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The key considerations for any SMB business owner before investing in a new phone system or new unified collaboration solution are whether this investment is improving profitability, increasing productivity or reducing operational cost. Asset investment needs to deliver a positive return on investment. It should enables your people to be more efficient and productive.

Below, you’ll find the TOP 5 Tips for choosing an IP PBX for a Small Medium Business.

#1 Easy to use real time communications

Studies according to “MobileSQUARED advertising report,” a mobile research firm, shows that 90% of messages are read within 3 minutes, this is clearly showing how time sensitive and real time communications have become critical to business today.

SMBs can benefit greatly from simple tools, like email plug-in application that allows users to access contacts without opening separate applications and be able click-to-call, click to IM, click to SMS directly from their email applications. This is a very effective way to increase productivity and to decrease cost, especially if integrating with 3rd party internet calls providers.

Conferencing is also becoming the cornerstone of the real time communication. You will want to check the sound quality of the speaker on the desk phone as well as the microphone to ensure that your conference calls are audible for you and your participants (wideband audio, noise cancellation….) This is very important when you have frequent and multiple daily business conference calls. This element is often overlooked as a key requierement for productivity increase.

In addition, surveys have shown that many SMB employees keep a paper directory document and use it everytime they want to call someone in their company. By the simple fact to integrate a directory in the telephone system and to provide a “call by name” feature, even with external alphabetical keyboard on the deskphone, it will provide great improvement on daily productivity.

#2 Investment protection

You may want to consider how requirements might change over time, and make sure you get a system that will scale with your future company size and needs. This could requiere some significant analysis. But, it it important to pre-plan your decision based on future expansions, and based on selecting a vendor that has been in the market for many years, which has shown that it will be able to support and maintain your system in the long term.

Reduce operational cost by planning to reverse the cost curve between operating and managing complex systems. Look in to replacing with a system targeted for SMB which offers high business value, low complexity and attractive pricing. It is impressive to see how cost effective and capable SMB telephony systems have become – you could pay much less today in operating cost but get a strong productivity increase. Make sure you are selecting an easy to use and easy to maintain telephony system, and this will assure a much lower operational cost on the long term.

Many SMB are also considering CAPEX and OPEX as cost of operating a network. Don’t put too much significance on initial capiral expenditure and installation cost, look at the long term on-going cost, and do an analysis of the true real cost of ownership. One of the significant factor that should be looked at is the “gain or loss” of revenue because of the telephony network. A ROI is measured by increased transactions, increased productivity, increase customer satisfaction and then by cost saving.

#3 Mobility – BYOD – remote workers

In early 2014, internet usage from mobile devices exceeded PC/laptop usage.

The challenge for a SMB is to balance the risk of opening the door to mobility while gaining the advantages brought by BYOD. Many businesses are coming up with alternate solutions, for example, limiting functions and restricting access to company information.

Other capabilities providing users with Web applications can keep users in touch with their company anywhere using any compatible desktop web browser (from a smartphone, a tablet, a desktop computer or a laptop on Mac/Windows, etc…) whenever they have internet access, simplifying the maintenance and support. This permits users to access call logs anywhere, and to forward their extensions to any phones whether a mobile or home phone, etc.

Applications such as NFC (Near Field Communications) have been gaining traction with easy on-site mobility that delivers benefit from session shift between desk phone and their NFC-enabled smartphone.

More and more companies consider how mobile users and teleworkers can work from anywhere, anytime, whether from home, or from a Starbucks, on the road. Providing the right solution could be complex, between a highly secure but expensive solution, or a simple solution with higher security risk. The analysis of the different solutions should be reviewed carefully and selected based on individual companies’ needs.

#4 Network Assessment

SMBs have a need to implement productivity-enhancing IT services with reduced costs. With that need, they face the complexity between network security, mobility, quality of services and class of services for local applications or cloud applications running on their data network.

A study done in 2015 “Network barometer 2015” looked at large installed based of mid to large customers showed surprising results:

– 60% of network devices have at least one security vulnerability

– 74% of wireless access points are still older models (802.11g and older) that don’t support a sound mobility and security strategy.

– 53% of network devices are aging or obsolete (and it is growing year over year)

These points above show it is critical to review the status of your network infrastructure.

If you are a SMB owner looking at implementing VoIP, BYOD or real time application, it is critical to review the current status of your data network.

SMBs have to find the right balance between security risk, cost and advantages to open the network. Upgrading your network to the latest technology and latest software version is a critical element to make sure VoIP, UC, and BYOD investments run smoothly based on your infrastructure.

#5: Technology alone won’t solve your collaboration problems

Based on a study in March 2015 from “Harvard Business review by Mark Mortensen,” every week a vendor introduces a new gadget, system or services that promises to make us communicate and collaborate better. However, the reality is that most results are actually not providing much improvement in collaboration and productivity increase.

It’s not what technology you’ve got, but how you use it! The important point is to align knowledge management systems (or any system for that matter) with how people actually work. While we often think of the future of collaboration resting on the shoulders of technology, that is only part of the story. Sure, technology provides opportunities, but it’s important to view technology and social systems as partners. The promise of tomorrow’s collaboration requires actively considering, designing, and fine-tuning both.

Discuss with our consultants

Going through this exercise can take some time, but this is one of the most important business infrastructure decisions you’ll make, so it’s worth taking the time to pre-plan so you make the right business value decision. Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is the leading European provider of communication solutions. We will be pleased if you would like to engage with our communication advisers.

Source: http://blog-enterprise.alcatel-lucent.com/article/top-5-tips-choosing-ip-pbx-your-small-business

When justifying a loyalty initiative, too many executives focus ONLY on the financials, but there are 15 major business benefits – each a competitive advantage – that only a loyalty initiative can provide…

Many of the so-called loyalty programmes in operation today are not really loyalty programmes at all. Frequent customer is a more accurate term. To be loyal to a business is one thing, to use it frequently is another – it could be a result of circumstances that there is no other choice. Clearly, if another choice becomes available, then the distinction becomes critical. This means that most prudent businesses aim to create loyal customers, not just frequent customers.

Of course, not all customers are potentially loyal customers, for a variety of reasons. So the ideal loyalty programme would be one in which already loyal and potentially loyal customers benefited, but other customers didn’t.

This means that the customers have first to be sorted into groups, and different approaches have to be made to each group. Or, more likely, a programme has to be designed so that it will appeal to the desired group more than to the other group.

A good point at which to start is at the very beginning – when acquiring the customers. In many typical businesses, as many as 45% of direct, new, one-off purchasers do not go on to purchase a second time. In order to grow and maintain a successful business, three simple rules should be followed:

1. Acquire customers that are likely to repurchase – even though this may be at the expense of initial raw response;
2. Recognise which customers are unlikely to repurchase and limit your marketing spend for this segment accordingly;
3. Focus the marketing budget on those who exhibit the same profile as existing repurchasers but have yet to buy a second time.

The fifteen biggest business benefits that every loyalty programme operator should expect to reap – and use to justify continuing and expanded investment in the programme – are as follows:

1. Retain existing customers
   The effect of the customer retention rate on actual, bottom-line customer numbers cannot be over-estimated. In five years, a firm with a 70% customer retention rate will have lost two to three times as many customers as a firm with a 90% retention rate.Not only does a loyalty programme provide a practical, hard reason for continuing to buy (the accumulation of points toward a reward, or higher levels of service) but it also provides information about the customers that allows their needs to be met more efficiently and effectively. This in turn makes them more likely to remain customers. In addition, loyalty programme operators often report that, once a customer starts redeeming rewards, enthusiasm and engagement both increase.In addition to simply retaining customers, the data from a loyalty programme can be used to better cater for their varying needs. Companies typically use this data to segment their customers for the purposes of marketing, sales and customer services. But customers are more complex than that. Their needs and desires differ from time to time, from occasion to occasion, and depending on the reason for the transaction. In other words, the customer is ‘divisible’. Thus marketing can go deeper than one-to-one; it can identify customers’ changing needs and then provide perceived benefit venue-by-venue and situation-by-situation.
2. Acquire new customers
   A loyalty programme should attract new customers to the business; how effectively will depend on how exciting and how valuable the rewards seem to be to the target audience. Acquiring customers is no doubt essential to any business, but it can be expensive if compared to nurturing existing good customers. It should not be the central focus of a loyalty programme; there are cheaper and more effective ways of acquiring customers. However, it is generally far more profitable to retain and up-sell existing customers than to attract new ones.Using a four-year profile of new customer behaviour from a leading retailer, loyalty expert Brian Woolf has shown that, one year after becoming a customer, only two out of each thousand new customers (0.2%) were in the top customer segment and only twelve (1.2%) were in the second segment. Over half were inactive. Between 95% and 96% of the new arrivals were either in the lowest segment or had left by the end of the year. However, quality of new customers acquired can be raised by careful use of the existing data of a loyalty programme. This can be used to establish the demographic particulars of existing best customers, and then to target prospective customers with similar demographics in acquisition campaigns.
3. Move customers up-segment
   By grading rewards (for example, offering extra points for exceeding a specified spend threshold in a time period), customers can be moved up from one spend level to the next. A good example of this is The Continuity Company (TCC), a provider of best customer marketing programmes, which skews its rewards to encourage lower spending customers to move up through the spend segments. In one of the company’s recent case studies, the top spending band’s contribution to sales increased by 41%, the next band down increased its contribution to sales by 45% and the lowest spend band decreased its contribution to sales by some 7%.
4. Deselect unprofitable customers
   It can be more profitable to lose bad customers than to gain new ones. Cherry pickers (who buy only your discounted lines and nothing else) cost you money, as does any low-spending customer. They cost more money to service than they generate. Designing a loyalty programme that rewards better customers without rewarding this segment at all gives them less reason to stay.Gary Hawkins, CEO for US-based Green Hills Supermarket, has found that only around three in ten customers actually generate enough profit to cover the cost of servicing them. What about the other seven? Does it make sense to keep them as customers? To a certain extent it does: if they can be identified through a loyalty programme, efforts can be made to move them up through the segments and hopefully they will become more profitable customers. Moreover, while possibly not generating profit directly, they are contributing to the size of the business and also contributing to fixed operating costs (rent, rates, utilities etc.).However, the ‘worst of the worst’ could probably be profitably lost. So far, it seems that only financial institutions have gone as far as actually closing unprofitable customers’ accounts. The generally adopted approach by other businesses is simply not to reward them in any way and hope that they will leave.
5. Win-back defected & churned customers
   Customer win-back expert Michael Lowenstein says that the success rate in approaching ‘lost’ customers can be three to four times as high as it is when prospecting for new customers. For example, the rate for converting prospects might typically be 5%, while that for reactivating inactive customers might be as high as 15-20%.In the book ‘Customer Winback’, the authors point out that there are several reasons why customer win-back has a greater chance of success than acquisition. You have advantages with lost customers that you don’t have with prospects, including information about their past purchase history, where and how to reach them, and their preferred communication channel.
6. Increase Customer Lifetime Value
   Customer Lifetime Value (CLV or CLTV) is increasingly being recognised as one of the most important measures of the worth of a customer. It takes into account not only the customer’s value now but the expected value over their projected lifetime as a customer. It is arguably the best way a marketer can demonstrate unequivocally that a programme is working: the CLV of targeted customers must increase.
7. Best customer marketing
   Simply put, best customer marketing (BCM) involves spending more time, effort, and money on your best customers in order to maximise the return on marketing investment.The strategy has been honed to a fine art by leading marketers such as Brian Woolf and Gary Hawkins, and has become the driving force behind the leading loyalty programmes in the world today.
8. Build relationships
   Building relationships is crucially important but not always as straight-forward as it might seem. It has been said that relationship marketing is powerful in theory but troubled in practice – an unpalatable concept but probably one with which many marketers could identify. If ever there has been an example of “many a slip ‘tween cup and lip”, counting on the building of relationships with all and sundry in order to generate profits must be somewhere near the top of the list.Building a relationship with customers leads to improved behavioural loyalty and thus to increased bottom-line profits. That’s obvious, isn’t it? Well, no. In fact it doesn’t always work like that. It has been argued that attempting to partner with all customers, regardless of their characteristics, might not always be the best way forward.There are factors that alter the importance of the relationship/behaviour/profits equation quite significantly. Age is just one of these factors. Studies carried out in the UK in the 1990s concluded that customers under 45 were most loyal and those over 65 were least loyal. Yet other studies found no clear relationship between age and loyalty. It used to be thought that older customers were more loyal to brands than younger customers but even that is changing, with some studies finding no clear relationship.
9. Create brand advocates
   Advocacy is one of the highest forms of loyalty that a customer can show. Advocates are so satisfied and pleased with your offering that they tell their friends and associates.To most people, a personal recommendation is far more convincing than any amount of promotional material they receive – even if they already trust the brand.
10. Adjust pricing levels
    A loyalty programme can also help to formulate pricing structure. If enough best customers are happy to buy a product at a particular price there seems little point in reducing that price simply to attract cherry-pickers.But aside from helping to decide what pricing changes should be made, the after-effects of changing prices can also be studied by segmenting and testing offers on the loyalty database – for example, which customer segments buy significantly more or less when prices change, either gradually or suddenly.
11. Responding to competitive challenges
    A good loyalty programme’s ability to tie purchases to individual customers allows quick and accurate identification of customers who defect when new competition opens nearby. They can then be enticed back with customer-specific special offers or even direct contact.For example, one small store had to face up to a competitor opening a much bigger store on the same parking lot. In anticipation, the small store was extensively remodelled, causing considerable disruption. Over the period of remodelling (a matter of several weeks) turnover dropped by 40%. However, a loyalty programme enabled management to identify regular shoppers and mail them a letter thanking them for their patience and enclosing some special offers. All but 183 customers returned to the store. The store management team then sent handwritten invitations and a US$10 gift certificate to those 183 customers. All but three returned.After the new competitor opened, the smaller store’s whole customer database was mailed an offer containing US$5-off coupons for US$50 orders in each of the following twelve weeks. Any customer using all twelve received an extra US$10 certificate. The result was that sales actually rose by between 6% and 7% over the months following the new opening. The competitor’s store (which was approximately twice the size) achieved less than half the sales of the remodelled store. This shows the power of knowing who your customers are.
12. Select stock lines effectively
    Knowing what best customers buy frequently helps choose which lines to stock and which lines to expand on. By way of example, the owner of a small UK-based suburban supermarket had twelve months’ notice that a large national supermarket was opening right over the road from him. He realised that without major changes he would not survive. What he did was simple but clever. The suburb in which he was situated was mixed, having mainly low-cost housing but also a very exclusive area. Many of his customers were low earners who bought their basic requirements every day or two from him – in essence, what they could carry home in a couple of bags. He knew that they would migrate to the lower prices and bigger ranges of the big chain.However, a considerable number of the more wealthy people would call in on their way home from work to pick up bread and milk and a few odds and ends. He started noting what they bought, and what they never bought. Over the months, he stopped ordering products that they never bought, and increased his range of things that they did buy. Over the year, his store slowly changed from a small supermarket to a very big delicatessen. His wealthy customers told their friends and the composition of his customer base changed from mainly low earners to mainly high earners. When the supermarket opened over the road, his low earners did migrate, but he hardly noticed the difference.
13. Plan merchandising more intelligently
    Basket analysis can identify what lines are bought at the same time, particularly by best customers, and planograms can be planned accordingly to encourage cross-purchasing.The apocryphal story of a retailer (usually said to be Wal-Mart) discovering from basket analysis that men who buy baby nappies also buy beer (the refined version on the internet includes “on Friday evenings”) may be true or not – there is a whole web site devoted to discussing its veracity. But this story, regardless of its origin, does illustrate the potential of the principle in its own bizarre way.Data similar to this is used widely to plan planograms for store merchandising. Of course, on one level, plain basket analysis without a loyalty programme is enough for this purpose. But add the dimension of knowing who the customer is, how much they spend, and where they live and you can confidently decide whether it is worth putting a display of nappies in the beer aisle on Friday evenings or not!
14. Reduce promotional and advertising costs
    Because advertising based on segmentation of a loyalty database can be highly targeted instead of untargeted, significant savings can be made. There is no need to send out thousands of flyers that will be thrown away unread, or take pages of newspaper space that is irrelevant to many of the readers.Targeted advertising works measurably. The more sophisticated type of loyalty programme – such as the UK’s Tesco Clubcard – can not only target advertising material almost individually to its many millions of members but it can accurately measure the response rates to those advertisements. If Mrs Smith is sent a coupon for money off Whitesmile toothpaste, the system knows whether or not she redeems that coupon. That information is valuable not only to Tesco, but to the makers of Whitesmile toothpaste. Not only does this form of advertising save Tesco money; it actually earns Tesco money. While national UK magazines are reported to charge between £5,000 and £7,000 per page for advertising, Tesco is said to charge up to £37,000 for an A5 page (roughly half the size of a standard A4 magazine) – and brands pay those kind of rates because it works. Buying space in the magazine is an accountable investment toward measurable sales; one particular toilet tissue brand saw a 27% increase in sales after advertising in this way.
15. Selecting new trading sites
    Selecting a site for a new store is no longer a case of sticking a pin in a map, or choosing a site on a hunch. The loyalty card enables you to profile the demographics of best customers and – because it is often likely that the best prospective customers will have similar demographics – choose new locations much more accurately.In addition, if the addresses of existing customers are known, they can be plotted geographically and sites can be chosen where there are outlying pockets of customers or gaps in coverage.

Source: http://www.thewisemarketer.com/features/read.asp?id=120

1. Check your local telecommunications authority.

Depending on your location, most governments require a license from telecommunications authorities before you can set up a call center. You don’t want to encounter any issues with any government agencies after your investment. Check it out first.

2. Go to any telecommunications provider and ask for two things
A toll-free number with a multi channel interface (ISDN)

Go to any telecommunication provider in your area and ask for a toll-free number and a telephone connection that’s capable of receiving multiple calls simultaneously. This is normally an ISDN PRI.
Apply for a broadband with SDSL connection

SDSL is an acronym for Symmetric Digital Subscriber Line. Unlike standard ADSL broadband, upload and download speeds are the same with SDSL, A bandwidth of 512 kb is capable of receiving 6-8 calls simultaneously with acceptable audio quality.

You can also choose to apply for a leased line. But SDSL is much cheaper than leasing a line. You simply need to pay a flat monthly subscription with no additional charges.

3. Get hold of an IP PABX

IP PABX stands for Internet Protocol Private Automatic Branch Exchange. In simple terms, it is an office’s own full IP telecom system that reduces the cost of office communications. IP PABX allows different offices to share a common phone line, thus reduces the number of direct lines which would otherwise be installed per office.

While the configuration of your IP PABX will be provided by your vendor, you might need to hire a permanent person to take care of this device and its configuration.

4. Purchase IP Phones and lots of Ethernet cables

How you connect your computer to a hub is the same as how you would plug in the IP phones to the IP PABX.

5. Have your support number routed to your IP Gateway

IP PABX would normally provide you with the facility to connect directly to ISDN PR to start receiving calls. If not, your best option is to get a VoIP for consumers.

Don’t be overwhelmed by the term. With the adoption of VoIP by consumers (which is ideal for small call centers), consumer VoiP PBX have appeared with PBX functions becoming just a simple software feature of a consumer-grade routers and switches.

6. Install the necessary call center software

You will need to install an application to your agent’s computer that should provide real time information on the current status of a customer, and any other business policies involving such status.

Check out for a call center management software that doesn’t just provide the ability to control and handle daily customer-related business tasks, but also features instant routing of privileged customers to the best agents, reduces holding times for customers, and offer more efficient scheduling of employees and detailed reporting.

There are also management contact software that will coordinate and manage the interactions between your company and your customers.

Customer satisfaction and the overall business can be greatly influenced by the use of the right software for call centers. You will have a satisfied customer if you can reduce the wait time and connect them immediately with the concerned department. This helps improve customer perception. Customer expectations are high and given the advancements in technology that has made everything fast paced and they expect businesses to be on its toes ready to resolve their issues and with the information they want. To keep up with such demands the best you can do is to set up with the reliable call center system.

Investing in the right online contact management software can reduce costs effectively. The better your business handles calls, the better you earn. Efficiency is the key to a successful call center business.

Source: http://callcentersphil.blogspot.com/2011/10/6-steps-to-set-up-call-center-for-small.html

In recent years, loyalty programs that reward buyers for sticking with the brand have steadily grown in popularity.

Between 2008 and 2012, U.S. loyalty memberships increased by 10 percent per year – reaching over 23 memberships per household.

But for all their growth and popularity, do loyalty programs really pay off for the companies that offer them? A recent McKinsey study suggests that on average, they do not – and may in fact destroy value for program owners. The study, involving 55 publicly traded North American and European companies, showed that those that spend more on loyalty, or have more visible loyalty programs, grow at about the same rate – or slightly slower – than those that do not (4.4 vs  5.5 percent per year since 2002).

Notably, this trend appears to vary by sector, with loyalty focus having a positive impact on hotel growth, but negative impact on airlines, car rentals, and food retail, for example. However, as a whole, companies surveyed that had higher loyalty spend also had EBITDA margins that were about 10 percent lower than companies in the same sectors that spent less on loyalty.

Despite relative underperformance in terms of revenue growth and profitability, over the past five years, market capitalization for companies that greatly emphasize loyalty programs has outpaced that of companies that don’t. This may reflect the hope that meaningful loyalty programs can drive long-term value – and perhaps that data amassed through loyalty programs will pay dividends in due time. Still, why do many loyalty programs fail to deliver this long-term value? And how do the winners manage to buck the trend?

Hallmarks of success, the ones that buck the trend

Companies that have developed loyalty programs that succeed in driving revenue growth share some common characteristics:

Integrate loyalty into the full experience:  Starbucks, the brand that created loyalty by differentiating the ordinary experience of drinking coffee, has also managed to create a strongly differentiated loyalty program. To do this, the company integrated payments and mobile technology with the Starbucks shop experience to make the transaction more enjoyable.

Use the data: The Target REDcard combines loyalty and a valuable discount program – 5 percent at the point of sale. They have moved past the flat “discount-only” model by building out industry- leading data capabilities, using the data to target highest-value consumers (e.g., future moms).

Build partnerships: Despite Tesco’s massive success at using data to drive loyalty, Sainsbury slightly outpaced the giant’s sales growth in the UK for the last three to four years; in part this could be due to a new form of loyalty program. Sainsbury is the anchor retailer of the Nectar coalition, which allows consumers to collect rewards across a large number of non-competing retailers in the UK. Through Nectar, Sainsbury offers a broader value proposition to its customers, and captures external data from coalition partners.

Solve customer and industry pain points: Amazon’s largest success in loyalty is built around solving one of online shoppers’ primary pain points: delivery. For $79 a year, members of the online retailer’s “Prime” program get free two-day shipping, plus free digital content. Prime not only integrates tightly with Amazon’s customer and convenience-focused brand, it also creates a loyalty program for suppliers, who rely on Fulfillment By Amazon for access to Prime customers. While Prime’s stand-alone profitability is a closely guarded secret, it is estimated that members spend over four times more with Amazon than non-members.

Maximize difference between perceived value and real cost: Like most hotel loyalty programs, the major focus of the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) program is to attract high-value travelers by offering rewards t for personal leisure travel. Redemptions generally occur on weekends, when these hotels have relatively low occupancy and incur limited incremental cost. Starwood has also developed a series of offerings (e.g., upgrades, flexible check-in, Internet) that are highly valuable to their top customers, but bear little marginal cost. Overall, Starwood’s loyalty program has improved its brand appeal and helped the chain achieve above market growth, despite relatively low overall guest satisfaction scores.

Allocate loyalty reinvestment to the most profitable customers: Southwest Airlines’ loyalty program has been a hallmark of its brand, and the 2010 revamping of the program appears to have maintained its customer appeal, while better correlating its spend to profitability. While most airlines attach rewards to miles flown, Southwest offers rewards based on ticket price. Their loyalty rewards spend remains similar to that of other loyalty-focused airlines (i.e., 8 to 9 percent of revenue passenger miles), but the program is better positioned to drive profitability.

Loyalty programs are not only growing, but they are also becoming more tightly integrated with the supporting brand and shopping experience, offering consumers a seamless experience across point of sale, the Internet, phone and mobile channels. Consumer-facing businesses must think beyond the concept of a me-too, points-based loyalty program. To reap the full benefits of customer loyalty, they must create a differentiated experience, consistent with their brand, to provide a step change in brand preference.

Source: 2014, (http://www.businessinsider.com/effective-loyalty-programs-2014-3)

Once your company grows past the small business stage, you’ll probably provide telephone services to the office through a private branch exchange (PBX) system of some kind—also known as a switchboard. This lets you share a number of incoming phone lines among a larger number of extensions, so it’s not necessary to pay for a separate line for every office employee or workstation, which saves money.

However, you can save even more money by using VoIP instead of traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) lines. There are many IP PBX solutions available, including popular open source products such as Asterisk.

But the implementation and ongoing maintenance of an IP PBX system requires a type of expertise that your IT staff may not have. And if you go with a commercial product, the up-front costs for the hardware and software may be high.

One alternative is to use a hosted IP PBX service. Just as some organizations prefer to use a Web hosting service rather than run their own Web servers, some find it easier and/or more cost-effective to have their IP PBX services hosted offsite—a solution sometimes referred to as IP Centrex. Let’s look at some of the benefits of hosted IP PBX for organizations.

The Centrex concept

The concept of centralized PBX services (Centrex) came about in the 1960s in regard to traditional phone service; the telephone company hosted the PBX service at its central offices (COs). In early systems, an attendant handled operations, controlling the switching via a complex console.

Centrex service never became as popular as on-site PBX systems, and its primary use was at enterprise-level companies and government agencies. However, the combination of Centrex-type service with IP delivery makes this concept very attractive to many businesses today, especially those in the midsize category.

Advantages of hosted services

A big advantage of using hosted services such as Centrex is that you don’t have to make the initial capital investment in expensive equipment. Further, you don’t need anyone on staff to maintain and troubleshoot it—all of the equipment resides at the provider’s site. These can be important factors for a growing business on a tight budget.

This makes for a scalable solution as well, since the provider usually has the means to upgrade your service easily as you add more users or need more sophisticated features. The number of users is almost unlimited with a hosted service, whereas when you use an on-site IP PBX, the hardware and/or software can limit the number of phones that can connect to the system.

How it works

There are a couple of different approaches to Centrex:

• Centrex IP uses Class 5 switches, the same type of large switch used at the telco CO for traditional lines. Centrex IP adds equipment that allows the Centrex service to run over an IP network. Companies such as Lucent and Nortel offer these types of solutions.
• IP Centrex uses an IP-based server, rather than a telco switch, to provide the Centrex features and functionality. In a hybrid architecture, the Class 5 switch coexists with the Centrex server, but the Centrex functions reside in the server, not the switch. In a softswitch environment, the Class 5 switch is done away with entirely, and a softswitch—a media gateway and applications server—provides the services that the Class 5 switch would have provided.

More sophisticated hosted IP PBX solutions include Web-based management so you retain more control over the service. You can use a browser to perform management tasks, rather than having to request that the provider make changes for you.

IP-based server solutions offer more flexibility. They can be part of a unified messaging solution that includes voice mail, fax, and e-mail integration.

Hosted IP PBX options

As you would expect, the larger telephone companies offer hosted VoIP services.

• AT&T Voice DNA provides a virtual IP PBX solution hosted on an application server. It provides for SIP-based VoIP with easy access for remote users at other sites. Not only does it include Web-based tools for administrators, but individual users can manage their call logs and voice mail through a Web interface.
• Verizon Hosted IP Centrex is available through Verizon’s business services division in more than 200 metropolitan markets in the United States, as well as several European countries, including France, the United Kingdom, and Germany. You can get unlimited, tiered, or metered service, and there are many add-on services (at additional cost) available, including conferencing, voice mail, and calling cards.

But it’s not just the big telcos that offer these services. And in some cases, you can get more competitive prices and/or more features for the same cost from other companies.

• Speakeasy Business VoIP offers a hosted PBX solution that includes conferencing capability and advanced features such as “click-to-dial” integration with Microsoft Outlook, voice mail as e-mail attachments, and a remote office feature that allows users to place calls from any phone as if they were in the office.
• Mendax’s Hosted IP PBX service puts an emphasis on security issues and offers advanced PBX features, such as auto attendant, with no limit on the number of concurrent calls that users can place or receive through the system. It also includes online monitoring and modification of features from automatic voice mail to e-mail forwarding.
• GlobalTone’s IP Centrex service integrates with its VoiceConnect and VoiceSelect services, with usage-based pricing and no upfront costs.

Author: Deb Shinder, 2007

Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/article/can-your-company-benefit-from-hosted-ip-pbx-services/

Many small businesses today are making the switch over to VoIP business phone systems. There are plenty of advantages to using such a service, but a lot of small business owners are overlooking some of the most valuable features. Beyond options like voicemail, call waiting, toll free numbers, call forwarding, and remote operation, you’ll find a host of other features that can help your small business.

1: Door phone entry buzzer integration

This feature allows you to integrate an analog door phone so that you can have a two-way call with visitors and then unlock the door from your phone if you deem them worthy. A great way to upgrade the security of your building.

2: Find me/follow me call routing

Mobile workers will appreciate this feature. Find me/follow me call routing allows you to create a list of numbers where you can be found before the call gets pushed to voicemail. So, for example, you might have your office phone ring twice, but on the third ring, your cell phone starts to ring, and then on the fifth, your home phone. If the list is exhausted, the caller gets sent to voicemail.

3: Voicemail to email transcription

Voicemail to email transcription transcribes your voicemail messages to text and sends them to a preferred email. You don’t have to worry about furiously scribbling names, numbers, and addresses. Take your time and read them in your email at your leisure. This also allows you to file, organize, delete, and search all your voicemails in a way that would otherwise be impossible.

4: Music on hold

If your company often has to put callers on hold, this feature is a necessity. Do not subject your callers to terrible elevator music — or worse, silence. This feature allows you to choose what your callers listen to as they wait. (Tip: You can’t go wrong with Journey.)

5: Bandwidth utilization and inbound/outbound call detail reports

Data! As a business, data tracking is essential to figure out where to direct your company’s time and energy. A managed, cloud-based VoIP service can provide bandwidth utilization information that allows you to view data usage over a period of time. Inbound and outbound call detail reports let you view details of your company’s call history, including rate centers, duration, originator, destination, and cost.

6: Call screening

Call screening is an often-forgotten feature of the VoIP business world that can come in handy. It allows you to look at a number on the caller ID and choose how to treat it. For example, if your spouse is calling, you can redirect the number to your cell phone. Or if it’s a caller that keeps trying to sell you energy supplements, you can disconnect them.

7: Coaching tools

Instead of giving your employees advice after they’ve hung up the phone, give them advice while they’re on the call. Two features can help you train and monitor your employees’ on-phone performance: barge and whisper. Barge allows you to listen to a conversation between an employee and a client without interrupting. You can alert them — or decide not to. Whisper allows you to provide advice, tips, and information to your employees while they are on the phone with a client without the client being aware.

Author: Amber Newman/TechRepublic

Source: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10-things/10-voip-features-that-can-benefit-your-small-business/

One of the outsourcing trends in Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) industries today is called call center seat leasing. With fast internet connection and amazing development in communication systems, virtual outsourcing of general administrative tasks has become highly indispensable and cost-effective for many business owners.

A Complete Solution

Call center seat leasing offers a complete solution to any small or large business industry. Through an effective delegation of tasks, business owners will be able to have more time in their hands to address the most important things. Depending on one’s particular needs, a business owner can take a number of call center seats with highly trained agents attending for his or her customer’s problems or issues 24/7.

Less Expense

Hiring directly the services of a good quality BPO company is far more practical and cost less than hiring your own customer service team. In addition, as business owner, you no longer have to manage them and go through the hassle of training them for the job and buying additional office equipment. You can simply eliminate these things with call center leasing. You can have one call center seat or more depending on your job requirements.

Hire the Best

Another best thing with call center seat leasing is that you can choose to only hire the best in the field. With lots of companies offering the same services, you can surely find the best ones that you want to work for your company. You can be certain, too, that every call center or a virtual assistant you hire is carefully trained and possesses the skills required to make the job done properly.

The growing industry of call center seat leasing and virtual assistant services offers great solutions for both business owners and highly skilled individuals to work together for business growth. The Philippines and India are two of the leading offshore outsourcing locations in the world that provide the great and highly skilled people who can serve perfectly to your business needs, giving you greater flexibility and optimum virtual assistance that you want for your business growth.

*IT Support

Nowadays, almost everything works through a computer and internet connection. Any issue in relation to programs and networks need immediate IT support.

Written by: Jobette

Source: http://www.cebuimage.com/top-benefits-of-call-center-seat-leasing/

*Added by NextIX