to your phone. Relaxing on the Italian coast? No problem! You are still in reach for “can’t-miss” calls.
• Voicemail Transcription: Voicemails are converted to text before they’re delivered, so you can read the message if listening isn’t an option—and on vacation, sometimes it simply isn’t.

Using a cloud-based phone service allows your small business to conquer all of the problems travel presents for a small business owner like Roman Empire conquering Italy. And doesn’t every business want a phone system that helps it triumph over all challengers?

As a business owner or professional, chances are you’re being pulled into 10 different directions throughout the day, meaning you’re running around and outside the office, away from your desk. So what happens when an important client unexpectedly calls your office number or a colleague sends you an urgent email?

Well we hate to break it to you; if you have a legacy phone system, you’re just plain out of luck. However, with cloud communications you don’t ever have to experience FOMO (fear of missing out) again.

With a cloud communications application like Cloud Phone, business leaders can break away from the shackles of their desks. You can easily conduct business per usual while on the go and Cloud Phone gives you a fully featured phone platform that’s 100 percent “in the cloud.” That means there is no expensive hardware to buy, nothing complex to maintain, and no reason to worry about downtime or other complications.

Cloud Phone connects your incoming business calls to you wherever you choose, on any device whether it’s a smartphone, tablet or laptop. The best part? You can also have calls routed to multiple employees simultaneously to ensure no call ever goes unanswered.

The voicemail to email notification feature delivers voicemails instantly to your email, so you never have to dial in to access your voicemail again. What’s more, its voicemail transcription feature automatically transcribes voicemails, so you can read important messages when you can’t listen

Stop living in the past with legacy communication technology and step into the “now” with cloud communications. You’ll never experience FOMO again. 

Exciting News! Voxox Cloud Phone recently received media coverage from major news outlets for playing a huge role by the US Navy to fight drunk driving.

Naval Officer Michael Daigle was able to set up Saferide, which allows volunteers to pick up servicemen who are too inebriated to drive. With DUI cases being a major problem for the military, Daigle’s ride service helped drastically lower drunk driving instances. The news covered some of Cloud Phone's key features such as affordable pricing and extension routing.

This is exciting coverage and we’re thrilled that Cloud Phone is being used to save lives and keep people safe on the road. Read the whole article here: "US Navy Turns to Cloud Technology to Reduce Drunken Driving" by Yuri Kageyama and and check out more details on this unique use case on the Voxox Blog

Petty Officer Michael Daigle

Voxox CEO, Bryan Hertz, with the Channel 10 ABC news crew

With communications coming over a dizzying array of channels it’s no wonder that many companies can quickly become overwhelmed and fragmented. But there is hope. In fact, there’s more than that—there are cloud communications applications!

Cloud communications applications are the perfect way to seamlessly integrate your telecommunications strategy and tools into one intuitive system, and your one stop shop solution for a small business phone number. But even if you’ve heard a little about the technology, you may have missed a few things along the way:

1. Wires are O-U-T: When you leverage cloud communications you essentially put an entire enterprise PBX system in your mobile phone. When that happens, there is no need to keep a legacy wire-based system around the office. So it’s time to rip it out!
2. Set up in a flash: Did you know that with a cloud communications application like Cloud Phone you can start configuring your system in one minute? Yes, it may sound too good to be true, but it’s as real as the mobile phone you can use to get a business-specific number and get cranking right away.
3. Always affordable: Getting rid of on-premises hardware does more than make life easier—it helps you cut costs as well. Without equipment to maintain and keep updated in your office you cut out on recurring costs—forever!

Benefits like these make cloud communications an easy choice for small business phone system your business. And now that you know what these applications are all about, it’s time to get started!

There’s a reason movie studios target summer for their biggest releases: customers are in a positive frame of mind and ready for the spectacle of a summer blockbuster.

Similarly, this summer could be a blockbuster success for your business—and cloud communications might just be the way to achieve it. As mobility and connectivity reach new levels of sophistication and power, cloud communications has become the name of the game. Its blend of galvanizing tools and easy-to-use interfaces empower businesses like never before.

With a cloud communications application like Cloud Phone—a new offering from Voxox designed specifically for small businesses—you get a myriad of benefits, including:

• Consolidation of communications tools, making them easier and more intuitive to use
• Low price points and no additional service or hardware maintenance fees
• Anywhere access
• The reliability of a system maintained over the Internet

Add to those benefits features like a professional auto attendant, virtual extensions, Reach Me Anywhere call forwarding and voicemail transcription and you can see how a cloud communications application provides the functionality of a Fortune 500 small business phone system at a fraction of the cost.

So don’t settle for poorly produced sequels this summer like upgrades to a dated legacy phone system or costly downtime. You’ve seen that film before and it’s played out.  Instead, harness the power of cloud communications this summer and make your company a box office smash!

We’re all familiar with the old adage that the three most important aspects of real estate are location, location and of course…location. Of course, we would never be so bold as to dismiss this tried-and-true idiom, but we do have a little something to add. 

As a self-employed real estate agent, you probably spend much of your time running from open houses to apartment showings all over town. Working in a service industry also means you have to devote your full attention to each client and can’t afford to answer calls or listen to voicemail messages during an appointment. 

But as an independent contractor that barely has time to sit down during the day, maintaining a brick-and-mortar office doesn’t make much sense. So how can you ensure you don’t miss important communications about a client’s newly accepted offer or a great new property just coming on the market?

A cloud communications application can help you keep in touch with clients and project a big business presence even if you don’t want to spend money on physical office space or a legacy phone system. Top-shelf services offer a company-specific phone number that rings to your mobile number so there is no need to give out personal contact information. Additionally, a cloud communications application can also provide:    

• Business-class voicemail-to-email functionality
• Easy-to-configure professional greetings
• Extensions for different departments, even if each department is only you
• Settings that can be accessed and adjusted via the Internet

We’d like to reiterate that it is not our intention to rebuff one of the principle tenets of the real estate industry, but rather to add our own little touch. A cloud-based small business phone system can’t improve a property’s locale, but it can certainly help with your business communications as you move from location to location.

Maybe location is the key after all.

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.

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.

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.