Home Office Telephony

Praise for the Total Phone Image Makeover. Yeay!

On a previous post I wrote about my new, innovative service - the Total Phone Image Makeover - which I'm preparing to officially launch on January 7^th, 2008. While I've been getting ready for the launch I offered a select group of people a limited number of Pre-Launch Makeovers to test their response. So far, I've been blown away by how positively it's been received. Following are some of their remarks:

"As someone who has had an extreme telephone "make over" session and report, I must say that what Victoria offers is extremely impressive. If you are interested in maximizing your marketing efforts with these cool, low cost offerings, you will not be disappointed." Becki Noles – VA Training

"Just wanted to say a quick thank you for my "makeover"!! The session was very thorough, and I love the customized report and recommendations. I really think this will help me simplify some of my communications issues! I enjoy doing research, but I don't always have time to research things for my own business. This was great to have someone do the work for me, and it was an added plus that you've actually tried out the services to see how they work! Thanks again!!" - Julie Ensor – Panacea Concepts

"Another vote for Victoria here! She is so easy to work with and very patient especially if you are like me and ask a lot of questions. I cannot thank you enough for all of your help Victoria." - Yamisi Daniel - InTouch Virtual Assistance

I was even blogged about! Maureen Kerr, a Marketing Consultant in PEI, Canada raved about her makeover in her blog. Click here to read her post.

Later this week I will give you more details about this service. However, if you can't wait, click on this page and fill out the contact form. I will contact you as soon as possible.

Feature of the Week: Dynamic Call Forwarding

It's the holidays and although many brick and mortar businesses take time off and close their offices for at least a few days, some of us solopreneurs are still hard at work. We may be out of town visiting family or indeed taking a deserved break from our computer but one thing is for sure, if money calls we sure don't want to miss it. This is where Call Forwarding comes in real handy.

There are several types of Call Forwarding:

Find Me Call Forwarding - This type of call forwarding (common in most Virtual PBX systems) can be set up to ring several numbers sequentially or simultaneously to try to find you. For example, you may have your system set up to ring your home office line, then your cell phone and if neither of those pick up you may have it ring your Virtual Assistants phone number. If the system can't find you (or your assistant) it will then forward the call to voicemail.

Follow Me Call Forwarding – This feature is great if you only have one alternate number where you want to receive calls. So If you are stepping out of your office momentarily you can set up the calls to follow you to your cell phone, for example.

Call Forward Busy / No Answer – This kind is most commonly used with voicemail systems. When a call comes in if the line is busy or there is no answer the call is then forwarded to voicemail.

Time of Day Forwarding –You can configure your system to behave differently depending on the time of day. For example, you can tell the system that between the hours of 8:00 AM and 5:00 PM you want the system to find you (using Find Me / Follow Me ) and afterhours you want the system to forward all your calls to your voicemail. Most systems also have a "Do Not Disturb" option which can be easily activated. This will supersede any other rules and forward your calls straight to voicemail.

Smart Forwarding – This is probably one of the coolest features I've seen. It allows you to pre-configure your system to forward based on the caller ID of the incoming call. For example, you have a multi-dollar client who you want to give VIP treatment to. When this client calls the system will recognize his/her caller ID, skip the automated attendant recording and send the call directly to you. Likewise is you have people who are… well, less of a priority, the system can send them directly to voicemail. This allows you to prioritize your time and your clients.

Disaster Recovery Forwarding – You can set up specific rules that can be activated easily and remotely in the case of a disaster. For more detail on this read my previous post: When Disaster Strikes.

With all these great forwarding features available to you there should be no reason you would ever miss an important call. The hardest part will be to use it wisely so that you don't become a slave to your phone. After all, it is the holidays and work will still be there after you spend some time with your loved ones.

Ok… Time to follow my own advice.

Top 5 Virtual Phone Service Companies: My Personal List

In the spirit of the traditional end-of-the-year countdowns here are my 5 favorite Virtual PBX companies in order of preference. Ranking is based on who, in my opinion, best serves the needs of home based business owners and independent professionals in North America. These companies provide the best pricing, best set of features and easiest customer interface. I am currently working on a Buyer's Guide which will include more details on these and other companies in the marketplace. It will also cover guidelines on how to decide which service is right for your business. Keep reading this blog for more details. (Some of the links below are affiliate links. If this information is helpful to you please share the love.)

Top 5 Virtual PBX Companies for Home Based Businesses

1. Ringcentral – This company has the most user friendly interface I've seen for the most reasonable monthly rate. I use Ringcentral for my own business (feel free to call my toll free number to check it out – 800-377-7454) and I love them. 
2. Phone.Com – By far the best pricing I've seen for a virtual phone system. Having just launched their company on December 11^th there is not enough service history to judge their quality but I believe it is worth checking them out. They offer a 30 day free trial.
3. 800PBX – The web interface for this company is not as user friendly as others that I've seen but the pricing is hard to beat. Also, they advertise themselves as a "fully managed" option. Meaning they assign you an account manager and set up your virtual pbx for you. However, I must mention that when I signed up for a trial account no one contacted me as they say on the website they do. I never pushed the issue since I do not require that kind of service but I thought that was a glitch in their customer care. If you decide to try them out make sure you e-mail them about their account set up services if no one contacts you.
4. OneBox – If you want an apples to apples comparison, their OneBox Receptionist service is their true virtual pbx service and that pricing is a bit higher than the first three on my list. However, their Receptionist service includes 2,000 minutes of traffic which is the highest I've seen for that price point. This service is best for those of you who have heavy calling traffic.
5. GotVmail – This company has a great reputation in the marketplace. They have received write ups in PC Magazine, Inc 500 and Business Week Online to name a few. Their pricing is competitive but their lowest plan (which is $9.99 a month, the lowest of all the companies I've reviewed) only includes 50 minutes so be careful which plan you choose. If you go over the plan minutes they charge .074 cents per minute (for their cheapest plan) which is the highest rate of all of them. They also charge a $25 activation fee which most other companies waive.

Almost all of these companies offer free trials so you can try before you buy. Leave me a comment if you would like to share your experiences with any of the service providers above or if there's a company you think I should have added.

Coming Soon: The Total Phone Image Makeover

Sshh, It's a Secret!

As a thank you for being a reader of the Home Office Telephony Blog I want to let you in on a cool new service I am about to launch on January 7^th, 2008. I am calling it the "Total Phone Image Makeover" and it is the only service of its kind geared towards home based businesses and solo-preneurs.

One of the things you probably left behind when you exited corporate America and became your own boss was the convenience of having a dedicated IT person or Telecom specialist who knew which communications services were best for your employer and took care of installing and monitoring those services. As a business owner it is now up to you to make the right telecom choices for your business.

The thing is, unless you have a technical background or have spent countless hours on the internet doing research, the multitude of choices can make your head spin. Most home based business owners just give up and end up using their home phone number or cell phone by default thinking that this saves them money and keeps them sufficiently connected.

If this is you, Think Again! We live in a highly competitive world and often times it is those business that are able to project a polished, trustworthy and professional image that are the ones that thrive and get all the clients – regardless of the quality of their work. These days it's not enough to have a snazzy website, or a great looking business card. Your phone image – the impression people get when they call your business number - plays just as big a role.

From now until January 7^th I will post more information about this great new service and what it can do for you. Stay tuned!

Service Providers Listen Up! : Home Based Businesses Have “Mucho” Telecom Buying Power

One of my biggest frustrations as a telecom consultant to home based business owners is the lack of viable choices in the market for this segment of consumers. Most service providers (such as phone companies and broadband carriers) offer plans for either residential customers or business customers and there's a marked difference in pricing from one to the other. This forces most bootstrapping home based business owners to lie and claim to be residential customers when in fact they run legitimate businesses worthy of better service level agreements than home users.

Why is this so? According to a recent study done by AMI Partners, a consulting and research firm, the approximately 15 million U.S home based businesses are expected to reach $19 billion (Yes, that's BILLION!) in telecom related spending in 2007. And that number is expected to rise to $19.5 billion in 2008. That is not chump change.

Did you hear that, service providers? We are a force to be reckoned with and we want affordable rates with better service level agreements. Those providers who cater to our sector will reap handsome rewards. Those who lag behind will soon regret it.

Feature Of The Week: Auto-Attendant

Starting this week I will dedicate one post a week to discussing a particular feature of virtual phone systems. I will not only define the feature and list what it does but I will give you examples of how the feature can help your home based or small businesse be more productive and sound more professional.

This week I have picked the feature that I believe best accomplishes the goal of making your business sound as polished as a large, established company: the Automated Attendant.

According to Webster's New World Telecom Dictionary an Automated Attendant (or Auto Attendant) is "An application in which an interactive voice processor automates many of the functions of a human attendant, answering an incoming call and prompting the caller through a series of spoken menu options to directly access a department or station through touchtone or speech input."

In plain English, an auto-attendant is your very own personal secretary, who works seven days a week, 24 hours a day, never calls in sick or needs a vacation and always answers your calls exactly the way you want them to be answered every single time. Most people who call a business expect a receptionist of some sort to answer the call. Just because you work out of your home office doesn't mean you can't have one too.

Here are a few additional benefits that an auto-attendant can provide your small business:

• It screens your calls and whispers the caller's name so that you know whether it's that huge client you've been trying to land for the last month or just a pesky telemarketer wanting you to take a survey. Some systems go as far as automatically recognizing your current clients from your Outlook address book by their caller ID and giving them priority handling.
• It forwards your calls to the right place every time. Some of you may use your cell phone number as your only business number and are paying the mobile companies dearly for all those minutes. Have the auto-attendant forward your calls to your home line when at home and save yourself some precious cell minutes.
• It greets your callers and forward your calls in a certain way during your established business hours and only take messages for you afterhours. This really helps in setting boundaries with your clients and prevents your business from taking over your whole life.
• It acts as your VP of Business Development by automatically handling some of your lead's inquiries for you. See my previous post: Get More Clients Using Your Telephone.

Unfortunately, my automated attendant will not bring me my coffee in the morning (actually my caffeine of choice is Diet Coke) but since I no longer need to answer my phone every time it rings anymore I have the time to get my own.

Get More Clients Using Your Telephone

When someone talks to you about using the telephone for marketing your business what immediately comes to mind? Cold Calling. That dreaded age old practice of calling people who don't know you to try to sell them your products and services.

I don't know about you but I HATE cold calling and would rather poke myself in the eye than to call a bunch of numbers from a list and go through the humiliation of uncomfortable silences, rude brush offs and sudden hang ups.

Luckily there are many other ways of using your phone to promote yourself and your business. Here are a few that you could implement today with the help of a Virtual PBX:

• Fax on demand – Set up an extension in your system that people can dial to request information about your company and available services. This could be a brochure, a white paper, a list of your services or even an order form. The callers will hear a recording that will instruct them to enter their fax number and the system will automatically fax the requested document to them.
• Information Line – Offer recorded information to callers 24/7. Use this extension for promotions, property listing information, information about your business process and your services and give them your web address. Any information that you would typically provide a prospect to warm them up to you when you speak to them they will be able to hear at any time of day or night.
• Questionnaire Extension (Q&A) – Prequalify your prospects by having them answer a series of questions. Their answers to these questions will be sent to you as one voicemail recording. Let's say you are a Realtor and you have advertised your toll free number. When a prospect sees your ad and call yours number they can be greeted with: "Thank you for calling Joe Realtor. Please answer the following questions so I may better serve you. Press # after each answer. What is your name and telephone number? Are you a buyer or a seller? If you are calling about a listing, what is the address of the property? If you are a buyer, do you have a bank's pre-approval letter?" Etc. This system works great for businesses that get lots of leads and want to separate the hot prospects from the tire kickers.
• Click to Call From Website – Convert those website browsers into paying clients. Add a button to your website that will allow prospects connect to you instantly and for free. When the prospect clicks on the button they will get a dialog box in their computer where they can type in their number. Then the system calls them and connects them to you. The easier you make it for prospects to contact you the higher the probability they will do business with you.
• Track response rates for your ads – Set up an extension for each of your marketing vehicles – yellow pages, classified ad, publications, Google Adwords etc. When you print your contact number include the appropriate extension number. The system will tell you how many calls you received for each, where callers are located and you can export those contacts into your favorite CRM for follow up.

See? There are plenty of ways to make contact with your prospects that don't require cold calling. Thank Heavens!

Is Your Phone Image Consistent With Your Branding?

Most entrepreneurs and small business owners today know the importance of developing a brand for their business. Countless books have been written about the topic. Marketing gurus talk about it incessantly. They tell us to invest in a "corporate identity", get a memorable logo, a professional business card and a sharp looking website. But they seem stop there. To me something very important is being overlooked.

Does your sound match your branding? Once someone sees your website and is impressed enough to call your number - and hopefully hire you - will they hear something as professional and polished as the rest of your business image?

If I call your number right now would I be inspired to hire you or to hang up as quickly as possible? If it's the latter, take a look at some of the technologies we discuss in this blog and make use of them.

Here are some things you can do to spruce up your "phone image":

1. If you use an auto-attendant make sure the recording is of an actual human being – preferably you. However, if you don't care for your own voice, have a friend record the message for you or hire a professional to do it. Companies like Holdcom or Amazing Voice will do the recording for you. Whatever you do don't leave the computer generated prompts no matter how smooth it sounds. Nothing says generic like a robotic voice in your ear.
2. Offer lots of information – a description of your services, information about your business process, your business hours. Have enough information to build trust with your caller but not so much that it would require 4 menus and 15 sub-menus to deliver it. No one will sit through 25 prompts.
3. Always give callers the option to go straight to voicemail and bypass additional prompts. This will be especially appreciated by people who call you frequently. 

What about you? Have you thought about how your brand sounds lately?