Home Office Telephony

Top 10 Benefits Of A Virtual PBX

On the last post I talked about what a Virtual PBX (VPBX) is. On this one I will list what I consider to be the main benefits of using a VPBX in your business. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Work from anywhere – A VPBX allows you to forward your calls automatically to your cell phone or any other alternate number. This means you no longer need to be tied to your desk to wait for that important call. The coffee shop, the airport, the beach, any place can now become your office. If you travel often you can access all your messages and faxes through the web as well as get notifications by text message, e-mail or pager as soon as you have received a new message.

2. Project a more polished, established and reputable company image – Your automated cyber secretary (aka automated attendant) will answer your calls, transfer your calls and take messages. When a caller hears "Please hold the line while I transfer your call to John Smith" they picture John Smith in a suit, sitting at a desk in his office. He doesn't need to know you are sitting in a coffee shop in your shorts and T-shirt – unless you want to tell him. Remember, perception is reality. And the most common perception is that someone in a suit and tie is more trustworthy than someone in a pair of shorts. Ask anyone.

3. Unified Communications - That's the fancy way to say you have one phone number that will handle all your calls, faxes and voicemails. Think of how much tidier your business card will look with just one number as your contact number instead of listing your business line number, cell phone number, fax number and pager number. You can maximize this benefit by using a "vanity" toll free number that spells out something memorable like 800-call-john. No prospect will ever forget that number.

4. Marketing information about your company available 24/7 – Prospects can dial an information extension and listen to a list of your products and services, or details on your latest promotions. They can also request the system to fax them a brochure, white paper or an article of interest to them. Your prospect can do all of this even at 3 AM while you are sound asleep. Your business can now be "open" 24 hours a day.

5. No software or equipment to buy – VPBX services are an add-on to your current services and require no additional equipment. Think of a VPBX as a system that ties all of your communications services together.

6. You can make changes to your system on the fly – With the local phone or cell companies if you want to make any changes to your service you have to call them, wait on hold until someone answers, request the change, wait for the change to complete and the pay them a service fee for that privilege. With VPBXs you can make any change you want at any time you want through their web based interface or through phone access. Adding and deleting, extensions, changing your greetings, activating features, setting up your call forwarding rules, anything you want to move, add or change can be done by you without any waiting or extra charges.

7. Easy and automatic disaster recovery – As I discussed in my previous post, you should always be ready for a disaster. VPBXs will provide business continuity through any situation that may face you. Being able to quickly and easily make changes to your system will ensure that no calls are missed and that prospects can continue to reach you – or at least your business.

8. Ability to prioritize calls - As an independent professional or home based business owner your time is extremely precious. How will you ever have the time to get any work done if you are at the mercy of your phone? Most VPBX's offer what they call a "whisper" feature. This feature allows you to listen to the name of the person who is calling and then decide if you'll take the call, send the caller to voicemail or transfer the caller to another extension (for example, a colleague or the info line extension). You could also place your system in "Do Not Disturb" mode which means all your callers will immediately get your voicemail without the phone ever ringing. Then you can answer your voicemails at your convenience. Aahh! A little peace and quiet can be so nice.

9. Have a local presence in a distant market - Aside from a toll free number which allows for anyone in the country to call you without them having to pay a dime, you can also get a local number in many areas that are not local to you. For example, if you are in Miami, Florida but you have a lot of clients in Los Angeles, California, you can get an L.A number that will terminate in your VPBX. This gives you a local presence no matter where you are located.

10. Pay only for what you need – VPBXs systems are scalable and grow as you grow. You can start out with a simple system and a limited amount of minutes and as your business grows you can add more minutes, more extensions and more features. All this without having to change systems.

Can you see why I love Virtual PBX's? Never have so many features and capabilities been available to micro businesses like ours. Take advantage of this great technology! I will soon add to this blog a list of my recommended VPBX companies but in the meantime just do a Google search and you will find the most popular. If you have any questions about them feel free to contact me.

Things I Hate About VOIP

Ahhh! The promise of free calls and how it makes us overlook a multitude of sins… When I first heard about VOIP I thought "What a great idea! I can use my high speed internet to carry my long distance voice conversations and not have to pay per minute anymore." Vonage was the first service I tried out and I was pretty happy with it. Then my router got fried during one of our frequent Florida thunderstorms. I couldn't justify spending the money to purchase another one right away so that was that. Ever since then I have not been overly impressed with VOIP.

Here are the top 5 things I hate about VOIP:

1. The quality of your VOIP service depends solely on the quality and reliability of your broadband connection - As a solo business owner, did you purchase business grade high speed internet? I know I didn't. It was too expensive! I went with residential grade service which works fine but has one major draw-back. It is asynchronous. What does that mean? It means my download speed is lightning fast but my upload speed is quite a bit slower (about 1/10^th the speed of downstream.) Service providers designed residential service that way figuring most home users are more interested in downloading (music, streaming video and files) than they are uploading. Business class service is typically synchronous – same speeds for downloads and uploads. VOIP service works best with synchronous service but who can afford it? Another little known fact is that if there's an outage my cable company does not rush to restore my service. Business grade customers are fixed first and as a "residential customer" I am not the priority. I've had my broadband down for days at a time because of this policy. Can you afford to have your business line down for days?
2. Call quality often stinks – Maybe I'm one of the unlucky ones but I have yet to use a VOIP service that matches the call quality of a regular (POTS) line. Crackling, echoes, static and speech delays are common, not to mention dropped calls. I recently tested Ringcentral's VOIP service and was heartbroken. I so wanted it to work properly because I LOVE their virtual pbx service. Unfortunately it was awful. Many times during a conversation I could hear the other person but they could not hear me. How frustrating! I've had similar problems with Skype but the most annoying was the speech delay. I would be talking and would hear the other person try to say something which actually was a comment they made a few seconds ago about something I said. By the time I tried to reply to that comment she was trying to reply to my last comment from a few seconds ago. It's a mess! Maybe if I had purchased their IP phone instead of using their softphone I wouldn't have had as much of an issue. See Equipment Requirements below.
3. Equipment requirements – Most VOIP services require that you install a device that is connected to your cable or DSL modem. Some service providers will give you the device for free when you sign up for a service contract. Others require that you pay for the device and they can be pricey. Even if you get the device for free under a promotion keep in mind that if it breaks (like it happened to me) you will need to purchase another one to replace it. There are providers who utilize a "softphone" which is software you install on your computer that converts your computer into a telephone. All you need is a PC Headset. Again, you are now dependent on your computer and if it crashes or it is running slow it will render your phone service out of business. Power outages can also leave you without service since no equipment will run without electricity.
4. E911 – In the US, a POTS line will allow you to dial 911 which connects you to your local emergency service (fire, police or EMT). A lot of VOIP carriers (because they are non-local by nature) do not provide 911 services. If you use VOIP services make sure your carrier offers some kind of 911 service. If not, make sure you have a regular line in your home. The last thing you need is to have an accident or a fire and not be able to call for help.
5. Security Issues – Unlike a POTS line which is practically un-hackable (there is no such thing as an 100% secure ANYTHING) VOIP does have some security vulnerabilities that you should be aware of. Read this article for an overview of VOIP security issues: Security Threats in VOIP .

Despite appearances, I am not completely against VOIP. If you are one of the lucky ones who has VOIP and it works for you I think that's great. I'm jealous. I want my FREE calls!