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  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 …

  It would be nice if your business only received one call at a time, but that of course isn’t always the case. At times, you will inevitably get multiple calls coming in at the same time, meaning you’re going to need provisions in place to manage all of them so that no one hangs up before you can take care of them. The focus of this post is to give you a few ways to professionally handle all of those simultaneous calls.   Automated Reception Especially when you are working with minimal phone support staff, it’s important to have an automated system set up to field simultaneous calls as they come in. The best way to do this is to use a call menu, or auto attendant, that allows callers to press a number corresponding to the information they need, or to press a certain number to speak to …

  There are now more virtual phone service providers than there have ever been before, which presents an interesting problem overall, as well as a huge advantage for a business owner. The problem is that it takes business owners much more time and research to find the right phone service for their business because there are now dozens of providers to choose from, rather than just a few big traditional phone carriers. This explosion of virtual providers, unfortunately, comes with quite a few really cheap providers with terrible service who just want to grab a piece of the profit. The low cost for their services is tempting, but this is why you want to steer as clear as possible.   1. Unreliable Connection This is one of the most common complaints people have when using a phone service app or cheap virtual provider. One of the ways these providers keep …

Live call transfer is a feature that is essential for many businesses, which makes it pretty scary for a business owner when it doesn’t seem to be working. Before you start to panic, consider these possible reasons that you aren’t able to transfer calls. 1. Incorrect Dialing Sequence Failure to transfer a call to another extension or employee within your business because you didn’t perform the correct dialing sequence doesn’t mean you’re stupid; it just means that you were either instructed to use the wrong sequence, or possibly that you didn’t even realize that you’ve been pressing the wrong buttons. Consult with your phone service provider, and make sure that they tell you explicitly what you need to do to initiate a call transfer. 2. DTMF Issue This is probably the most common reason that a transfer function fails, and it has nothing to do with user error. If you …

Not long ago, it would’ve sounded strange to associate a mobile app with your business’ phone system, but today’s virtual phone systems use a mobile app to make call management a lot easier for your company. Here are a few of the useful functions of a mobile app to help you manage calls. Stay on Top of Messages Traditionally, you could only check your customers’ voicemail messages by calling into a certain number, but now you can just open your phone system app and tap the voicemail section to view all of your messages and even call those customers back from the same page of the app. Text messaging can also be done through an app, though not all virtual phone systems provide that ability. Check out Talkroute’s text messaging features here: https://talkroute.com/business-text-messaging/ Decide Which Voice Mailboxes You Want to See You may have a lot of employees or departments …

Phone service is still very important to small businesses as it is still one of the preferred methods of customers to reach out to a business. All kinds of companies are now reevaluating their phone systems to see how it can be improved with current technology and hopefully find more economical options at the same time. Virtual phone service can offer a lot to a business on this front, and in most cases, it is a lot more efficient than traditional systems. Cost-Effectiveness The big phone carriers who have been around for a long time, like AT&T or Comcast, had a pretty strong grip on the small business market until recently; however, small businesses now are starting to wake up to the idea of using a virtual phone service that completely satisfies their needs at a fraction of the cost they were paying with one of the big carriers. A …

  The first step in any kind of communication is the definition of terms. Not only is it invaluable to effective communication, but in the same way, understanding industry terms such as phone system jargon and even just the names of the hardware, functions, and other elements is essential to choosing the right virtual phone system, as well as setting it up and using it. All of the terms you’ll find in this post will clarify what it all means, once and for all.   1. Port You probably have an idea in your mind of what this word means, and what you think is very likely completely wrong. This word marks one of the most pervasive misunderstandings among telecom users. Once more from the cheap seats… Port: A full and complete transfer of phone service for a phone number from one carrier, to a different carrier. After the porting …