4 Basic Steps to Stop Unwanted Calls

You would think that we would all respect each other’s space, not to mention time, and refrain from calling other people when the call is not welcome. Sadly, though, we all get those unwanted calls from telemarketers, identity thieves, scam artists, and even unruly customers, leaving us desperate for a way to stop them. Fortunately, there are systems in place, and measures you can take to stop these disturbances to yourself and your business. Take advantage of these 4 solutions to prevent those irritating calls from disrupting your day from now, on. 1. Block the phone number. The first and most obvious solution, simply blocking a phone number may take care of the problem; however, due to the multiple phone numbers that they tend to use, you may end up constantly blocking numbers. Most cell phones have an internal blocking function on the device, and if yours doesn’t have this …

3 Techniques for Defining Your Brand Identity

Brand identity is a little easier to pin down than your brand, in general, for which there are varying definitions due to its tendency towards the abstract. Jeremiah Gardner puts it simply in his article, “The difference between brand and identity,” defining a brand as “the relationship between an organization and an audience”. The assertion that it is a relationship is the key distinction, as a company or individual’s brand revolves around how its customers or patrons relate to it. “Brand” and “brand identity” can almost be used interchangeably, but not quite. If your brand is a collection of all kinds of expressions that are associated with your company, then your brand identity is basically the sum of all the parts. Brand identity is the clear manifestation that defines to customers, or to any outsiders, who you are and what your specialty is. The following three exercises will help you …

giving customers too many options

Are You Giving Your Customers Too Many Options?

    Although it wasn’t always the case, the general idea for businesses today is to give customers as many options as possible because that’s what they demand. Is that what they actually want, though? It’s exciting to have a variety of options to choose from (like forty different kinds of pasta sauce), but there is something to be said for simplicity. Here we will consider both sides: Should you offer fewer options for your customers, or as many as possible?   Letting Them Decide There is actually more to this than it seems at first glance. It’s one thing to have a store, online or otherwise, that sells a wide variety of products which are not of the same type; but it’s something else to specialize in one type of product and offering many different versions of it. For instance, you might have a website that sells iPhone cases …

How to Port a Number from RingCentral to Talkroute

Looking to transfer your existing phone number out of RingCentral? Then you’ve come to the right place because this is the complete guide for porting your RingCentral number to Talkroute. The porting process can be lengthy and frustrating in some cases; however, it usually goes pretty smoothly as long as you complete the necessary steps, and RingCentral is one of the services that makes it relatively painless to port-out your number. Here is how to port your RingCentral number to Talkroute. 1. Prepare yourself beforehand by gathering your information. Before you get started, it’s good to put together all the information you have that is associated with your phone number. Start with your most recent phone bill, which you will need to send to your Talkroute porting agent for verification. (See #3 of this article) Then, call RingCentral, and ask them if they will send you a Customer Service Report …

Pay Yourself While Growing Business

How to Pay Yourself While Growing Your Business

Business ownership is a hectic occupation. On top of all the expenses of daily operations, there is always something else that needs to be paid off or financed, such as a new business opportunity that, if you play your cards right, could end up bringing in more revenue, which you will use to fund your next venture, and so on… So what’s wrong with this picture? You’re bringing in money but not really keeping any of it, which kind of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? This doesn’t mean that you should stop putting money into your business; that’s not the point. The point is that it is possible to keep feeding your business while giving back to yourself. It just takes a conscious, deliberate effort to pull it off. This article offers a couple of suggestions that can not only promote the advancement of your business, but pay yourself at …

Time Warner Talkroute

How to Port a Number from Time Warner to Talkroute

If you’re porting your phone number to a new service provider, and your current provider happens to be Time Warner, then you’re in luck because they usually process port-outs in a timely manner. They also make it easy to access your phone bill on demand, which your Talkroute porting agent will need for verification. Here is how to successfully port your Time Warner number to Talkroute. 1. Prepare yourself beforehand by gathering your information. Before you get started, it’s good to put together all the information you have that is associated with your phone number. Start with your most recent phone bill, which you will need to send to your Talkroute porting agent for verification. (See #3 of this article) Then, call Time Warner, and ask them if they will send you a Customer Service Report (CSR), or a similar document that contains all the information they have on file …

Talkroute Blog Year in Review: Top Posts of 2016

We’ve laughed, we’ve cried… not really—this isn’t that kind of blog. We have covered a lot of ground though, exploring everything from market research, to optimizing your phone system. Over the past year, the goal was to focus our content on understanding how a virtual phone system works, what is involved with porting a phone number, and as always, providing support for startups and small businesses of all kinds. Here are the greatest hits of what we covered over the past year: The Market Research Process: A Fresh Perspective Your goal should be to uncover specific data that will truly help you establish whether your market is large enough to sustain your business, and the only way to do it is by learning as much as possible about the people who populate your market. Keep reading 4 Simple Steps to Reducing Your Carbon Footprint This is where “going green” moves …

Set the Perfect Ring Time for Your Office Phones

    One of the most common questions we get at Talkroute is, how long should we let our phones ring? And the real question behind this is, of course: How long will it take for our customers to hang up? The obvious answer is that the caller should have to wait for as few rings as possible before someone answers, but there are just a few factors to consider.   What should the caller hear while they are holding? Whatever your customer hears before you answer should keep them happy while they wait. You know when you call your phone company, you listen to the menu options, press “0” to speak to a person, and then you hear some elevator music and an occasional voice insisting that, “Your call is very important to us”–that whole thing? Then, all of a sudden, the elevator music stops and it starts to …

Promoting Your Business as Family Can Boost Sales

Many businesses could attract a great many more customers than they are, simply by telling their story. You may not think that your story matters much to customers, but in fact it can be just the element that causes them to choose you over your competitors. You can use points like how long your company has existed, positive things that other customers have said about you, and whether or not you are a family-run business, to sway new customers in your favor. What is considered a “family business”? Just as if you were building your résumé for a new employer, you can organize the facts in such a way that it portrays your business in a more attractive light, without ever telling untruths. Businesses have long understood that customers like to hear that they are a “family-owned & operated” company; and first of all, if your business is indeed exclusively …

3 Exceptional Stories of Small Business Success

There are thousands of new small businesses opening every day, and though it’s remarkable enough to start any new business, there are some that innovate beyond what is expected. The following are 3 outstanding stories of small businesses that adapted to the demands of the market, pushed through challenging economic times, and excelled despite their circumstances. Artistic Finishes, Inc. Our recent recession put strain on many industries, and the home construction industry was among those hit the hardest. One scrappy small business based out of Roseville, MN became a much larger business when they discovered that home builders had a need for pre-finished hardwood flooring. Builders were previously forced to go through two companies—one for the material, and one for the finish. Then the flooring fabricators were forced to retool and rethink their business when the housing bubble popped. Crippled by the crash, Artistic’s revenues were cut in half, from …