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Take advantage of FastPBX’s summer deal to prepare your business for the next quarter with reliable communication tools.

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How Does VoIP Phone Service Work?

For years, businesses have been replacing their analog phone lines with VoIP phone service. In its early years, VoIP picked up its own reputation among users and skeptics who touted it as unreliable; however, throughout its history, this new communication technology has grown in popularity and left its mark as a reliable and practical communication solution for businesses of all sizes.

Today, businesses use VoIP features to stay in touch with customers and colleagues, expand their businesses seamlessly, monitor employee performance, and build customer loyalty. By harnessing the power of the cloud, VoIP also offers a degree of flexibility and simplicity that analog users just can’t experience.

While analog phone service keeps communications fixed in one location, VoIP allows you to make and receive your business calls from any device (office, mobile, or soft phone app) or forward them to external sites and extensions.

The flexibility and convenience of this technology is what most users love about business VoIP providers.

Small businesses and entrepreneurs are also able to use VoIP phone service to create the image of a larger company with features like auto attendant and custom prompt menus.

What can you expect from a VoIP phone service?

VoIP takes analog audio signals and converts them into digital data which can be transmitted over the internet. With less bandwidth required to transmit the data, there is less occurrence of jitter which causes that choppy audio and lackluster call quality that drives everyone crazy.

Call quality, cost savings, and easy setup are the main drivers of VoIP’s success but there are several features and capabilities that set this communication technology apart.

These are few of the standard features you can expect when using a VoIP phone service:

Call forwarding

Voicemail to email

Auto attendant, also known as a digital receptionist or cloud receptionist

Call continuity

Programmable keypads

App integration

Caller ID display

Call blocking

Call conferencing

Mobile capabilities

VoIP phone service can seem like a drastic change to your communications strategy but if you’re willing to speak with consultants, you will see that it’s actually a simple transition.

A Better Business Communication Solution

Convenient set up

Even with more recent, premise-based business phone systems, set up is cumbersome and expensive compared to a cloud-based phone system. It requires users to connect wires and figure out which line pairs with which extension; most busy business owners usually end up either having to hire someone to install it for them or spend hours on the phone with their phone company.

With VoIP, the time it takes to get up and running is minimal and most VoIP service providers offer support to help you every step of the way. Usually, however, it’s as easy as plugging in your IP phone and letting it initialize to your existing network.

There are no wires or lines to worry about since your service provider takes care of most of the set up before you receive your new equipment. When you use VoIP phone service, your settings come pre-configured to your phone so all you have to do is connect your phone to the correct ports and you’re on your way.

The best part?

Since VoIP is cloud-based, your provider is able to take the maintenance of equipment and servers that help power your communications off your hands by managing their own servers and IT staff for your convenience.

This means any business can enjoy using this technology regardless of the size of their location.

Minimize costs

Businesses see significant savings when they switch from traditional phone service. With older PBX systems, you had to hire an IT staff to maintain the equipment housed in your office, pay for long distance charges, and if you wanted to add a line to your office you had to pay the phone company more for the phone number and installation.

Today’s VoIP technology only requires one-time hardware costs and a monthly subscription based on service plan rates. Long distance calling rates vary among providers but many offer unlimited calling along with competitive international rates.

Easy setup, lower costs, and robust features make VoIP a great solution for business communication. It’s no surprise that VoIP is seeing rapid growth with no signs of slowing down in the coming years.

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A virtual phone service can be your secret weapon to improving customer loyalty. Discover the virtual phone service features that can help.

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PBX phone system providers and manufacturers of small business phones, like Cisco and Polycom, offer solutions to these needs by providing useful yet practical features and hardware that allows users to make full use of these features with sleek office phones.

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Voicemail to email has become a necessary tool for business owners on the go and professionals in need of an easier way to stay responsive.

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A cloud-based phone service can do more for your business. See how a virtual phone can boost your businesses credibility with money-saving features.

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Business VoIP providers make it easy to manage multiple locations. Learn how a VoIP phone system can do the same for your business on the FastPBX blog.

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How to Get the Most From Your Voicemail to Email Service

If you have a voicemail to email service, then you already know how great it can be. Aside from giving you the ability to share your voicemail messages with colleagues for easier collaboration, it also lets you decide if a message requires instant action or if you can add it to your to-do list to take care of later. Voicemail to email service is becoming an essential feature for many VoIP users, but are you making the most of this popular feature?

There’s more to this feature than simply receiving your voicemail right to your email. Although this is a great way to stay on top of your missed calls, you could be going the extra mile and take some of the following tips into account. It can take a little creativity at first, but once you see the different ways voicemail to email can be used to save time, you’ll start thinking about more ways to make that possible.

To help you started, we’ve come up with a few tips to help you get the most from your voicemail to email service.

Collaboration

Keep your team in the loop, wherever you are. Traditionally, voicemails are stored on the device you received them on, making it more time consuming to share the message with anyone else. So, if there is information in the voicemail that you need to relay to someone else, you would have to stop what you’re doing, type up an email or pick up the phone, and summarize the pieces of information you just received. With voicemail to email, you can send the entire message right from your voicemail. Simply forward the MP3 file to your colleagues to keep them in the loop.

If your team is using a CRM to manage leads and accounts, you can have notes added from the voicemail so that your sales agents and customer service team can see these notes. This enhances future interactions with customers and prospects since everyone knows what the caller needs and how they can help.

Keep Order in Your Inbox

Having important messages, like voicemails from customers or partners, sent right to your inbox improves response rates and boosts customer satisfaction. It’s a small step that really makes a huge difference because even if there are some people who don’t pay much attention to voicemail, everyone checks their email.

To help you manage and sift through the number of emails in your inbox, try using labels, and setting up rules that move emails to specific folders for better time management. With Gmail, you can even add a tab specifically for voicemail emails so you can find them all in one place.

Another way to keep your inbox in order is with web automation apps, like Zapier. These can be a huge timesaver once you get the hang of them. For example, once the voicemail is dropped into your inbox, you can fire off notifications to specific parties, have it moved to a folder, or create tasks in your CRM for agents to see.  It’s like creating rules or filters for your inbox, except you’re integrating external apps.

Web automation apps may seem intimidating at first, but they’re surprisingly easy to use once you get the hang of it.

Prevent Unnecessary Voicemails

Most voicemails can be prevented with a little forward thinking and the help of other VoIP services. When you use service flags, you can set up a voicemail greeting specific to your availability; that way, callers can know when and why you’re unavailable. A service flag is a VoIP capability that overrides your auto attendant and time conditions to let people know specific and timely details about your business.

For example, if you’re going out of town for the week, you can set up a service flag on the dates you’ll be unavailable to inform callers when you’ll be leaving and returning, and how they can reach, if at all, in the event that they need to get in touch with you. This also works well during holidays when hours of operation are irregular.

Use Voicemail to Email with VoIP Providers

There are apps you can purchase just for voicemail but user reviews show that they do not function as well as a voicemail to email service from an established VoIP provider. In addition, choosing a service provider over a stand-alone app will enable you to receive support and access multiple features that will create a communications strategy that is built for growth.

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Voicemail to email is more than just a feature of business phone systems. Get creative & tailor the way you use voicemail to email for your business.

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If you're a small business owner or office manager in need of a better business phone system, you now have the chance to test-drive any of FastPBX's business phone plans

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FastPBX has a great selection of Cisco office phones, along with VoIP phone service for all of your business communication needs.

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Lets clarify what the difference is between VoIP, IP, and Cloud telephony.

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It easier for professionals to get a phone number that suits their needs quickly with their choice of toll free, vanity, and local numbers.

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Know Your VoIP Phone System with this Helpful Glossary

Have you ever been part of a conversation with a group of people who seemed to be speaking their own language? Perhaps it made you feel left out and it was difficult to connect with the group on a personal level because of what seemed like a language barrier. That’s how jargon can make “average” people feel. All the VoIP phone system acronyms and industry terms only create confusion among certain individuals and makes them feel like outsiders, increasing the communication gap between a service provider and its consumer.

This is why we are providing you with a glossary of the essential terms used by VoIP providers so you can meet VoIP agents and telecom experts at least half way. Before we get in it, however, lets clarify what the difference is between VoIP, IP, and Cloud telephony. 

Simply put: there really isn’t much difference. VoIP, IP, and Cloud (or cloud-based) are essentially synonymous. All of these use an IP network which digitizes communication data, like voice, creating packets of data and sends these packets of data between different endpoints. Using this method has been known to be more cost effective since data packets can be transmitted on shared lines without the PSTN tolls (keep reading to learn what PSTN is). 

This glossary was made with the average business owner in mind. Since the way businesses communicate is changing to match the technological advances of today, we want to help you stay up to date on the terminology you might hear over the phone when speaking to VoIP service providers.

Here are some other helpful words to help you better understand the agents of your current cloud business phone service provider 

VoIP Glossary

ATA: Analog Telephone Adapter. This allows analog users to connect their traditional phones and fax machines to a VoIP network. Turn your fax machine into a virtual fax machine with an SPA112 ATA from Cisco.

BYOD: Bring Your Own Device. Many VoIP phone system providers make it easy to switch providers by allowing users to use their existing communication hardware. If you already have IP hardware, you can experience even more savings. 

DID: Direct Inward Dialing. DIDs are phone numbers where you can allocate multiple phone numbers associated with one or more phone lines so that each employee can have their own number without requiring a separate phone line. DIDs eliminate additional costs and the occurrence of busy signals.

IP Phone (a.k.a. VoIP Phone): Digital telephone that uses an internet connection to transmit calls. IP phones are not necessarily a requirement to use your VoIP phone system since many offer plans that can be used with your mobile phone.

IVR: Interactive Voice Response. An IVR allows a computer to interact with callers and identify where to route the callers based on a selection callers make in the prompt menu. For example, if your VoIP system has a custom greeting that lets callers choose between speaking to sales, marketing, or billing, the caller will be routed to a specific endpoint ((individual or department) based on their selection. 

Jitter: variations in packet arrival time, meaning the call quality sounds choppy.

Packet Loss: if your voice is transmitted as a “data packet,” then packet loss just means that that piece of data was unable to reach the desired endpoint. This typically happens because of network congestion and causes jitter. 

PoE: Power over Ethernet. PoE means that data connection and electrical power are provided by a single cable to deliver functionality to devices, including IP phones. With PoE phones, the device can be connected to a desktop and wall jack to create a complete path for voice and data media.

LNP: Local Number Portability. If you are going to be porting your number from one provider to another, you will need to fill out an LNP form in order to reassign your number. 

PBX: Private Branch Exchange.

PSTN: Public Switched Telephone Network.

Softphone: software that gives you the ability to make telephone calls using your computer via an internet connection. This can also be an app on your mobile phone that allows you to use your mobile as a business communication device.

Virtual Number: Another way of saying DID, a virtual number is not associated with a telephone line and is usually used to forward incoming calls to pre-set telephone numbers. Virtual numbers can be used for virtual service, marketing campaigns, and other business purposes.

VoIP: Voice over Internet Protocol

VoIP Service Providers that Speak Your Language

Regardless of the size of your business and what type of products and services you provide, you can benefit from VoIP service providers and the touted features they offer. Although VoIP is not perfect and may not suit everyone, it is a solution that many business owners across the country have implemented without hassles. See for yourself with tailored VoIP solutions.

You don’t have to speak like a VoIP agent to enjoy the powerful, productivity-boosting features; however, now you can keep up with some of the most common terms and be better prepared for your next conversation with VoIP service providers.

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Make your PBX system work for you with these 8 easy & powerful PBX phone system tips and tricks. Save time, make money with FastPBX.

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Set up your office phones in minutes with this helpful step-by-step guide. Plug N Play office phone systems make your VoIP experience stress free.

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How to Tackle Business Phone Plans Like a Boss

It’s common to hear professionals express confusion about the different business phone plans they find. Who can blame them? There are so many options available; most of them contain standard options and some of them specifically cater to companies of a certain size. Although there are small business phone plans available, not all of them can offer precisely what different businesses need and lack industry-specific functionality.

If you’re looking for a new business phone plan and can’t decide which is best for you, let’s go over the best way to make the right decision.

When you begin your search, its usually due to three things: you’re experiencing poor quality of service with your existing provider, you’re seeing increasing monthly costs, or you want to switch from analog to VoIP and you’re looking for business phone plans that can meet your communication needs. So it’s important to start with why you’re looking for a new provider.

Poor quality of service

If this is why you’re exploring new options, then you want to make sure that the provider you choose offers a level of support that you feel comfortable with. You can choose the most elite of business phone plans but if the provider doesn’t meet your expectations as far as customer service and support, what’s the point? Do they offer ‘round-the-clock support? Do they outsource their customer service? Pay attention to these details to gauge realistic expectations.

Increasing monthly costs

Hidden fees and additional charges might seem like standard practices, but in reality they diminish trust and credibility between the provider and its customers. If you can find a provider that offers business phone plans at fixed rates, or can at least clearly define your billing details, then you’ve found a provider that takes your needs as a business owner seriously.

Switching from Analog to VoIP

Most analog users are used to time-consuming installations and expansion limitations. Once you make the leap from analog to VoIP, you’ll find that using the technology makes all the difference as far as functionality, and getting started will bring you the relief and monthly savings you’re looking for. After understanding your purpose behind your new search, you can start diving into the business phone plans that will be most effective for you.

How Can Small Business Phone Plans Help You?

VoIP providers are doing a pretty good job of keeping up with emerging technology and the business communication needs that coincide with it. Smartphones are the go-to business device and cloud communications are becoming a part of office interactions more and more. Regardless of the advancements we’re making with technology, not all businesses will need the bells and whistles.

Small teams and entrepreneurs have different needs than a call center. If you’re a small business or an entrepreneur with expectations of growth, getting started with a provider that makes growth easy is the best option for you. When you combine the ability to seamlessly scale with great customer service and competitive rates, the benefits speak for themselves.

You can find business phone plans for any stage of your venture. Are you an entrepreneur? A virtual PBX plan will be your best bet. Foster a professional image and take your phone system with you so you can be reached whenever or use it with an office phone; you decide!

Brick and mortar stores that need a reliable business phone will want something that also offers flexibility and that’s easy to use. You don’t have time to mess with your phone set up and no one wants to be on hold with customer support during peak hours. Ensure your set up and maintenance will be minimal and that the phone plan you choose has the necessary features that take care of your callers while you tend to visitors.

More robust small business phone plans even offer the analytics you need to make informed decisions for your staff training and campaign strategies. Enterprise companies can benefit from call analytics and business SMS, which is great feature for send out appointment confirmations or to broadcast updates and promotions. Your search, however, shouldn’t stop at business phone plans.

Find Business Phones For Sale.

With every business phone plan, you need to have the office hardware that completes your communication strategy. Whether you’re one person running the entire operation or a team experiencing rapid growth, small business phones can make all the difference in your communications strategy.

If you need simple functionality like conference calling and extension dialing, Cisco phones can deliver what you need. Aside from the necessary capabilities you would expect from small business phones, you can use the latest hardware to boost productivity across departments by engaging employees at the right time and listen in on calls to establish better coaching protocols.

With business plans and compatible phones in place, your options for growth are endless.

Visit https://www.fastpbx.com/business-phone-plans/ to know more.