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How easily can your team communicate with each other at work? When you take an honest assessment of the system you use for everyone to stay in touch with each other, you might very well discover that you’re wasting a lot of time and energy without realizing it. We’re going to go over a few of the most common mistakes that small businesses make in the ways that they organize their phone systems and other coms, but mainly how the phones are actually designed to complicate things instead of simplifying them. Disjointed Communication is Your Enemy Any business owner knows that all communication in your business has to be well-coordinated to be effective, and this is especially true for your phone system. Depending on how many employees you have, whether they work in a central office or remotely, and how much everyone interacts with customers over the phone. Obviously, many …

Just like when you open a new website for your business, and you’re testing the site in all sorts of different ways to make sure you can’t get it to “break”, you have to do the same for your phone system to check for any weak points that may frustrate or discourage your customers. There are a few problems that commonly occur in business phone systems, which you can easily identify and address so that everyone who calls you has a seamless experience. Don’t let these problems persist any longer because you may be losing customers every day for something totally preventable. Your Customers Should Always Be Able to Get Through Sad to say, there are a ton of small businesses who have problems with their phone systems which are easily preventable and fixable, and the owners either neglect them or are not even aware of them. Many callers trying …

As much affection as we may have for them, the truth is that businesses don’t absolutely need a landline phone anymore. If you love your landline and still want to hang on to it, then of course they still work fine and you can use it with a Talkroute virtual phone system, too. Meanwhile, you can easily manage all of your calls without it, for less money and more simply. Every business has their own way of managing calls, but you may find that there’s a very strong case for getting rid of it. Many Businesses Are Eliminating Their Wired Line Phones It’s been happening for some time now. For the past 10-15 years, businesses have been gradually phasing out landlines in their offices, and that’s been accelerating in the past few years. As pointed out by Business Insider earlier this year, businesses are switching out their landlines in favor …

Today, we are living in a golden era of technology which is making it possible for small businesses to streamline every aspect of their operations with simplicity and relatively low cost. Your phone system is no exception, either, because if you decide to the leap to utilizing a virtual phone system, then there is really no limit to the features and configurations you will have at your disposal, to customize your system in whatever way your business needs. A Quick Breakdown: “Virtual Phone Systems for Dummies” If you are not familiar with virtual phone systems for business, then the #1 fact you need to know about them is that you can take all the phones that you have which receive calls and control them entirely online through your dashboard with the virtual service provider. One of the greatest aspect of these systems is that you can use the phones you …

Many virtual phone systems are known for being compatible with any type of phone, and any carrier. That’s a great asset for small businesses, but how is it possible? If you’re unfamiliar with virtual providers like Talkroute, then this fact can sound kind of ridiculous; however, the system truly does work with whatever phones you already have. What does this mean? As long as the phone has active service and its own 10-digit phone number, it will work with the service. Use your personal cell phone and those of your employees, your landlines at home or at the office, VoIP desk phones, Skype numbers, Google Voice numbers, or even a satellite phone if you actually have one. The system can route your calls to any of them, and any mixture of them, no matter what carrier they are with. How Does the System Do It? Instead of wiring all your …

  One of the things that makes a virtual phone system great is that it is so versatile and adaptable, no matter how many or what kind of phones your business will be using. In this post, you’ll find 3 specific configurations that you can use to make sure every business call that comes in will be served quickly and be directed to the correct person, every time.   1. Single Cell Phone If you are currently running your small business from your cell phone, rest assured that there are a multitude of other business owners who are doing the exact same thing. Using a virtual system like Talkroute is the perfect solution for that scenario, and your customers will never know that you are taking every call on a single cell phone. Here’s how it works: Add a call menu It doesn’t matter if you have one business phone …

  Communications technology is moving into the future, allowing businesses capabilities that haven’t been possible with a traditional office phone system. Furthermore, it isn’t just the new features that make virtual systems superior to traditional; there are improvements to infrastructure, speed, diversification, and more. These are a few of the elements that greatly benefit businesses of all kinds.   1. Easier to Manage Making adjustments to the settings and/or functionality of your office phone system, in the past, could be a huge hassle. If you wanted to add a phone as a forwarding number, change the number of rings, add music for callers on hold, or pretty much any other adjustment like this, then you might have to call your tech person or possibly contact your service provider to make the changes. When you have a virtual phone system, on the other hand, you can quickly and easily make any …

  Though it’s not usually one of your highest priorities when you’re setting up your automated phone menu, this is something you might want to give some attention to. Your service provider will likely have a system with the preset options which you can easily implement; however, there are multiple spots where it’s possible to end up with dead air in the audio. What follows below reveals those potential trouble spots and how you can fix them.   Speech of the Voice Actor This is a problem that you can easily solve, but you need to identify the points in your recorded audio files when it is happening. You’re probably going to have a few audio recordings on your phone menu for callers to tell them what number to press or to give directions, hours of operation, etc. Whether you have a professional voice actor recording this audio or you’re …

  As virtual service providers proliferate more and more, many people are now aware that these systems are perfect for businesses; however, most have no idea what they are capable of. Here are a few of the most useful ways that you can put a virtual phone system to work for your business.   1. Screen Your Calls One of the most common complaints businesses have is the occasional or excess of marketing and robo-calls, which can be a drain on resources, as well as your staff’ anxiety. With a virtual system, you can pretty much eliminate those unwanted calls by adding an auto attendant, which is essentially a virtual receptionist. This feature will stop “robo-calls” in their tracks because they obviously can’t press a number to be connected. As for the more persistent marketing calls placed by humans, you may easily place their numbers on your blocked phone numbers …

  If you’re looking into a new phone system for your business, then the first thing you will probably want to know is if you need to worry about the service unexpectedly going down for any reason. Business owners especially have questions about this when trying a virtual provider for the first time. We’re going to address a few of these questions here.   Consider the Type of Virtual System Different virtual providers connect calls in a few different ways. The three main examples of these are those that connect calls strictly through your mobile phone’s carrier service through the cellular network; VoIP providers who use your on-site Internet connection; and the providers like Talkroute who connect calls using the networks of whatever phones you have—cell phone, landline, or other type of phone. The latter is the best type most of the time because your call connection will be as …