CloudPhone Blog

On Father's Day, sons and daughters everywhere will pay tribute to their dads on Father's Day with candy, breakfast in bed, fancy dinners and a host of other traditional celebrations. Unfortunately, it is a simple fact of life that not everybody will be able to celebrate this annual holiday in person. As a small business owner, sometimes important meetings or conference take you far and wide, even if the only place you really want to be is close to dad.

If you are going to be traveling for business this Father's Day—or at any other time—you might want to consider adopting a cloud-based phone service designed for small businesses like yours. Leveraging cloud technology, these systems are configured and maintained by the provider but allow you to adjust settings online. You also get some top-shelf features like:

• A digital text box for customized greetings that can be adjusted quickly on the fly
• Extensions for other employees or departments, even if the department is just you
• Voicemail to email service that ensures critical messages are returned in a timely manner

Additionally, the service can provide you with a company-specific phone number that rings to your mobile phone. With this feature, you can project big business presence even if you work alone out of a home office.

As long as you are going to be away from your dad this Father’s Day, you might as well call to wish him well from a phone system that will help your business thrive and grow. After all, you’re going to need all the money you can get so you can make up for missing dad’s day by showering him with gifts. 

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.

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.   

Regardless of your age, you most likely grew up with the idea of office buildings as business hubs. But while physical office space certainly remains a part of how many companies operate, it’s not right for all organizations. Renting space in a building is expensive and for small or mobile-heavy companies spending a sizeable chunk of a tight budget simply doesn’t make sense.

In an effort to cut unnecessary expenses and boost mobile productivity, business owners are increasingly turning to virtual offices. A recent study by online market research firm uSamp revealed that 62 percent of small businesses allow employees to work remotely. Separate research conducted by the office research firm Instant shows that the global flexible workplace market increased by 9.1 percent from July 2012 to July 2013.

One of the most important cogs in any virtual office is a phone system that provides the features of a legacy enterprise system. Completely web-based and maintained in the cloud, a small business virtual phone is designed for mobile and at-home workers. Using an existing mobile number, business managers can obtain a separate, business-specific number, professional greetings, extensions for individual employees and more. System settings are accessible from smartphones, laptops and tablets and because the vendor is responsible for the service installation and upgrade costs are non-existent. 

In business, one-size-fits-all is rarely a sound strategy because companies of varying size, budget constraints and goals have varying needs. In time, small or new businesses may find they need office space, but if it’s not a necessity today, spending money on rent and hardware only makes turning a profit more difficult—and no business, small or large, wants that.    

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.

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!

All signs indicate that the mobile forecast for the next few years is cloudy and getting cloudier. According to a recent Cisco study, we’re looking at an 11-fold increase in mobile cloud traffic by 2018. And cloud applications will account for 90 percent of mobile data by that same year. Business leaders everywhere are embracing cloud technology and trusting it to facilitate an increasing number of essential services 

So, what’s all the fuss about cloud technology? For starters, the cloud is incredibly easy to install and maintain. An enterprise might have several apps and thousands of end users spread across the globe. Apps need to be updated and installed on mobile devices—and this can easily be accomplished right in one location and distributed to remote employees or customers.

The cloud is also cost effective. Without the cloud, a company has to pay for the necessary licenses for each end user in order to grant access to software. But with cloud technology a company can purchase licenses on an as needed, per usage basis. This number can be easily scaled when needed to accommodate sudden spikes or lulls in business.

Cloud communications are of course a big driver of mobile cloud traffic growth as remote working picks up speed and home offices become increasingly common. Cloud-based phone services are ideal for these mobile and remote workers, creating a seamless transition from traditional brick-and-mortar environments to effective collaboration from almost anywhere.

 The bottom line is that for a host of reasons, mobile cloud data traffic is booming with no end in sight. Are you ready to get your head in the cloud?

It’s Friday afternoon and the beautiful weather has you dreaming about sneaking out of the office to meet your buddies for a quick round of golf. You’re entitled to a little work-life balance; you work hard to keep your company thriving.

But what if a critical business call comes in while you are out smacking that little white ball around? You simply can’t afford to leave your small business office without remaining reachable to clients and colleagues.

A cloud communications application lets you enjoy your afternoon round without worrying that you might be missing a crucial or message back at the office. When customers call your business-specific phone number, they are greeted by an auto attendant that presents them with menu options. If they need to speak with you directly, they simply punch in an extension—the same way they would with a wire-based enterprise system—and the call rings to your mobile device.

Additionally, a cloud communications application provides features like:

• Business-class voicemail-to-email notification
• Voicemail transcription
• Instant conference calling   
• Easily accessible and adjustable web-based settings

A cloud-based system is maintained by a third-party vendor, meaning it is inherently reliable even during storms or other disasters. Best of all, with just one low monthly service fee to pay each month, you avoid installation and maintenance costs as well.

So as you’re making pars and birdies this summer, ensure you have the tools necessary to keep your company headed straight down the fairway. Because sometimes when you sneak out of the office and onto the golf course, important business follows you right out onto the first tee.