Happy With Your Business Phone System?

If you are like most businesses, the answer lies somewhere between ambivalence and total disdain.

Maybe you are at the point “if it’s not broke, then don’t fix it”. While your phone system may not be broken, it really could be a lot better. VoIP is a tool that allows businesses of any size to have a better phone system at a price even a small business can afford.

A Business Hosted VoIP Phone System can be easily custom designed to meet your businesses exact requirements without the need to purchase expensive telecommunications hardware.

Any business can literally have a state-of-the-art phone system up and running in a matter of hours that has an upfront cost of $29.95/per user plus the cost of a USB headset and a soft phone.

Your system can have multiple office locations, incorporate home based employees, include Automated Attendants that can answer and transfer callers to any of your employees regardless of their geographic location, music on hold, a complete voice mail system plus many more contact center solutions Features that are too numerous to list here.

AVAD Technologies specializes in the small/medium sized business market. Business small VoIP is all we do. AVAD provides a complete solution, we provide local and toll free phone numbers, the Business VoIP hardware and software, plus free installation and ongoing support.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for small business answering service that is seeking affordable Hosted VoIP phone service. AVAD simplifies Hosted VoIP phone systems by assigning a call center consultant to your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex contact center services or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

If you are thinking about switching your business to VoIP or just have some questions, please feel free to call (800) 733-4136 or fill out the following contact form and a Business VoIP Specialist will give you a call.

Check out for Business VoIP provider and Hosted VoIP providers

How Consultants Use Call Centers

As a consultant you’re often tight on time.

You have clients to deal with, projects to work on, marketing to do …and the list goes on.

One area that consultants should give more consideration to is outsourcing. You can outsource a whole host of areas of your business, but let’s just look at one today – your telephone communications.

When you first hear the word call center you probably think of a big open office floor with hundreds of cubicles and phones ringing off the hook … a buzz of men and women quick talking to take an order or to provide support filling the air.

Valuable In More Than One Way

Today however, call center services go way beyond this and as a consultant can help you in more than one area of your business.

Here are just a few examples:

• You’ll be out at meetings or on the road all day … call centers generally offer an answering service and can receive your calls for you and forward them to your mobile phone if and when needed.

• You’re putting on a seminar or have created an information product you want to sell – of course you’ll have registration online, but many people still prefer calling in – this is a perfect job for a call center to help you with.

• Your business is growing, and while you’re not quite ready to hire a full time assistant you do want and need someone answering your day to day calls … call centers often have receptionist services that can help you with all of that and more.

• And there’s a whole other angle to this too. Call centers can be useful for your client projects. When you want to conduct a survey or some research … call centers can help you get that data by making those calls for you.

Choosing the Right VoIP Service Providers

The call center market is a crowded one and you’ll find all kinds of companies offering a wide array of services. Before you choose one to work with be sure that they clearly understand your goals, are open to doing an initial project like a trial so you can see if you like the working arrangements, and be sure take a look at their client list (and don’t be afraid to give one or two a call to get the whole story).

 

Virtual Call Centers Strategy to Find New Clients

Let me share with you another way that all of this can help you to bring in new clients. If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know I’m a big believer in edu-marketing – that is marketing through educating prospective clients and not bombarding them with hardcore sales messages.

A classic edu-marketing strategy is to offer a free video or report on your website, in your marketing materials, ads and so forth. By giving your prospects the option to call a 24/7 voice mail system that automatically collects their name and contact info they feel better because they know they won’t be ‘pushed to buy’ and are then more likely to request your information … which is great for you because the more people that see your materials and the value in what you offer the better.

Hope you enjoyed this look into how you can make small business call center work for your consulting business. We’ll continue to look at other ways you can outsource aspects of your business for growth in future posts.

If you’ve used call center services and have a story (good or bad) to share, would love to hear about it in the comments below.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for small business answering service that is seeking affordable Hosted VoIP phone systems. AVAD simplifies VoIP internet phone service by assigning a call center consultant to your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex call center monitoring software or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

Check out for Hosted VoIP Call Center and Hosted call center solutions

Fair Use Policy - Unlimited Calling Does Not Mean Unlimited Calling

If one of the reasons you are considering VoIP for your business is because the VoIP Provider offers Unlimited Calling, you need to pay close attention to the fine print.

Most VoIP phone service provider has a clause in their service agreement called a Fair Use Policy or FUP. Before accepting service, make sure this policy is something your business can live with.

What does a fair use policy clause mean to me?

Business VoIP Providers that offer unlimited calling for one monthly price are really not telling you the truth. These plans almost always include a fair use policy in their Terms of Service. A fair use policy sets a maximum amount of minutes per month you can call. Any calls above this amount will be metered and added to your bill.

The good news is that most VoIP companies will view your account in aggregate. If one of your users goes over the fair use limit, but the rest are under, they will allow you to share the minutes from your entire company, and if in aggregate, you are under the policy limit you will not be charged. Most businesses rarely exceed the fair usage limits on an aggregate basis. You just have to make sure the fair use policy includes the aggregate language.

The reason VoIP service providers in USA have include this Claus is because they price their service based on an assumption that on average, each VoIP broadband phone user will use a certain number of calling minutes each month. VoIP Providers also calculate the maximum minutes that if exceeded, will result in a loss to the VoIP Provider. The number of minutes that results in a loss to the VoIP Provider is usually what determines the fair use policy maximum calling minutes.

The levels at which the fair use policy kicks in and your start getting metered for overage varies from 1,500 minutes to 2,500 minutes per month depending on the VoIP business phone system Provider. The average office worker typically spends about 800 minutes per month. For most Hosted VoIP solutions businesses the fair use policy never comes into play. If your company is a heavy phone user, check the fair use policy before you sign up.

In the interest of full disclosure, AVAD Technologies offers an unlimited calling plan and has a fair use policy limit of 1,500 minutes per month in aggregate.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for small business answering service that is seeking an affordable hosted contact center system. AVAD simplifies VoIP for businesses by assigning a call center consultant to your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex call tracking software or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

Check out for Automated phone service and Automated call distribution

When failure is not an option

If you are like most businesses, your phone system is a critical component of your business. Before you decide to use the services of a particular Hosted VoIP Company you need to do your research.

Not all VoIP phone service provider are the same nor are the conditions that exist at each customer location identical. This however does not excuse implementing Hosted VoIP phone systems that delivers poor performance. It is the responsibility of the broadband VoIP Provider to ensure that each installation has the proper conditions in place to ensure maximum results.

If a customer wants Hosted VoIP primarily to save money, and at the same time the customer is not willing to pay for the proper equipment to ensure quality of service, the Hosted residential VoIP providers is asking for problems if they agree to work with that customer. You can’t expect to get business quality voice running over a crappy router supplied by an ISP with a $19.95/month DSL connection and try to run 25 users on that system. This is guaranteed to fail.

On the other hand, if the Hosted VoIP Provider works with the prospective customer and explains what is required and what it costs to install a business grade VoIP for small business solution and prospective customer actually follows the VoIP Providers recommendations, the chances of delivering a successfully VoIP phone system greatly increase.

The ideal Hosted VoIP solution has the following components;

• T-1 connection dedicated to Voice

• VoIP router from manufacturers like Edgewater Networks or Cisco
• IP Phones from Polycom or Cisco
• Hosted VoIP Service from a quality provider
• Hosted VoIP Provider can prove they have redundant facilities.
• Hosted voice over internet protocol providers offers superior customer service

It comes down to the simple but time honored saying “Do your home work first” and “if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is”.

Your phone system is a critical component of your company; it does not make sense to cut corners on one of the most important parts of your business. This is why sky divers don’t choose the cheapest parachute. Failure is not an option.

Tell Us About Your Needs – Get started with AVAD today. Feel free to call us toll-free at (800) 733-4136 or you can complete a short Call Center Quote Request Form.

AVAD’s Small Business Telephone Service is a complete solution that includes VoIP, call centers solution, automated dialing, IVR/ACD, recording, reporting, and multi-media capabilities and Call Blending.

AVAD Technologies is an ideal solution for business voice services that is seeking an affordable hosted VoIP phone system. AVAD simplifies contact center solutions for small businesses by assigning a call center consultant to your company who will assist you throughout the installation and ongoing management of your call center. Your business can create a complex Call Center Software or a simply solution; it all depends on your specific needs.

Check out for Voice over ip for business and Virtual Call Center software