Business Phones Archives

Business Communication Mistakes To Avoid

Effective communication is at the heart of every successful business, no matter the size or industry. In today’s diverse global business environment, effective communication skills will definitely set you apart from your peers and competitors.

Here are some common communication mistakes we are all guilty of and it would be best to avoid:

Discussing Sensitive Information Through Email

How many emails do you send and receive a day… 10, 50, 100? It’s efficient and effective; without it, we’d all probably have a few problems to say the least! We are so reliant on email that it’s easy to forget the company privacy policy when trying to get through a busy day. However, with the leak of countless confidential emails belonging to prominent organizations over the last few months, now more than ever, it is important to think twice before we hit “send”.

Failing To Train New Employees On Their Desk Phones

It’s easy to assume that people know how to use their email client or smartphone, but what about their desk phone? With all of the models and variations out there, the features and functionality of a new desk phone may be completely new to your recent hire. That’s why it’s important to make sure they are trained on it. Any good business phone provider, including Introtel, will provide training services to your staff.

Failing to Respond to Voicemails

There’s no rule on acceptable time to respond to your voicemail messages. Instead of responding quickly with incomplete information, it is better to wait to respond when you are able to address everything in the message. Furthermore, if your caller asked you to call them back, don’t send an email. Likewise, if they give you the option to respond by email or by phone, use the method that best helps you communicate your point. The main goal is to give your caller the information they need, in the timeliest manner. In general, people in our offices respond to voicemails within the same business day or at most, up to one business day later.

Speaking More and Listening Less

To stay on top of any situation, stop speaking and listen. When you listen more than you speak, you open yourself up to learning and empathy — which in turn help you accomplish more.

Transferring Customers To Numerous Departments

Having dedicated representatives to take customer calls is one of the most important customer relationship management plans you can put in place. If you have ever called a company and been transferred to department after department, you understand how frustrating it can be. That’s why as a business, you should have a plan to deal with sales inquiries, complaints, and general questions. It may sound simple but all too often, businesses fail to plan for this and therefore risk losing customers.

Are you guilty of making any of the communication mistakes above? Let us know in the comments section!

By the experts at Introtel

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8 TOP VOIP TRENDS YOU NEED TO KNOW IN 2020

If you’ve been thinking about replacing your business phone system, it’s worth brushing up on the latest VoIP trends. Even if you’re not, things are changing rapidly enough that your competitors may be getting an edge by taking advantage of the latest advancements in VoIP and VoIP-related technology.

Business communications and collaboration has been undergoing a huge transformation recently. According to Harvard Business Review, Telecom is the #2 industry undergoing digital transformation.

What does this mean for you? That depends on your business. We’ve assembled the latest VoIP trends below so you can assess which ones give you the most opportunity to make an impact with your technology choices.

1. Increased VoIP Security & Compliance Demands

As hosted and cloud VoIP gain wider acceptance, companies are demanding more security out of their VoIP solutions. Hosted VoIP is not just a curiosity anymore. It’s no longer the exclusive domain of startups and businesses willing to take risks. Serious businesses are relying on hosted VoIP to carry vital communications and sensitive information.

Leading hosted VoIP providers are responding by ensuring higher levels of security to keep customers’ data and communications safe, away from the prying eyes of hackers. At Mitel, we’ve done this in part by hosting our flagship cloud VoIP communications system on Google Cloud Platform. It means our customers get the resources of one of the world’s largest tech companies to help keep their hosted communications safe.

In fact, it’s not just general security that’s getting attention in the hosted VoIP sector lately. Companies in highly regulated industries like healthcare are interested in the advantages hosted VoIP can provide—demanding greater security and compliance from providers who want to serve them. This is especially true in smaller healthcare organizations like doctor’s offices, dentists, clinics and specialists.

We’re glad that some hosted VoIP phone systems like MiCloud Connect have been updated in a way that’s brought their security standards up to the requirements of the likes of HIPAA and SOC2 compliance—ultimately giving customer a choice they didn’t have before.

2. VoIP System Value Vs Lowest Price

It’s easy for any technology provider to claim it offers a price advantage. But as hosted VoIP becomes more ubiquitous and product/service offerings become more mature, fewer companies are focused on simply procuring the cheapest option. More companies are looking to get good value for the money as the shortcomings of budget systems rear their heads.

Cheap VoIP phone systems are typically just that—cheap. They’re designed to minimize costs, so cheap providers can’t spend time developing and delivering quality products and services. They typically have minimal features, clunky interfaces, poor customer support and little-to-nothing in the way of integrations with business-critical third-party applications, like Salesforce or Google Office apps.

You may get a pat on the back for saving the company money when you first sign a contract with a cheap VoIP supplier, but you’ll be dodging angry looks a few months in, when nobody can get work done because they’re using a glitchy, sub-par system.

That’s why more and more companies are looking for a good value in their VoIP system—that is to say that they feel like they’re getting a lot for the price they pay.

That can include things like reliability, features, security, service, ease of use and more. Even though you won’t see it on a lot of feature lists, something as simple as time saved and hassle avoided can be major factors in customer satisfaction and how a company intuitively calculates the value they get from their phone system. Smart companies don’t let price be the only decision factor.

3. Proliferation & Consolidation Of VoIP Providers

As the barrier to entry drops, small VoIP providers are popping up everywhere. However, this element of choice doesn’t necessarily help customers, as most of those offerings are ubiquitous and undifferentiated.

On the mid-large side of providers, vendors are consolidating, putting market power behind their innovations. This is typically where you’ll see more unique features, packages and complete offerings. At Mitel, for example, we’re able to put more effort and resources into making our flagship hosted VoIP system easy to use, simple to manage and smooth to implement compared to a new startup VoIP company that may be struggling just to build basic functionality.

What can you do about all this choice? The main thing you can do is research your options. VoIP providers that customers love typically earn a number of awards from respected analysts who have tested and judged their services against their main competitors.

Finally, going with a smaller VoIP provider during this time of industry consolidation means that there’s a good chance they’ll be acquired by a larger provider. That’s not necessarily the end of the world, but it does mean that things you liked about that smaller provider may change once they’re acquired, and you may still be under contract. Mitel is the #1 cloud provider worldwide and the #2 UCaaS (aka, hosted cloud VoIP) provider worldwide, so it’s a pretty safe bet the parts of our hosted VoIP you love the most will remain for a long time (while we continue to make enhancements, of course).

4. VoIP Playing A Bigger Role In Customer Contact & Customer Experience

Hosted VoIP started out primarily as a tool for companies to communicate internally, but as offerings become more sophisticated and niched-out, and as focus on delivering great customer experience rises, hosted VoIP is pushing into this space.

Here are a few examples from iPerceptions:

-67 percent of customers say they’ll pay more for a great experience

-57 percent of customers have stopped buying from a company because one of their competitors provided a better experience

-71 percent of people recommend a product or service because they received a “great experience”

Call center and customer experience platforms started out separate from companies’ hosted VoIP systems. But to take advantage of full customer/prospect lifecycle data and create experiences that are as frictionless as possible, the two have become much more integrated.

Hosted VoIP today, in fact, is often being packaged up into a single omni-channel solution that also handles the diverse channels customers use to communicate with companies and organizations like yours.

Regardless of the customer experience platform you ultimately choose, it’s useful to think about how it integrates (or doesn’t) into your hosted VoIP system—because lots of companies are squeezing competitive advantages out of the right combination of technology.

5. Adoption Is Growing Among Mid-To-Larger Companies

Hosted VoIP really got its foothold with small business, and for good reason—they typically don’t have a ton of expensive legacy systems to rip and replace and they typically have fewer business-critical systems that have to integrate seamlessly with their phone systems. This allowed for relatively simple systems without a lot of bells and whistles, or options, to proliferate.

However, as the core functionality becomes more commoditized and undifferentiated, and as even these same small businesses become more sophisticated, some hosted VoIP companies are offering more in order to attract additional kinds of customers.

Offering more features and integrations to align with more advanced needs. Offering multiple tiers of service. Mitel even offers mixing and matching of service tiers, which most competitors don’t – so you don’t have to pay for features you don’t need for every user. Providers are also bringing different kinds of functions into the hosted VoIP ecosystem, like collaboration and call center / contact center functionality.

Which leads us to our next trend.

6. More Levels Of Service & Customization

One-size-fits-all simply doesn’t work for hosted VoIP anymore. Larger companies are moving to hosted VoIP. Companies with more complex needs are moving to hosted VoIP. Even small companies can have users ranging from expert power users who rely on advanced VoIP functionality every day to rare users who need things as simple as possible.

That’s why some VoIP providers like Mitel are offering multiple services or plan levels so that companies can get what they need at a price that makes sense. At Mitel, we have a basic plan that keeps costs and features simple. We have a standard plan that keeps things affordable while giving users more capabilities. We have a premium plan with plenty of bells and whistles.

In fact, unlike most hosted VoIP vendors, we even let you mix and match plans on a per user basis so that you’re not paying for premium functionality for a user who only has basic VoIP needs.

7. Companies Are Coming At VoIP From All Different Directions

Acquisitions, mergers and partnerships are popping up everywhere as companies try to combine VoIP and related collaboration and customer experience technologies to give their customers a single unified experience across channels.

Videoconferencing companies are trying to buy hosted VoIP providers, collaboration-only companies are integrating with phone system vendors, and hosted VoIP providers are partnering with contact center companies.

What does this mean for you?

In the long term, it means that all the different facets of communications and collaboration technology should become less fragmented and better integrated over time, making this kind of technology purchase simpler down the road.

In the short term, it will probably pay off to choose a company who has already integrated many of these technologies under one roof and has deep integrations with any third-party partners to avoid disconnects. Of course, we’re a little biased, but Mitel fits the bill.

Want to see how our all-in-one hosted VoIP phone, collaboration and contact center solution works? See the demo >

Which of These VoIP Trends Can Mitel Help With?

Essentially, all of the above. There are plenty of companies out there publishing posts about shiny VoIP trends they have no way of helping you with. But we know you need to make an impact now—not in five or ten years. So decided to focus this post on trends you can action now, or in the very near future.

How? We have a great range of VoIP phone systems available for different needs, including our flagship hosted VoIP system, MiCloud Connect and our sophisticated private cloud VoIP system, MiCloud Flex. You can also extend and expand capabilities with our hosted VoIP collaboration tools and hosted VoIP customer experience solutions.

Source:Mitel

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GET THE BENEFITS OF THE CLOUD WITH ON-SITE DEPLOYMENT

With the cost of communications infrastructure today, it’s difficult to know what the best solution for your organization may be. Stay on-site? Jump into the cloud? Or perhaps implement something in between? Many factors will impact your decision: current equipment investments, future growth, business goals, customer needs and, not least of all, budget.

Unified Communications, But Not In The Cloud Please

With 14 offices across the state and over 187,000 teachers, school employees and healthcare workers, PSEA needed a solution that used existing equipment, enabled centralized IT management and improved member communications.

After deciding to leave the cloud, the group’s first step was to replace its 14 separate on-site phone systems. Next, it installed a unified communications (UC) solution to connect all of its offices statewide. Even though IT had to work around office schedules, the deployment went smoothly, putting one to two offices into service every two weeks.

The IT team is pleased with the result. Using a simple web-based application, it can centrally manage the system, saving support costs. Also, more analog endpoints and users reside on one switch, streamlining maintenance and operations. In addition, PSEA was able to reconfigure the previous cloud-based phones to work with the new architecture.

Serving The Public Cost-Effectively

Replacing the phone system across all offices was fiscally impossible, explains Darryl Polk, chief innovation officer and director of the department of innovation and technology. Instead, the city upgraded to a UC structure that uses existing telephony and integrates with its current network. To evaluate needs, Polk’s staff first met with all department heads to identify their call flow requirements.

The new system uses the most up-to-date Internet-based technology. When the city is ready to move services into the cloud, the infrastructure is already in place. With this new upgrade, Polk says, “we are ensuring our system will be viable into the future, while also being able to understand and accurately forecast our costs.”

Room For Growth

Essential to this new solution was scalability. “We went from one office to two offices in the period of about a decade. The following year we opened up another office and there’s a good chance that we’ll be opening a fourth,” says Christian Lowry, KPP’s chief information director.

KPP also needed a way to manage call volume and timing to better coordinate staffing. With the new UC system, managers have the metrics to do so. “We now have up-to-date, up-to-the-minute analytics on call volume, productivity and wait times,” explains CFO Albert Wolfe. “Now we can adjust our staffing to meet variable demands, which we never had the ability to do before.”

As part of the upgrade, KPP decided to make a few other infrastructure improvements. It switched data center providers and phone carriers and updated its on-site servers. Now it’s poised for the future, while better meeting today’s needs.

Is On-Site Deployment The Way To Go?

If your organization is facing similar challenges, you should carefully assess your needs before moving forward. Gather input from stakeholders and decision-makers, review current and future budgets and keep an eye on the future.

Keep these points in mind when evaluating a technology partner:

Sees the big picture. Your UC vendor should help you plan not just for your current requirements, but also for what is coming. An on-site deployment may make sense today, but the vendor’s solution should also position your infrastructure for cloud deployment when the time comes.

Protects your investment. Buying a whole new phone system may not be in the budget. A good partner works with your existing infrastructure and integrates your on-site hardware with third-party applications that add functionality.

Collaboration and connection. The true power of UC is its ability to connect your employees and customers. Be sure that your on-site deployment provides collaboration tools, mobile connectivity, conferencing, phones and integrated call center solutions that integrate with CRM for better and more responsive customer service.

Flexible and secure architecture. It may go without saying, but: What use are all these features if the system isn’t secure, with redundancies and backup?

The bottom line: You don’t have to move to the cloud to take advantage of its benefits. A UC solution working with on-site deployment can reap many of the same advantages of a cloud-hosted environment, giving you flexibility, scalability and control.

Source:Mitel

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6 THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HYBRID CLOUD COMMUNICATIONS

Business Phones

In case your ears haven’t been buzzing, hybrid cloud communications is the latest trend in cloud communications. You may already know that hybrid cloud is a mix of on-premises and cloud systems and this combination can yield some serious advantages. Before you jump on the hybrid cloud bandwagon however, here are six things you need to know.

One Size Doesn’t Fit All

Each network is different and as such each business’s challenges will be unique to that specific organization. This is why it’s crucial to have a cloud communications system that can change with you. Before you make a decision on a public, private, or hybrid cloud system, you have to consider multiple factors like compatibility, cost, features, reliability, voice quality, and security.

There is no out-of-the-box cloud solution that will work for every business. The needs of your business today could be different from what your business needs six months from now. Your business needs a communications systems that can adapt and change as the market and your organization changes.

Hybrid Cloud Isn’t Just Hype

You’ve probably heard about the hybrid cloud in passing but wondered if there was any substance to it. Is it just the latest technology fad—here today and gone tomorrow? Here’s the truth. The hybrid cloud is more than just hype and here are three big reasons why. It gives you the flexibility to use your on-site technology in conjunction with cloud services for applications. It also gives you the ability to stagger your migration to the cloud. Finally, it allows you to start transitioning from CapEx to OpEx spending.

Not All Hybrid Cloud Providers Are Created Equal

There are questions you should ask all potential hybrid cloud communications providersbefore choosing one. Topics like uptime, data security, flexibility, and scalability are key. Here are some things that you will want to ask potential providers.

What happens when my local network goes down?
What about disaster recovery?
Can I add or subtract users on my plan?
Is my data secure in the cloud?

Not all cloud providers are created equal and the answers to these questions will be different depending on who you talk to. So be sure to ask your potential hybrid cloud vendor these questions before your sign.

Your Organizational Readiness

A hybrid cloud setup can be great, but is your organization ready for it? Before you can start the transition, you will have to plan for the change. Consider things like your network, internet connection / bandwidth, and security.

Is your network ready to interface with the cloud? You have to think about things like total users, remote workers, and plans for future growth. Can your current Internet connection handle the increased bandwidth needed for cloud applications? Most cloud issues are caused by weak Internet connections that just can’t handle VoIP calls. You want to make sure you have enough connection bandwidth to meet your business’s data demands.

Security is another area where your organization will have to plan for the cloud. You’ll have to determine which data you want to store on-premises and which data can be stored in the cloud. Your organization might want to use cloud bursting—where businesses rely on the public cloud when the demand for computing capacity spikes at peak times. It’s always good practice to plan for your organization’s cloud needs in advance so that there aren’t any surprises.

Security And Compliance

With the hybrid cloud, you can keep your most sensitive data in a private cloud or on-premises system, but take advantage of a public cloud system for less sensitive communications. There are many ways you can help to secure hybrid cloud communications and data transmissions. Data security is important and most businesses want to keep important data like personally identifiable information or credit card transactions stored securely. The good news is that cloud-based communications aren’t as risky as some think.

With many cloud systems, you can securely access information remotely using VPN tunnels, authentication, and encrypted data connections. Many hybrid cloud providers have also made investments to make their cloud platforms so that they’re industry compliant. Some cloud platforms even allow you to carry security policies from their internal networks to the cloud.

The Different Types Of Clouds

If the cloud wasn’t mysterious enough on its own, there are three different models – public, private and hybrid cloud – and each type of cloud deployment has different advantages.

The public cloud is probably what most of us think of when we talk about the cloud. It’s a multi-tenant environment where you basically buy a portion of the server in a cloud computing environment. It’s great for most businesses because it’s usually a flexible, scalable, pay-as-you-go model. The private cloud is a dedicated single-tenant environment where only a single client or company is on that server’s hardware, storage, and network. The hybrid cloud is a mix of the public and on-premises or private cloud environments. There are pros and cons of each type of cloud depending on your business and data storage requirements.

Source:Mitel